- The role of wild fruits and vegetables in delivering a balanced and healthy diet. Not great, until they’re domesticated.
- Maize Diversity, Market Access, and Poverty Reduction in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. Forget maize.
- Evaluation of Wild Lentil Species as Genetic Resources to Improve Drought Tolerance in Cultivated Lentil. Environment explained drought response in wild lentils better than molecular classification.
- Geographical distribution, diversity and gap analysis of East African sorghum collection conserved at the ICRISAT genebank. Both Sudans.
- Explaining the Ethiopian farmers’ perceptions on potential loss of traditional crop varieties: A principal components regression analysis. Poor farmers know more, and care more, about loss of traditional landraces.
- High-throughput sequencing of African chikanda cake highlights conservation challenges in orchids. Those are very biodiverse cakes, but not in a good way.
- Revisiting the ‘cornerstone of Amazonian conservation’: a socioecological assessment of Brazil nut exploitation. It’s actually in pretty good shape, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.
- Phylogenetic Prediction of Alternaria Leaf Blight Resistance in Wild and Cultivated Species of Carrots. Look for taller material in clade A.
- Starch granule evidence for the earliest potato use in North America. S. jamesii may have been used for 10,000 years in Utah.
- Genome-Wide Association Study of Grain Architecture in Wild Wheat Aegilops tauschii. Two genetic lineages, with big differences in grain width and weight.
Brainfood: Banana GWAS, MGIS, Commodification and racialization, Native tree seeds, Tea in China, Potato in China, Indian eggplant, Rapid phenotyping, Ag & environment
- Trait variation and genetic diversity in a banana genomic selection training population. You can use easy-to-measure traits as proxies for important but difficult-to-measure traits. Both of which will hopefully end up in…
- MGIS: managing banana (Musa spp.) genetic resources information and high-throughput genotyping data. Very cool. So when can we expect the data in Genesys?
- Heirloom rice in Ifugao: an ‘anti-commodity’ in the process of commodification. Calling a landrace a “heirloom variety” is just another form of capitalist oppression.
- Race, Status, and Biodiversity: The Social Climbing of Quinoa. Not to mention racist.
- To what extent are genetic resources considered in environmental service provision? A case study based on trees and carbon sequestration. Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) afforestation/reforestation project design documents are often unrealistic about the chances of sourcing sufficient quantity and quality of seeds of indigenous species.
- Diversity analysis on catechin genetic of wild tea plant from Yunnan province. They determine whether a variety is used for green or black tea.
- Genetic differences between potato strains introduced from International Potato Center (CIP) and domestic potato resources by SSR molecular markers. The CIP varieties are quite different to the Chinese ones. But we kinda knew that.
- SSR marker analysis points to population admixture and continuum of genetic variation among Indian landraces of brinjal (Solanum melongena L.). Brinjal gets moved around a lot.
- A high-throughput, field-based phenotyping technology for tall biomass crops. Estimate plant height and stem diameter in sorghum, say, without leaving the office.
- Comparative analysis of environmental impacts of agricultural production systems, agricultural input efficiency, and food choice. Better for environment to change dietary habits than production systems.
Nibbles: Dog & cat domestication, Domestication book, CGIAR genebanks, Famous trees, “Ancient” beans, ACACIA, Beer book, Melon breeding, Farming trees, CC & health
- Ancient Japanese dog burials show they helped with the hunt. At least in some places and for a while. Maybe.
- Ancient cat DNA shows they just helped themselves.
- I guess Alice Roberts’ new book will cover all that.
- IITA and ICARDA genebanks in the news.
- Cool trees.
- Is this the real story of Anasazi beans?
- Speeding up crop improvement in Africa.
- Extreme fermented beverages: my kind of book.
- Wal-Mart’s fancy new cantaloupe .
- Registering on-farm trees in Ghana.
- Oh what’s the point, we’re all doomed anyway.
Brainfood: Maize regeneration, Watkins collection, Jordan barley landraces, CWR in Europe, Early agriculture, Papaya knowledge, Cryo, Tree diversity, AM, Indegee, Wild beet, Early NE ag, Fire!
- Ex-situ conservation of maize germplasm from different latitudes. You can do it, but not without some genetic changes.
- High density genotyping of the A.E. Watkins Collection of hexaploid landraces identifies a large molecular diversity compared to elite bread wheat. There’s plenty of interesting variation there, as you’d expect.
- Changes in barley (Hordeum vulgare L. subsp. vulgare) genetic diversity and structure in Jordan over a period of 31 years. No significant changes in the amount of genetic diversity in landraces collected in 1981 and in 2012, but later samples more homogenous and less locally distinct.
- Crop wild relatives range shifts and conservation in Europe under climate change. We’ll need genebanks.
- Isotope evidence for agricultural extensification reveals how the world’s first cities were fed. By opening up new land, basically, and never mind the fancy agronomic practices.
- Can the Introduction of Modern Crop Varieties in their Centre of Origin Affect Local Ecological Knowledge? A Case Study of Papaya in the Yucatan Peninsula. Yes, and not in a good way.
- Cryopreserved storage of clonal germplasm in the USDA National Plant Germplasm System. It really is a system.
- A meta-analysis of molecular marker genetic datasets for eastern Africa trees supports the utility of potential natural vegetation maps for planning climate-smart restoration initiatives. But you still have to do the trials.
- Global Diversity and Importance of Mycorrhizal and Nonmycorrhizal Plants. 72% of vascular plants have them.
- Factors associated with agrobiodiversity conservation: A case study on conservation of rice varieties in Barak valley, Assam, India. More connections means more varieties.
- Crop wild relative populations of Beta vulgaris allow direct mapping of agronomically important genes. Genotyping and phenotyping of 189 wild plants along a 10 km transect allows identification of disease resistance gene in the crops.
- Near Eastern Plant Domestication: A History of Thought. The punctuated-centric view is better, according to Occam.
- Fire and plant diversity at the global scale. They’re correlated, or at least associated.
Nibbles: Citrus conservation, Amazon civilizations, Agricultural adaptation, Farming First, Communicating impact, Church forests, Food Forever Initiative
- Conserving citrus in cryo.
- More rethinking of the early civilizations of the Amazon.
- Agriculture led to genetic changes in humans as much as in crops and livestock.
- Farming First goes all in on the SDGs. Oh, yeah, also I won the quiz. Ka-ching!
- Scientists, tell your stories for impact, including on policy.
- The sacred forests of Ethiopia, now there’s a story.
- The biggest story of them all: Food Forever!