Category: Featured

Susan Bragdon sounds frustrated:

It seems like the studies at least both confirm the dynamism in managing and developing landraces. One would expect some to go out of use and new landraces to emerge (good reason, amongst others, to have ex situ collections to have “snap shots” over time). I know I am saying nothing new to this audience, but in international circles — even some parts of the international world specifically addressing biological diversity (I can tell you about the Human Rights Council Resolution on Biological Diversity adopted in March as an example) — the idea that farmers are more than preserving a static pool of genetic resources is not well-understood. And don’t get me going on understanding the links to health, employment, peace…

What brought this on now, Susan? And if you want a platform for discussing those links, we do take guest posts.

Tom Payne of CIMMYT was a bit worried about that Global Crop Loss Survey:

The wheat data suggests that a preponderance of responses came from Europe (where the trio of disease septoria tritici-yellow rust-fusarium head blight are prevalent). Interestingly, the emerging threats of “Ug99 types” of stem rust and wheat blast are not revealed though they may have far more dramatic impacts on a global basis.

But Andy Nelson has it covered:

Around 30% of wheat responses came from Europe, with the rest fairly well distributed in wheat growing areas around the rest of the world. Stem rust and wheat blast are in the complete list of response with numbers and locations that reasonably reflect their emerging threat status. They’re just not in the top five that we included in this preliminary report to the ISPP. More analysis and details will come though.

Clem has the answer to the question: But do we really want to promote a landrace as a functional food? And it is: Why the hell not. Me, I’m not so sure.

Dirk has the answer to Pea Genebank Database Hell:

A simple solution would be to agree on a set of prefixes that unequivocally identify each collection preserving those already widely accepted and then to clean up the passport data to link up potential duplicates. The 53674 Pisum accessions in Genesys could possibly be compacted to 1/10

Which is hopefully what DOI will do, though whether it will be possible to apply them retroactively, so to speak, is another question.

Jay Bost has an interesting question on American coconuts:

Anyone ever explore possibility of dispersal of coconut to Americas by Polynesians? Given movement of sweet potato and chickens, any chance they brought coconut?

Anyone?