- How can developmental biology help feed a growing population? By figuring out how domestication hacked developmental processes.
- Distinct characteristics of genes associated with phenome-wide variation in maize (Zea mays). Analyzing a lot of traits at a time identifies a different set of phenotypically causal genes than more conventional single-trait approaches. What it all means in practice I have no idea, you tell me.
- Sunflower pan-genome analysis shows that hybridization altered gene content and disease resistance. Not only is one trait not enough, one genome is not enough.
- Agriculturally productive yet biodiverse: human benefits and conservation values along a forest-agriculture gradient in Southern Ethiopia. Depends what you mean by productive.
- Does providing agricultural and nutrition information to both men and women improve household food security? Evidence from Malawi. Yes.
- Principles of effective collaboration in agricultural development and research for impact. Learn from the birds.
- Opening the dialogue: Research networks between high‐ and low‐income countries further understanding of global agro‐climatic challenges. See above. Maybe.
- The global burden of pathogens and pests on major food crops. About 20%. We talked about this…
- Resistance gene cloning from a wild crop relative by sequence capture and association genetics. A new way to reduce the above, using crop wild relatives.
- Adding color to a century‐old enigma: multi‐color chromosome identification unravels the autotriploid nature of saffron (Crocus sativus) as a hybrid of wild Crocus cartwrightianus cytotypes. Which means you can now re-synthesize it.
- Crop wild relative diversity and conservation planning in two isolated oceanic islands of a biodiversity hotspot (Mauritius and Rodrigues). Basically coffee.
- Diversity and conservation priorities of crop wild relatives in Mexico. Over 300 species, but not coffee.
- Benefit sharing mechanisms for agricultural genetic diversity use and on-farm conservation. Profit-sharing is better for conservation than technology transfer.
- Are Cocoa Farmers in Trinidad Happy? Exploring Factors Affecting their Happiness. Well, those whose main crop was not cacao are happier, which must say something.
- Edible fruits from Brazilian biodiversity: A review on their sensorial characteristics versus bioactivity as tool to select research. Eat Anacardium occidentale, Passiflora edulis and Acrocomia aculeata to be happiest. Seems very unadventurous, though.
- Genetic differentiation in leaf phenology among natural populations of Adansonia digitata L. follows climatic clines. Anyone going to do this for all those Brazilian fruits?
Nibbles: Open data, Banana virus, Potato impact, Peruvian agrobiodiversity, Malagasy Coffea, Evolution experiment, A2S
- “It’s embarrassing if your lab is the only one that isn’t sharing data.” One would hope so, but…
- CRISPR snips out virus from banana genome.
- CIP-related potato varieties are planted on about 1.43 Mha, or 19% of total area.
- Saving Peru’s agricultural biodiversity is more than just about markets.
- I suspect the same is the case for Madagascar’s wild coffees.
- Studying evolution experimentally. Using mice. Plants would have been cooler.
- More on Access to Seeds Index: “Seeds of Nope” seems unnecessarily negative, though.
Crop wild relatives get special treatment
…this Special Volume of Plant Genetic Resources, Characterization and Evaluation is very timely as CWR science finally moves beyond the theoretical to the increasing applied, to meet breeders and consumers growing demands. It includes prioritized CWR inventories at different geographical levels viz. national (Bissessur et al., 2019; Dickson et al., 2019), regional (Allen et al., 2019; Fitzgerald et al., 2019) levels. Tools to facilitate conservation planning have also been developed (Magos Brehm et al., 2019; Holness et al., 2019), and regional conservation strategies and approaches have been developed (Allen et al., 2019; Kell et al., 2016).
Ok, the whole thing is not open access, but at least the introduction to the Special Issue is. And since I’m on the subject, there’s a nice summary just out of the state of wild Coffea in Madagascar. Coincidentally, one of the paper in the special issue is on the CWR of Mauritius, among which Coffea features very prominently.
The wild coffee species that grow in northern Madagascar are genetically similar to Coffea species found on Grande Comore in the Comoros – a volcanic archipelago off the east coast of Africa, near Mozambique. Other species have spread from Madagascar to Mauritius and Reunion Island.
Nibbles: Cherokee genebank, Community genebanks, Fruit genebank, CGIAR genebanks, CWR pre-breeding, Ethiopian sacred groves, UK animal ark
- Cherokee Nation seedbank goes online.
- Does that mean it is a biodiversity eden?
- New Grewia genebank in India. No word on community involvement.
- Meanwhile, at the CGIAR genebanks…
- Pre-breeding using CWR, some even from genebanks: finger millet, eggplant.
- Yeah, yeah, it’s not just about genebanks.
- Or maybe it is.
Nibbles: ICBA, Samoan bananas, Lost crops, Old chenopod, Tree seeds, Online course, Data viz, Olive polyculture
- Crops on a saline drip.
- A hero is collecting all the banana varieties of America Samoa.
- Something similar, but in Arizona.
- How to collect tree seeds, the right way.
- Exceedingly old chenopod crop. A real Eastern Agricultural Complex outlier.
- Feeding a Hungry Planet: The Online Course.
- Strait is the way to data visualization.
- Forget milk, it’s olives and honey.