- Where should we collect sweet potato wild relatives?
- Cheese made from toe bacteria. Because we can.
- The sainted M.S. Swaminathan on millets.
- FAO brings together dietary guidelines from around the world.
- An infographic on kale origins.
- Diversity down, productivity down. At least in Alaska.
- Cotton’s got a genome.
- McDonalds commits to ending deforestation in its supply chain.
- IUCN report says commercial agriculture and forestry could could actually be good for biodiversity. Hope McDonalds read it.
Brainfood: Resilience and diversity, Cold tolerant rice, Old baobabs, VIR, Local adaptation, Prunus phylogeny, Bactris mating, Land use change, Wheat landraces, Amazonian agrobiodiversity
- Does Plant Species Richness Guarantee the Resilience of Local Medical Systems? A Perspective from Utilitarian Redundancy. It depends on how knowledge is distributed.
- COLD1 Confers Chilling Tolerance in Rice. From a wild relative.
- Searching for the Oldest Baobab of Madagascar: Radiocarbon Investigation of Large Adansonia rubrostipa Trees. 1,600 years seems to be the record.
- Genetic resources of cultivated plants as the basis for Russia’s food and environmental security. VIR needs Roubles 425 million a year ($14.3 million).
- Using archaeogenomic and computational approaches to unravel the history of local adaptation in crops. Models say that adaptation to higher latitudes was rapid, simple (few genes) and unstable.
- Combining conservative and variable markers to infer the evolutionary history of Prunus subgen. Amygdalus s.l. under domestication. Almonds and peaches were domesticated on either side of the Central Asian Massif from different sections of the genus that had been there for 5 million years.
- Conservation implications of the mating system of the Pampa Hermosa landrace of peach palm analyzed with microsatellite markers. Bactris effective population size in genebanks is too small.
- Global effects of land use on local terrestrial biodiversity. Within-sample total terrestrial species diversity down by 13.6% globally. About the same for crop wild relatives?
- Exploiting genetic diversity from landraces in wheat breeding for adaptation to climate change. It would be a good idea.
- Household Agrobiodiversity Management on Amazonian Dark Earths, Oxisols, and Floodplain Soils on the Lower Madeira River, Brazil. Age of household head, size of household and area of land under cultivation predict amount of agricultural biodiversity managed.
Nibbles: Rabbit origins, New beans and rice, New maize, Fermentation, Grape bugs, Kenya supergoats, Peruvian edible insects, Betelmania, Sustainable cacao, Making cider, Land rights, Kew funding, Avocado origins, German genebank, Oman roadshow, Chinese agriculture then and now, Underground farm, Irish potatoes, Lactase history, Nutrition report, Breeding wheat, Pulse year, Perennial cereals, Shaker agriculture, Food conference, Lupin breeding, Tanzanian ag landscapes, Coffee film, American food, Breakfast around the world, Indian wild figs, Baobab, Fragmentation, History of breeding, MARDI fruits, IARI head, Wild pig genome, Breed typology
Yeah, I know, been slacking with the blogging again of late. Lots of travel. Will try to post about it a bit now I’m back. Here’s the usual back-in-the-office game of catch-up.
- We start with something topical for Easter. The origin of the bunny: it’s not the genes, it’s the gene control control.
- CIAT’s heat-resistant beans are all over the internet. IRRI’s new rices, not so much.
- I hope they get names like Bill Tracy’s new open-pollinated maize variety.
- Bugs come in communities, and they do best when they stay that way.
- Even on grapes.
- Gotta get me one of these Kenyan supergoats.
- Are bugs next on Peru’s gastronomia menu? Probably not.
- Ban the betel!
- More on that we-need-GMO-to-save-chocolate thing. Because this?
- Some like it hard.
- Three steps to secure land rights.
- “If the seeds are never grown, they will fizzle out. Who is going to sow them and harvest them to keep them fresh?”
- The avocado shouldn’t be here. So sue me.
- The Ghana News Agency (and nobody else) says there’s a new genebank in Berlin.
- Oman’s biodiversity (including agricultural) goes on the road.
- Chinese agriculture goes sustainable. Well, in theory. Including for buckwheat, presumably.
- Maybe you can work out what this early Chinese flour was actually of: millet, barley and/or wheat?
- Meanwhile, in Japan, the opposite of sustainable farming beneath a Tokyo street.
- The Irish and the potato: in need of a reset?
- Want to develop? Learn to metabolize lactose.
- Ten research questions on nutrition.
- Well at least this gluten nonsense ((Ok, it’s not nonsense.)) is helping bring back some funky grains. And is spurring breeders. Who should perhaps be focusing on more important problems?
- Pulses will get their 15 minutes in 2016.
- The Land Institute is still at it, and still getting press.
- The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing established one of the earliest seed companies in the US.
- No, getting to the bottom of food ain’t easy.
- Lupins better than soya in the UK, because breeding.
- A Tanzanian mash-up: Farmers need the landscape. I’m not kidding. And yet…
- There’s a film about coffee called “A film about coffee.”
- “In the future, the American dream of big cars and burgers will need to be adjusted to more active transport and sustainable, healthy eating. Better is the new bigger. The world needs a new diet. And it is waiting for the US to take the lead.” Good luck with that.
- Maybe start with breakfast?
- Indians need their wild figs.
- As much a African need baobabs, probably.
- A fragmented forest is no forest at all. Well, almost.
- BHL does domestication. As ever, great pix too.
- Malaysia protects its fruits.
- Who will head the Indian Agricultural Research Institute?
- The pygmy hog has been sequenced.
- A typology of livestock breeds.
Brainfood: Sustainable intensification, Shrimp IPR, Noog domestication, Nigerian leafy veggies, Basil smells, Cultural ES, Natural regeneration, Medicinal cucurbit
- What is sustainable intensification? Views from experts. Ambiguous term which may not signify a departure from current practice anyway. Ecological intensification instead?
- Intellectual Property Rights Access to Genetic Resources and Indian Shrimp Aquaculture: Evolving Policy Responses to Globalization. I kid you not.
- Patterns of Domestication in the Ethiopian Oil-seed Crop Noug (Guizotia abyssinica). Weirdness, for a domesticated crop, not due to its wild relative messing things up. What it is due to is a “mystery.” Thanks, authors.
- Bio-Banking on Neglected and Underutilized Plant Genetic Resources of Nigeria: Potential for Nutrient and Food Security. Never even heard of some of these.
- Comparison of different Ocimum basilicum L. gene bank accessions analyzed by GC–MS and sensory profile. Among 12 cultivars in the Hungarian genebank, there are 5 distinct smell profiles. That actually seems quite a lot.
- The role of cultural ecosystem services in landscape management and planning. Sometimes, they can hold you back.
- Carbon farming via assisted natural regeneration as a cost-effective mechanism for restoring biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. It can be a viable use of land in parts of Queensland, depending on the price of C.
- Ethnobotany of a threatened medicinal plant “Indravan” (Cucumis callosus) from central India. Cucumber wild relatives also medicinal.
Nibbles: Smelly yeast, Native American products, Perennial rice, Ag origins
- Yeast perfume. Great for Valentine’s Day.
- Webinar of discussion on “Origin Products and Native American Tribes: EU and U.S. Law and Policy.”
- The perennial attraction of perennial rice.
- Ancient Nubians knew domesticated wheat and barley earlier than thought. But not as early as Britons.