Fruits and nuts

September 29, 2011September 29, 2011

Overlooking agricultural biodiversity again

I’m afraid I’m going to be a nay-sayer again. Here’s a quote from an otherwise very worthy piece on the Gates Foundation website trying to link what’s happening at the G20 and in the CGIAR reform process and other high-level stuff with the needs of “35 year old Oumou, who lives in Sadore village in Niger, struggling to feed her 5 children due to unpredictable harvests from her husband’s millet farm.” ((Note, by the way, that Sadore is where ICRISAT has its Sahelian Centre, and if anywhere in Niger should be benefiting from agricultural research, it is there.))

…Oumou’s group could plant hardy Apple of the Sahel (10 times the vitamin C of ordinary apples and rich in calcium, iron, and phosphorus) and Moringa trees (whose leaves contain 4 times the vitamin A in carrots, 4 times the calcium and double the protein in milk, and 3 times the potassium in bananas).

I don’t have much of a problem with the use of a vernacular name for Ziziphus in such a piece. You might ask why use Moringa then, but that seems to have become widely accepted as the common name for Moringa oleifera. What I do have a little problem with is comparing its vitamin C content with apples, a crop that is of no relevance to the Sahel. But that’s a rhetorical flourish on the part of the writer, I guess. Apple of the Sahel vs ordinary apple. Geddit? Let’s let that pass.

I personally think “10 times the vitamin C of ordinary apples” is borderline misleading, even if it were a useful comparison, though that is excusable too. Quick googling gave a range of 44-133 mg/100g pulp for a few “ber” varieties and 7-40 mg/100g pulp for a few apple varieties. So the range of ratios is about 1-20, so let’s call it 10 on average. Fine. But who cares about averages? In a piece about how research can help the Sahelian smallholder, why not grasp with both hands the opportunity of at least pointing out that Oumou could be helped to identify the most nutritious varieties? Dropping the agrobiodiversity ball — no, that’s not it: not even recognizing it as a ball — is what I find it hard to forgive.

September 26, 2011September 26, 2011

Brainfood: Breeding resistance, Pastures, Wheats, Dates, Conservation, Habitats, Old olives, Spinach selection, Maize breeding

Cytological and Molecular Characterization of Homoeologous Group-1 Chromosomes in Hybrid Derivatives of a Durum Disomic Alien Addition Line. Getting tolerance to Fusarium head blight into durum wheat ain’t easy.
Sustainable, low-input, warm-season, grass–legume grassland mixtures: mission (nearly) impossible? Apparently really difficult to find native North America legume forage species tolerant of both freezing and high temperatures, but people are looking. Gotta wonder if it’s a problem elsewhere too. Ethiopian highlands?
Diversity of different farmer and modern wheat varieties cultivated in contrasting organic farming conditions in western Europe and implications for European seed and variety legislation. Strong selection for uniformity (for regulation) is not reflected in uniformity assessed on farm. And farmer varieties were good outside their region of origin.
Glycaemic index of three Indian rice varieties. All three the same, high, GI. So, “There is an urgent need to study the GI of other commonly consumed rice varieties and to develop rice of a lower GI value”. Er, right.
Glycemic indices of five varieties of dates in healthy and diabetic subjects. All five the same, low, GI and no difference in diabetics.
Agricultural expansion and the fate of global conservation priorities. Conservation needs to think about agriculture.
Which habitats of European importance depend on agricultural practices? 63 of them, mainly through grazing and mowing.
Centennial olive trees as a reservoir of genetic diversity. Only about 10% of old trees matched current cultivars.
Phenotypic Changes in Different Spinach Varieties Grown and Selected under Organic Conditions. There were phenotypic changes after just three seasons of selection, in one case resulting in a “new” variety.
Open-Pollinated vs. Hybrid Maize Cultivars. Hybrids are not the only way to improve maize productivity, apparently.
Plant breeding for harmony between agriculture and the environment. “Plant breeding can be a powerful tool to bring “harmony” between agriculture and the environment, but partnerships between plant breeders, ecologists, urban planners, and policy makers are needed to make this a reality.” I was just going to ask, why can’t we all just get along.

