- State of the World’s Forests 2012 is out. Save some trees by downloading the PDFs.
- More from FAO: Potential Effects of Climate Change on Crop Pollination. Stick that in your crop model.
- And then there’s climate change and bamboos — of interest to more than pandas?
- Bioversity policy wonks call for New strategies and partnerships for the sustainable use of plant genetic resources. What was wrong with the old ones?
- Kew says The taste of the Amazon is Cupuaçu. A name I recognized only because I recently spent half a lifetime on Wikipedia’s entry for Theobroma.
- Smithsonian says The taste of Indonesia is salak, a name I didn’t recognise even when told it is snakefruit. Or Salacca zalacca, a name to really conjure with.
- Cynthia says, the taste of love is pomegranate. Let us go to the vineyards to see …
Brainfood: Sierra Leone rice, Bean breeding, Cacao geographic diversity, Red fleshed apples, Species richness & productivity, African maize diversity, Human expansion, Barley gaps, Wild coffee and CC, Acacia and CC, Genetic erosion
- Analysis of genetic diversity in farmers’ rice varieties in Sierra Leone using morphological and AFLP markers. Still a lot of diversity in traditional rice after the war, both among and within landraces, mostly among, organized regionally, and recognized by local names.
- Simultaneous selection for resistance to five bacterial, fungal, and viral diseases in three Andean × Middle American inter-gene pool common bean populations. Thanks goodness for multiple independent domestication events. And genebanks.
- Present Spatial Diversity Patterns of Theobroma cacao L. in the Neotropics Reflect Genetic Differentiation in Pleistocene Refugia Followed by Human-Influenced Dispersal. So need to collect in areas at the margins or just outside the refugia if you want high diversity. But of course that may already be ex situ. But wait, didn’t you just do the analysis based on the provenance of ex situ holdings?
- An ancient duplication of apple MYB transcription factors is responsible for novel red fruit-flesh phenotypes. The whole genome got duplicated during evolution of the apple and the red flesh phenotype is controlled by loci in both copies, but in different ways.
- What is the form of the productivity–animal-species-richness relationship? A critical review and meta-analysis. Positive.
- Spatial Structure and Climatic Adaptation in African Maize Revealed by Surveying SNP Diversity in Relation to Global Breeding and Landrace Panels. Distinct Sahelian, Western and Eastern clusters. Some SNPs associated with high temperatures.
- MtDNA analysis of global populations support that major population expansions began before Neolithic Time. Humans needed good weather to thrive, not agriculture.
- Genetic gap analysis of wild Hordeum taxa. Argentina?
- The Impact of Climate Change on Indigenous Arabica Coffee (Coffea arabica): Predicting Future Trends and Identifying Priorities. Generally very bad to disastrous, but some “core localities” will be ok, and therefore could be used for in situ conservation. Interestingly, genebank accession locality data not used.
- The genus Acacia (Fabaceae) in East Africa: distribution, diversity and the protected area network. No such luck for Acacia, I’m afraid.
- Monocropping Cultures into Ruin: The Loss of Food Varieties and Cultural Diversity. Are you sure you want to know what a sociologist and a political scientist have to say on the matter?
Nibbles: Value chains, CAP, Intercropping, Tree trouble, Phenotyping
- Sustainable value chains made easy. Perhaps too easy.
- An end to crazy EU agricultural subsidies? Don’t hold your breath. What would it mean for agricultural biodiversity?
- Yesterday it was rotation, today it is intercropping, and more. Is there something in the air?
- Ten new things we learned about trees this year. The one I would add is that eucalypts are rain forest species.
- Way more about high-throughput phenotyping than I need to know. But somehow still less than I’d like to know. Thanks, Tom.
Magical thinking about olives
Luigi nibbled the ancient olives of Gethsemane a couple of days ago, and I’ve tried to hold my tongue since then. Tried and, now, failed. It is such a crappy article, I’m wondering not only why I’m bothering to link to it but also why it had to be that way. OK, so there are some old olive trees in the garden of Gethsemane. Big deal. There are even older olive trees elsewhere.
And this is just garbage:
“Despite their age, the 900-year-old olive trees were found in excellent health, unaffected by lead pollution and bacteria.
Amazingly, the garden’s earth appears to block insects and bacterial proliferation.”
Amazingly, indeed. Naturally not one of the entirely uncritical news reports I read refers to the original scientific paper reporting the results, although amazingly, nor do any of them repeat the amazing claim. It might have been interesting to see how the DNA of the eight sampled trees — identical in every one, according to the reports — matches up against other olives in the area and further afield. But not sufficiently amazing, I suppose to interest the Vatican’s supported scientists.
So why am I bothering? Because sometimes the crap just gets too much.
Nibbles: ICRISAT genebanks, Agricultural history, Weeds, Gowda, Fruit symposium, Chaffey, Open pollinated seeds, Breeding institute, Ash dieback, Perennial grains, Marshall strawberry, Neanderthal cuisine, Colorado beetle control
- World Bank goes inside ICRISAT seed bank and finds in vitro plantlets.
- “Did mongrel grains serendipitously meld together and sprout from the sewage dumps of sedentary fishing tribes (a current theory), or was the domestication of wheat grasses, pomegranates, and fig trees a willful act of genius?” Scientific American excerpts a bit of purple prose from from Frederick Kaufman’s “Bet the Farm: How Food Stopped Being Food.”
- And a book on how (some) food (i.e. weeds) started being food.
- ICRISAT legume breeder bags award.
- One of the more interesting symposium titles I’ve come across: International Symposium on Fruit Culture and its Traditional Knowledge along Silk Road Countries.
- Plant Cuttings.
- And plant seeds. Of the open-pollinated sort.
- Donald Danforth Plant Science Center establishes Institute for International Crop Improvement (IICI). CGIAR unavailable for comment.
- CABI gets to grips with ash dieback.
- Perennial grains in practice.
- Recovered rare strawberries as art: Marshall Duchamp.
- Intrepid journo discovers secrets of Neanderthal cuisine.
- Crimson clover cover crop protects aubergines as well as insecticide against Colorado beetles.