- Assessment of genetic relationships between cultivated arracacha (Arracacia xanthorrhiza Bancr.) and its wild close relatives in the area of domestication using microsatellite markers. Lots more variation in the wild, natch.
- Exploring Relationships between Biodiversity and Dietary Diversity in the Mediterranean Region: Preliminary Insights from a Literature Review. There has been an increase in dietary diversity, but of the wrong sort of diversity.
- Special issue Of Small Ruminant Research on “Genetic diversity of small ruminants in Asia”. From the Punjab Urial sheep to the goats of Myanmar.
- Genetic diversity of flax accessions originating in the Alpine region: a case study for an ex situ germplasm evaluation based on molecular marker. Past genebank conservation hasn’t been perfect.
- Enhancing genetic gain in the era of molecular breeding. It all starts with genetic variance. Hello, genebanks!
- Crops In Silico: Generating Virtual Crops Using an Integrative and Multi-scale Modeling Platform. Factor in gene editing and goodbye genebanks.
- Unconscious selection drove seed enlargement in vegetable crops. And not only vegetables, cereals too. But remember African rice?
- Palm economic and traditional uses, evolutionary history and the IUCN Red List. Globally, the more threatened palms are the less used.
- Impact of Climate Change, Weather Extremes, and Price Risk on Global Food Supply. The effect is not just on production, but also price.
- Identifying the landscape drivers of agricultural insecticide use leveraging evidence from 100,000 fields. In Kern County, California, crop diversity decreases insecticide us. But…
Brainfood: Iron beans, Citrus evolution, Ethiopian co-ops, Farmer evaluation app, Exotic breeding, Cost of doing business, Plummy, Italian pears, Chinese cowpea, Breadfruit phylogeny, Seed collecting
- Iron beans in Rwanda: crop development and delivery experience. 800,000 households, discontinuation rate 11%. But the health outcomes? Too early, I guess.
- Phylogenetic origin of limes and lemons revealed by cytoplasmic and nuclear markers. It’s so VERY complicated.
- Seed producer cooperatives in the Ethiopian seed sector and their role in seed supply improvement: A review. Sitting between the formal and informal seed systems, they “play a key role in meeting seed demand and contribute greatly to seed supply improvement through high-volume production of seed, crop, and variety diversification, and seed delivery to farmers.”
- Gamification of farmer-participatory priority setting in plant breeding: Design and validation of “AgroDuos”. Based on pairwise ranking. I remember doing it by hand, but it’s nice to have the app. And there’s more.
- Emerging Avenues for Utilization of Exotic Germplasm. It comes down to the collections being better characterized and understood.
- Genetic resource policies in international collaborative research for food and agriculture: A study of USAID-funded innovation labs. Transaction costs are rising. Well, yeah.
- Plums: A Brief Introduction. Will keep you regular.
- Characterization and phylogenetic analysis of ancient Italian landraces of pear. Some synonyms found, some unknown things identified. All very worthy.
- Genetic diversity and a population structure analysis of accessions in the Chinese cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.] germplasm collection. The Chinese stuff is different to the African stuff.
- Out of Borneo: biogeography, phylogeny and divergence date estimates of Artocarpus (Moraceae). Yeah but how many can you eat?
- Effective seed harvesting strategies for the ex situ genetic diversity conservation of rare tropical tree populations. “…fewer seeds from each of a larger number of trees, … from peripheral subdivided regions of the population.”
Kew helping protect your morning joe
Remember a short blog post from seven years back saying how Ethiopia had just protected some wild coffee forests?
We Nibbled yesterday a UN press release saying that a Biosphere Reserve had been created in Ethiopia to protect wild coffee. But actually it turns out that it is no less than TWO reserves that have just been selected by UNESCO, Kafa and Yayu. Many thanks to Tadesse Woldemariam Gole for the tip.
No, I didn’t think so. But anyway, here’s the latest on that, courtesy of the coffee team at Kew.