Don’t forget the open Mendeley group for the papers we link to here. Even if you don’t use Mendeley, you can subscribe to the RSS feed from the group and get stuff that way.

September 26, 2011September 26, 2011

Nibbles: Elm disease, Kew genebank, Maize domestication, Wildlife vs livestock, Medieval figs, Alternative food security, Spineless lulo, Mangos for Haiti, Aubergine breeding, Urban ag in Japan, West African research

“Beginning in the late 1990s, Kock travelled throughout Ontario collecting twigs of seemingly healthy mature elms, in what amounted to an elm dating service.”
“…a curated inventory of miscellaneous interestingness” lands on the Millennium Seed Bank. Hilarity ensues.
What do hopscotch, architecture and maize have in common?
Zebras good for cattle.
The fig deconstructed.
“Improve yields through crop diversity…” ??? Who are these people?
Crops for the Future bemoans the loss of “a spineless variety of Solanum quitoense.” Someone, somewhere must still have it, surely.
Mangos: Haiti’s new best friend?
Home-bred eggplants. Or aubergines.
“Urban agriculture in Japan, cultivating sustainability and well being.” Again? Still?
West Africa to get bunch of specialist biotechnology centres for crop improvement. No word on where the existing national genebanks fit in. Nor, ahem, what role IITA, ICRISAT and the other CGIAR Centres are going to play in all this.

September 22, 2011September 22, 2011

Nibbles: Baobab, Plant cuttings & carnivalia, Apples, Fodder, Range management, PNG blog, Cattle breeding, Food security questions

Baobab: your favourite nutritious neglected species for the next 10 seconds.
Nigel Chaffey’s fresh selection of Plant Cuttings is up.
Which reminds me; don’t forget to submit to Berry go Round.
Searching for lost apples in the Scottish Highlands. A job for mountain rescue?
Why feed my cow? A more interesting question than it seems.
Rangeland scientists take photos of their study sites shock. Applications for crop wild relatives? Bound to be.
Glad to give my friend Seniorl Anzu at NARI in PNG a plug for his new(ish) blog, PNG-Agrinews.
Wageningen solves that cow burping problem.
Cambridge says I see your cow burps and raise you food security.

September 19, 2011September 19, 2011

Brainfood: Sorghum core diversity, Indian mango diversity, Montia potential, Assisted migration, Corchorus diversity, Soil DNA, Fire!, Coffee pest, Earthworms

Making life simpler for you, we have created an open Mendeley group for the papers we link to here. If you’re already using Mendeley, feel free to join the group (and use it to suggest papers we might miss). You can also discuss papers there, but frankly, we’d prefer you to do that here. Or on Facebook. Even if you don’t use Mendeley, you can subscribe to the RSS feed from the group and get stuff that way. Are we cool, or what?

Variation in flowering time in sorghum core collection and mapping of QTLs controlling flowering time by association analysis. 4 QTLs and 7 loci detected under different conditions. Is that, like, a lot?
Evaluation of genetic diversity among commercial cultivars, hybrids and local mango (Mangifera indica L.) genotypes of India using cumulative RAPD and ISSR markers. Just one big happy family.
Montia fontana L. (Portulacaceae), an interesting wild vegetable traditionally consumed in the Iberian Peninsula. Aquatic herb has high fibre and lipids. High oxalate too though. Breeders enjoined to get to work. On Montia. Riiiiight.
Taking stock of the assisted migration debate. It’s REALLY complicated. Scientists are not that great at explaining it. More work needed all round. But now we have fancy diagrams.
Genetic diversity and relationships in Corchorus olitorius (Malvaceae s.l.) inferred from molecular and morphological data. Out of Africa. Ethiopia, to be exact.
Meta-barcoding of ‘dirt’ DNA from soil reflects vertebrate biodiversity. Wonder whether it works with agricultural ‘dirt.’
The human dimension of fire regimes on Earth. Entertaining gallop through the history of the use of fire to manage landscapes around the world and down the ages. Need to catch my breath here.
Some like it hot: The influence and implications of climate change on coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei) and coffee production in East Africa. That title just had to come sometime, didn’t it.
A critique of earthworm molecular phylogenetics. So apparently “molecular phylogenetics is now on the verge of revolutionizing earthworm systematics.” Beyond satire.