Forests & trees

November 29, 2017

Our friends the seed dispersers

Botany One has been running an entertaining little series from Nigel Chaffey on how plants get about, as seeds and as the gametes that produce seeds. In the third and final part, we get to plants that could reasonably be considered of interest here, to whit cacao and useful forest trees. It turns out that chimpanzees in West Africa are not above nicking a few pods from cacao trees and spreading the seeds an average of 407 m from the plantations. I like the ideas that this illuminates the thorny question of who “owns” a crop.

Sticking with West African trees, it seems that gorilla and chimpanzee dung offers “a cost effective and non-invasive way to restore native forested habitats”. Of course, if the gorillas and chimpanzees are themselves threatened and don’t travel widely, that’s not going to help forests further afield. Chaffey suggests collecting their dung and distributing these auto-fertilising, self-selecting seed packages directly over the area to be reforested.

I wonder what the forest genetic resources people would make of that?

October 23, 2017October 23, 2017

Brainfood: Yeast census, Kansas collections, Species abundance, Dietary diversity, Seed longevity, Tree conservation, Yam metabolomics, Ethiopian mustard shattering, Improving ITPGRFA

Census of Yeasts Isolated from Natural Ecosystem and Conserved in Worldwide Collections. 27 countries, 41 collections, 58,095 strains.
The Curiosity of Collections: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at What’s in the Drawers, Cabinets and Refrigerators of K-State Collections and Why It’s Important. Including the Wheat Genetics Resource Center.
Species are not most abundant in the centre of their geographic range or climatic niche. Even trees.
Tartary Buckwheat Genetic Diversity in the Himalayas Associated with Farmer Landrace Diversity and Low Dietary Dependence. Relying on fewer food crops is bad for crop genetic diversity.
Contrasting tocol ratios associated with seed longevity in rice variety groups. It’s the relative amounts of different homologues, not the total.
Gene conservation of tree species — Banking on the future. Proceedings of a workshop. USA-centred, but lessons more generally applicable.
Deep Learning for Multi-task Plant Phenotyping. Computer can count wheat spikes and spikelets.
Metabolite profiling of yam (Dioscorea spp.) accessions for use in crop improvement programmes. 200 compounds on 49 accessions in 4 species. But now what?
Molecular diversity analysis and genetic mapping of pod shatter resistance loci in Brassica carinata L. 5 QTLs for shatter resistance found in Australian collection. In other news, there’s an Australian collection of Ethiopian mustard.
Access without benefit-sharing: Design, effectiveness and reform of the FAO Seed Treaty. Hybrid SMTA/subscription model, gradual Annex I expansion, successively improving domestic implementation.

October 11, 2017October 11, 2017

Another Committee on World Food Security report

I knew I’d forget one:

HLPE. 2017. Sustainable forestry for food security and nutrition. A report by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security, Rome.

The webcast is live now.

Also, since I’m at it, here’s a useful blog post on the other CFS report, the one on “Nutrition and Food Systems,” from one of the authors, summarizing eight ways why the report is different. This is what resonated with me most:

Third, it is, subversively, a bit radical. Statements such as “The risks of making well intentioned but inappropriate policy choices are much smaller than the risks of using a lack of evidence as an argument for inaction” are fairly heretical for many nutrition investors guided by Lancet 2008 and 2013. For the more market based interventions within the food system the hard evidence is usually not present and one has to trust educated best guesses and calculated risks as a guide to action.

Sometimes, you just have to do it.

September 25, 2017September 26, 2017

Brainfood: Pennisetum genome, Dioscorea genome, CBS timeline, Global taro, Science storytelling, Fragmented populations, Beet diversity, Potato diversity, Norwegian chickens, Med holidays, ABS, Jatropha diversity, Better olive oil

Pearl millet genome sequence provides a resource to improve agronomic traits in arid environments. Of course it does. Lots of genes for natural wax proteins may be part of the answer.
Genome sequencing of the staple food crop white Guinea yam enables the development of a molecular marker for sex determination. Which should make breeding more efficient.
Cassava brown streak disease: historical timeline, current knowledge and future prospects. Re-emergence drives intense scientific scrutiny, and maybe some solutions, including 25 best-bet clones from the region which show foliar symptoms but no tuber necrosis.
Adapting clonally propagated crops to climatic changes: a global approach for taro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott). People need taro diversity.
Opinion: Finding the plot in science storytelling in hopes of enhancing science communication. See all of the above.
Call for a Paradigm Shift in the Genetic Management of Fragmented Populations. Mix it up!
How scattered trees matter for biodiversity conservation in active pastures. By being diverse, and helping in forest recovery. Someone should mash up with the previous.
Insights into the genetic relationships among plants of Beta section Beta using SNP markers. Fancy markers say same thing as less fancy markers.
Levels of Intra-Specific AFLP diversity in Tuber-Bearing Potato Species with Different Breeding Systems and Ploidy Levels. One plant is enough for self-compatible species.
Genetic diversity in five chicken lines from the Norwegian live poultry gene bank. Not much, globally speaking. But that’s not the whole point.
Is It Still Necessary to Continue to Collect Crop Genetic Resources in the Mediterranean Area? A Case Study in Catalonia. Yes.
Beyond access and benefit-sharing : lessons from the emergence and application of the principle of fair and equitable benefit-sharing in agrobiodiversity governance. It’s not yet working, maybe because it’s too complicated.
Genetic Tracing of Jatropha curcas L. from Its Mesoamerican Origin to the World. Now we know where to go look for fixes to the low productivity problem of African and Asian material, which is all derived from a couple of accessions.
Exploration of genetic resources to improve the functional quality of virgin olive oil. We need data on phenolic composition.

September 19, 2017September 19, 2017

Nibbles: Millets galore, Human diversity & ag, Super farmers, Extinction is forever, Indian nutrition maps, Future Food competition, Banana viruses, Cassava in Brazil & Africa, Sugar book, Fairchild & Irma, Vegetable ROI, Embrapa beans, Certified coffee, Legal pot, Native American foods

Today’s new genome is pearl millet. The most climate-smart of crops? Now, to process it more easily.
Finger millet is not too bad either.
Agriculture was good for human diversity, at least in Papua New Guinea. Elsewhere, maybe not so much.
Julio Hancco Mamani grows 400 potato varieties up in the Andes (but how did it all start?). And Rahibai Soma Popere “15 varieties of rice, nine varieties of pigeon pea and sixty varieties of vegetables, besides many oil seeds” in Maharashtra.
“West Bengal government encourages cultivation of extinct rice varieties.” Wait, what?
Presumably not extinct like silphium.
India’s first nutrition atlas will maybe tells us where more Rahibai Soma Poperes are most needed.
Future Food includes seeds.
Cleaning up bananas.
Would love to have been on the “Brazilian Cassava Learning Journey.” Tanzania next?
The bitter side of sugar.
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden damaged by Irma.
Research on vegetables really pays off, vegetable researchers say.
Brazilian bean catalog launched.
Certifying coffee seeds.
Pot next?
Closely followed by Navajo tea.