Category: Featured

In pointing out that the resynthesis of oilseed rape goes back a little further than I originally thought, Toby Hodgkin offers a little more background on the whole story.

A general point is the importance of pre-breeding as part of the overall crop improvement process. It’s also worth commenting that the idea of resynthesis and hybrid transfers of useful genes in Brassicas was part of the breeding process at Scottish Plant Breeding Station, SCRI and in a number of European and American groups from the late 1960s on. There was quite a lot of interesting work on the relative merits of crossing at different ploidy levels, on the tissue culture processes to use and on the consequences of making the crosses in different directions and the results from subsequent backcrosses.

I hear that there is currently an interest in biofuel rapeseed. In this case the nasty biochemicals wouldn’t matter much while heterosis might be the real interest. Almost back to the start of the resurgence of rapeseed in the second world war in Canada – as a source of high quality (high erucic) oil for aeroplanes.

Who is capturing these memories?

There’s a right and a wrong way to go about things. Grahame Jackson patiently spells out the right way for Cameroon to get blight-resistant taro:

We have a world network for the improvement of edible aroids that includes, taro and cocoyam; Cameroon is not a member. But if someone in the government requested our help I am confident assistance would be given. The assistance would be varieties from the Pacific that have been bred for resistance to taro leaf blight. The introduction of the varieties has to be done through govt agencies because of plant quarantine concerns. Import licences have to be issued, IP documents signed, phytosanitary documents raised, etc., etc. This is not difficult, but takes time, and has to involve govt agencies.

So how about it? Why isn’t the government of Cameroon interested?

Willem van Dooijeweert sets Luigi right on cucumber evaluation and documentation:

My name is Willem van Dooijeweert and I am the curator of the CGN cucumber collection. I read the request for germplasm of cucumber having certain traits on IdeaConnection. I can imagine that somebody wants to pay $2,000 for a resistance source to CGMMV. As far as I know this is still not found or not public yet. Concerning searchable data on the CGN website I want you to know that we make available all data we have. So if you cannot find evaluation data of cucumber, we simply do not have them. This has nothing to do with the state of our documentation.

The naked oats farmer explains his vision:

What I want to see is that this grain in a number of years is grown by farmers large and small around the world as a replacement for a lot of the rice that is currently grown. The biggest advantage that Cavena Nuda has is as a replacement for rice that can be grown on dry land without irrigation like rice. … I tell people I want to see in 10-20 years is that a small farmer in a place like India for instance where the rainfall is less all the time due to climate change can stop flooding a rice paddy and drink the precious fresh water instead and grow Cavena Nuda instead of rice. When he or she harvests the Cavena Nuda in the morning, they can cook it for a noon meal for their family-it is ready to eat right off the field with no processing needed like rice or oats-in the afternoon the farmer can take it to the city to relatives to sell some of it and come home with some money in their pocket and a house full of healthy kids.

Not a complete reply, but helpful for anyone who wants to reduce the drudgery of food preparation, Diane Ragone recommends a source for processing machinery that can deal with soybeans, among other things.

Compatible Technology International develops low tech grinders and other devices to process various nuts, grains, and other crops, including soybeans.

Hope that helps Matt Cognetti.