Domestication

March 31, 2015March 31, 2015

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 ¹ 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.

March 23, 2015March 14, 2015

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.

March 6, 2015March 6, 2015

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.

March 5, 2015March 5, 2015

Nibbles: Citrus disease, Forests & women, Green Revolution trifecta, Lost apples, PNG & ITPGRFA, Leafy greens, Cassava development, Maize evolution vid

Getting to grips with citrus greening.
The fabulous church forests of Ethiopia. But are women involved?
Three articles on why the African Green Revolution won’t be like the Asian one.
Whatever happened to the Esopus Spitzenburg?
Papua New Guinea ratifies the ITPGRFA.
African indigenous vegetables for development. Hey, I’m doing my part.
Cassava is naturally climate-smart, but yields still not rising fast enough.
Great video on the origin of maize.

February 6, 2015February 4, 2015

Bottleneck slides

Try and find an illustration of the domestication bottleneck — to put in a slide for a presentation, say — and likely as not you end up with some variation on a classic theme, this particular version being from the great Teacher-Friendly Guide to the Evolution of Maize:

bottleneck

That’s fine for some purposes, but sometimes you want real data, and then you might use this:

fig7

But I don’t really find that particularly striking, do you? And that’s why I really got excited about Fig. 1c in a recent paper about patterns of genomic diversity in a bunch of soybean accessions, ranging from wild populations to modern varieties. It’s really tiny in the paper, so I’ve blown it up here, at the expense of some quality:

I think this really shows very compellingly how the genetic diversity space shrinks and shifts as you move from wild soya to modern varieties. You don’t even really need to know that the axes are principal component scores or indeed how diversity was measured. But is this kind of diagram common out there? I can’t remember seeing anything quite this clear, and some rapid googling drew a blank too. Well, perhaps I read the wrong journals.

So here’s a question for you: what’s your favourite illustration of the domestication bottleneck, using real data? If we get a decent number of examples, I’ll try to put them all together in a post, and maybe even organize a vote.