- It’s been a while since we linked to CATIE’s genebank.
- Boffins take next step in spoiling wine for us all.
- The olive is another thing the Romans have done for us.
- The international germplasm collections are at the root of the CGIAR’s breeding programs.
- Marketing mate.
- Let them eat breadfruit.
- The amble is down to a single medieval mutation.
Brainfood: Drones, Taxonomy, Nigerian diets, Chinese mung bean & millets, Indian chickpea, Polyploidy, Oca seed system, Agroforestry sequestration
- A direct comparison of remote sensing approaches for high-throughput phenotyping in plant breeding. Drones are best.
- Intraspecific taxonomy of plant genetic resources — Important for differentiation of medicinal and aromatic plants? It depends.
- Effects of development on indigenous dietary pattern: A Nigerian case study. Teenagers are rebellious.
- Nutritional composition and antioxidant activity of twenty mung bean cultivars in China. Good news for hipsters everywhere.
- Production and genetic improvement of minor cereals in China. And they’re good for you too. But will the rest of the world benefit from them?
- Characterization of chickpea germplasm conserved in the Indian National Genebank and development of a core set using qualitative and quantitative trait data. 1,103 are representative of 14,651, if you pick them right.
- Whole-genome duplication as a key factor in crop domestication. Comparing within genera, 54% of crops are polyploids on average, versus 40% of the wild species.
- Effect of the management of seed flows and mode of propagation on the genetic diversity in an Andean farming system: the case of oca (Oxalis tuberosa Mol.). Richer farmers conserve and exchange more.
- Global Tree Cover and Biomass Carbon on Agricultural Land: The contribution of agroforestry to global and national carbon budgets. Almost half of agricultural land has a significant number of trees on it, which sequester a lot of C.
Nibbles: Fundament edition
- Badass sheep genomes sequenced.
- FAO assesses drylands.
- Sun shines on enkir again.
- Beans good for anemia. Keep you regular too.
- Jacksy‘s the next breadfruit.
- De-extinction is no back door to conservation.
Nibbles: African fruits, Old apple, Ancient barley, GRAIN study, Desertification, Biodiversity loss
- ICRAF helps us understand little-understood African fruit trees.
- The apple is pretty well understood, but this one important, 200-year-old tree is dying. Tissue culture to the rescue.
- I see your 200-year-old-tree and I raise you 6000-year-old barley.
- GRAIN takes aim at FTAs.
- Desertification may not be a thing.
- Biodiversity loss is, though, right?
Nibbles: Maize domestication, Seaweed as food, Holy plants, Pre-Columbian Amazon, Pulses, Myanmar rice, Ghana cassava, Chocolate festivities, Tobacco biofuel, Evidence base, Brazilian agrobiodiversity
- Maize domestication video from CONABIO.
- Why has a seaweed never been domesticated?
- Any seaweeds mentioned in the Bible?
- Series of talks on ancient Amazonia.
- Africa needs pulses.
- Myanmar needs salinity tolerant rice.
- 30% of Ghanaian cassavas are improved varieties, but you wouldn’t know it from their names.
- Wait, what, we missed World Chocolate Day?
- Tobacco for airplanes, no warning label required.
- Latest list of conservation interventions that work tackles forests.
- Brazil lists nutritious native species.