In April 2015 we started the three year project ‘Mainstreaming biodiversity conservation and climate resilience at Yayu Biosphere Reserve (Ethiopia)’. In this project, poverty alleviation, biodiversity, and climate resilience, are inextricably linked.
…
The project has now been running for almost two years, and despite a few surprises, is achieving considerable success. Catch-up on our progress in the second part of this post, available in the coming months.
Previous experience in this sort of thing has been mixed, so I’m looking forward to hearing more. In the coming months.
Nibbles: Rice in Trinidad, Sweet potatoes in Ethiopia, EU crop diversity double, Sir Peter on the ginkgo, Forages, Brazilian peanuts, Seed moisture, Phenotyping double, Svalbard deposit, CATIE data, Herbarium double, Seed #resistance, Father of the apple, Agave congress
- African rice out of Africa, and out of the genebank.
- The other way around for sweet potato.
- Markers for micronutrients. And diversity for taste…
- The deep history of the ginkgo.
- Study plants to decrease the effects of burping.
- Brazil rationalizes peanut collections.
- Measuring moisture in seeds.
- Big data for better seeds. And not only in Iowa.
- NZ seeds in Svalbard.
- CATIE on Genesys.
- Oz biosecurity fail. Better stick to online.
- I want to be a seed rebel too.
- Maybe in Kazakhstan?
- Agave under the volcano under the cosh.
Brainfood: Cannabis roundup, Citrus genomes, Mapping Africa, Maize diversity, Qat diversity, Language diversity, Apple taste, Coconut diversity, Napier grass review, Rangeland management, Chinese goats, Arabica evaluation, Bangladeshi chickens, Seed endophytes
- Cannabis Domestication, Breeding History, Present-day Genetic Diversity, and Future Prospects. The weed is in trouble, man. Just one of the papers in a very special issue of Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences. And for a historical perspective…
- Genomic analyses of primitive, wild and cultivated citrus provide insights into asexual reproduction. Apomixis is down to a “miniature inverted-repeat transposable element insertion in the promoter region of CitRWP.”
- Automated cropland mapping of continental Africa using Google Earth Engine cloud computing. Croplands increased by 1 Mha/yr between 2003 and 2014.
- Genetic diversity and population structure of native maize populations in Latin America and the Caribbean. Three groups: Mexico + southern S. America, lowland Mesoamerica + Caribbean, Andes.
- Phylogeography of the wild and cultivated stimulant plant qat (Catha edulis, Celastraceae) in areas of historical cultivation. Centres of origin in Kenya and Ethiopia, with limited movement between the two, but some hybrids in N. Kenya; the Yemeni stuff came from Ethiopia.
- Process-based modelling shows how climate and demography shape language diversity. If you assume human groups split after reaching a certain population size, and rainfall limits population density, you can predict language diversity in Australia.
- Volatile Compound Profiles of Malus baccata and Malus prunifolia Wild Apple Fruit. Look at the esters.
- Genetic diversity, population structure and association analysis in coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) germplasm using SSR markers. I can’t see much new here. Please, coconut experts, tell me what I’m missing.
- Opportunities for Napier Grass (Pennisetum purpureum) Improvement Using Molecular Genetics. Could do better.
- Heterogeneity as the Basis for Rangeland Management. Gotta mix it up.
- Analysis of genetic diversity of Chinese dairy goats via microsatellite markers. The locally developed breeds are all derived from a single European breed.
- Variation in bean morphology and biochemical composition measured in different genetic groups of arabica coffee (Coffea arabica L.). You can’t use morphology to predict taste.
- Breeding for the improvement of indigenous chickens of Bangladesh: evaluation of performance of first generation of indigenous chicken. I don’t understand this much, but I liked the names of the genotypes: Naked Neck, Hilly and Non-descript Desi.
- Persistence of endophytic fungi in cultivars of Lolium perenne grown from seeds stored for 22 years. It’s a record!