- A Wheat Germplasm Database To Rule Them All. No, not from CGIAR.
- New livestock maps of the world. Yes, from CGIAR.
- Kashmir ponders an apple genebank.
- More from Game of Strawberries.
- Wanna study the population genomics of cheese fungi? Course you do.
- Domesticating local fruit trees good for nutrition, but need secure tenure and good planting material.
- Building better broccoli, the genome way.
- Early domesticated dogs helped in mammoth hunts.
- Current extinction rate about 1000 times higher than background. Databases can help with that, believe it or not.
- Building a national PGRFA system in Bolivia. When will they ratify the ITPGRFA, though?
Brainfood: Yam tissue culture, Barley core, Date genome, Ecosystem services & land use change, Remote sensing and conservation, Okra diversity, Carob diversity, Mexican genebank project, Chicken skin music, Mongolian camel, Coloured rice
- Effect of various growth regulators on growth of yam (Dioscorea trifida L.) in vitro shoot tips. One small step for yam cryopreservation.
- The USDA Barley Core Collection: Genetic Diversity, Population Structure, and Potential for Genome-Wide Association Studies. 5 sub-populations: roughly, Mediterranean, W Europe, E Europe, Asia and Ethiopia. GWAS effective in locating important phenotypes.
- A first genetic map of date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) reveals long-range genome structure conservation in the palms. Lots of synteny with oil palm and coconut despite differences in genome size. And we now (probably) know how sex determination works.
- Economic evaluation of ecosystem goods and services under different landscape management scenarios. Agriculture usually wins at the expense of more “ecological” land uses, unless income from C and biodiversity (and timber) go up, or discount rates go down.
- Oil in the Sahara: mapping anthropogenic threats to Saharan biodiversity from space. You can spot biodiversity threats from space. More examples along the same lines.
- Genetic and morphological diversity of okra (Abelmoschus esculentus [L.] Moench.) genotypes and their possible relationships, with particular reference to Greek landraces. Much phenotypic variation, less AFLP variation, but geographically structured. Germination characteristics vary with ecology.
- Genetic diversity revealed by EST-SSR markers in carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua L.). First time carbob has been genotyped using microsatellites. And that seems to be the only reason why this work was done.
- Investigation of the genetic diversity of domestic Capra hircus breeds reared within an early goat domestication area in Iran. Breeds are diverse but geographically distinct, the western ones especially. Unlike sheep, which are moved around a lot more. Some evidence of inbreeding, which can and should be counteracted.
- Diversity Assessment and Development of Sustainable Use of Mexican Genetic Resources: Prospects of a SATREPS Project. That would be Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development, between the Japanese and Mexican genebanks. Looks like a lot of genotyping and in vitro conservation research on lesser-known crops.
- Establishing the validity of domestication genes using DNA from ancient chickens. You really need ancient DNA to study domestication.
- Genetic diversity and population structure of Mongolian domestic Bactrian camels (Camelus bactrianus). No breeds, no problem.
- Exploring Variability: New Brazilian Varieties SCS119 Rubi and SCS120 Onix for the Specialty Rices Market. Brazilian hipsters now have red and black rice.
Nibbles: Seed drying, Yield gap trap, African fermentation, Rice & temp, Cultural exchange, Youth, Syria and ICARDA
- How to keep seeds dry. Don’t do this at home, folks! No, wait…
- Don’t get trapped in the yield gap, researchers told.
- Diana Buja breaks down banana brewing.
- Night temperatures cross important threshold for rice.
- Cultural change does not have to mean genetic erosion and loss of agrobiodiversity knowledge.
- Getting youth back into agriculture. Not just about the money.
- Latest from the tragic ICARDA situation
Brainfood: Niche and range limits, Grassland diversity drivers, Pollinator research bias, Livestock systems, Seed longevity gene, Apple origins, Amaranthus in Mexico, Chinese medicinal orchids, Seed longevity, Fitness tradeoffs, Lentil evaluation
- Are species’ range limits simply niche limits writ large? A review of transplant experiments beyond the range. Meta-analysis shows dispersal constrains geographic distribution but extends altitudinal. Biotic interactions important at low elevations and latitudes.
- Herbivores and nutrients control grassland plant diversity via light limitation. Nutrients bad, herbivores good for grassland diversity.
- Economic and ecological implications of geographic bias in pollinator ecology in the light of pollinator declines. Half the data come from 5 countries. Nuff said.
- Integrated crop and livestock systems in Western Europe and South America: A review. Market logic has driven crops and livestock apart, but it should drive them back together again.
- ARABIDOPSIS THALIANA HOMEOBOX25 Uncovers a Role for Gibberellins in Seed Longevity. Seed longevity gene found. No word on whether giberellin treatment can prolong seed life in genebanks. Yet.
- Molecular-level and trait-level differentiation between the cultivated apple (Malus×domestica Borkh.) and its main progenitor Malus sieversii. Status of M. sieversii as main progenitor confirmed. Always good to have more data.
- Adaptation of Cultivated Amaranth (Amaranthus spp.) and Their Wild Relatives in Mexico. One of the wild species could be a source of adaptation for the cultivated under climate change.
- Eat your orchid and have it too: a potentially new conservation formula for Chinese epiphytic medicinal orchids. Nature reserves and cultivation on farms not enough. What you need is “restoration-friendly cultivation.”
- A continental-scale study of seed lifespan in experimental storage examining seed, plant, and environmental traits associated with longevity. Australian seeds are somewhat longer-lived than those from other regions. But there’s plenty of variation, some of which can be explained by different features of the seeds, plants and the specific environment where they grow.
- Inclusive fitness in agriculture. Plants and their root symbionts can get along even better together, with a little help from human selection.
- Genetic diversity analysis for quantitative traits in lentil (Lens culinaris medik.) germplasm. NBPGR seem to be on an evaluation blitz. More power to them. Hope to see the data online soon.
Nibbles: Nepal goat project, Kenyan camels, Sustainable diet metrics, Agri-informatics centre, Cassava dishes, CC & nutrients, Yield is all, African CC hotspots, AGRA seed enterprises, PlantVillage blog, Medieval weeds, French reserve, Black garlic, Australian tree tool
- Sometimes all it takes is a goat.
- Or a camel.
- I wonder how either would figure into a metric for a sustainable diet. Wonder if these people will be interested in those metrics.
- Cassava figures in lots of different ways.
- No word on whether carbon dioxide will affect its nutrient content the way it does with other crops.
- Who cares, it’s yield we’re after. Well, that’s in trouble too in some parts of Africa.
- That’s the only way those African seed start-ups are going to survive.
- Yeah, but disease resistance is important, Shirley. PlantVillage gets a blog.
- And weeds? Don’t forget the weeds. Although of course some of them you can eat. Put that in your metrics.
- Meanwhile, France starts to re-wild. Would love to see some wild relatives in the Bois du Boulogne. Livestock wild relatives, not your crazy cousin on his gap year.
- And now we can figure out what climate change might do to them. I guess this thing might work for European animals. Says here it works for Australian trees.
- Speaking of France, garlic is quintessentially French, isn’t it? Well, maybe, but it’s also very Korean, in its black, cured form.