Fruits and nuts

June 27, 2018

Keeping an eye in the sky on olives

The latest on the very troubling Xylella outbreak in olives is that you can spot infestation from the air before it’s obvious on the ground.

The new research, published in the journal Nature Plants, demonstrates the first way to spot infected trees months before signs are visible to farmers. The scientists analysed more than 7,000 olive trees in 15 Italian groves over two years, both tree-by-tree on the ground and from the air.

June 26, 2018July 13, 2018

Nibbles: Cordillera rice, Farmer seed, Toddy audio essay, Eat This Newsletter, Coconut conservation, Australian genebank, Sweet potato diversification, Mungbean income, NERICA impact, Bing cherry, TFP, Conservation evidence, NordGen matters

Conserving heirloom rice in the Philippines.
A seed production company run by farmers.
Tapping toddy. With audio goodness.
Lots of goodness in Jeremy’s latest newsletter.
Australia gets serious about coconut conservation in the Pacific and beyond.
Australia’s own genebanks are very serious. Oh yes indeedy.
Will sweet potatoes get young people into farming in Kenya? If my nephews are anything to go by, the answer, alas, is no.
Maybe they should try mungbeans.
Or NERICA.
The Bing cherry didn’t help Ah Bing much though.
Whatever the crop, it’s total factor productivity that you have to watch for.
And then don’t forget to include whatever intervention you come up with in subject-wide evidence synthesis.
Prize for best title of the week: “Nordic cooperation on genetic resources – what’s the point?” Nice video.

June 25, 2018June 25, 2018

Brainfood: Rationalizing acquisition, Empowering women, Breadfruit domestication, Rice hybrid sterility, Long-distance crop dispersal, Diversification, African leafy greens, GIAH, Silkworm cryo, Bean in situ

Molecular markers as a tool for germplasm acquisition to enhance the genetic diversity of a Napier grass (Cenchrus purpureus syn. Pennisetum purpureum) collection. Win-win for the ILRI and Embrapa genebanks.
Women’s empowerment in agriculture and agricultural productivity: Evidence from rural maize farmer households in western Kenya. 1% increase in women’s empowerment led to a 6-16% increase in maize yields, depending on fanciness of math.
A transcriptome screen for positive selection in domesticated breadfruit and its wild relatives (Artocarpus spp.). Evidence of selection in 1000 genes.
A selfish genetic element confers non-Mendelian inheritance in rice. Pollen toxin-antidote genetic system controls hybrid sterility in wild-cultivated crosses.
Between China and South Asia: A Middle Asian corridor of crop dispersal and agricultural innovation in the Bronze Age. It’s not all demic diffusion.
Determinants of crop diversification in rice-dominated Sri Lankan agricultural systems. Not everyone can diversify.
Improving food-system efficiency and environmental conservation using agricultural biodiversity in Busia County: a pilot study. Giving farmers nutritional data increased their cultivation of traditional vegetables, and their income.
The impacts of farmers’ livelihood endowments on their participation in eco-compensation policies: Globally important agricultural heritage systems case studies from China. Giving farmers money increased their income.
Conservation of wild silkworm genetic resources through cryopreservation: Standardization of sperm processing. It’s best to recover sperm from the bursa copulatrix and spermatheca of the female moth after mating.
Short-Term Local Adaptation of Historical Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) Varieties and Implications for In Situ Management of Bean Diversity. 3 years of multiplication of heritage varieties in contrasting organic farms leads to genetic changes: it takes a network to truly conserve.

June 13, 2018

Nibbles: Phenotyping drones, Citrus history, Potato museum, Mango database, Florilege, Endicott Pear, Landrace booze, Neolithic Revolution, Easy mapping

Breeding grass while high. Probably not what you’re thinking.
When life gives you ancient lemons.
Potato Museum gets new website.
Mango gets a database.
So do France’s genebanks.
The oldest living cultivated fruit tree in North America? I think not, but interesting nevertheless.
Whiskey goes heirloom.
Excerpt from Spencer Wells’ Pandora’s Seed on the Neolithic Revolution.
Our occasional contributor Robert Hijmans sings the praises of mapping with R.

May 28, 2018May 16, 2018

Brainfood: Cassava breeding, Teosinte gaps, Arabidopsis and CC, Urban pineapple, Minnesota apples, European CWR, Spiderplant review, British condiments, Yeast diversity, Diversity & productivity

Toward improving photosynthesis in cassava: Characterizing photosynthetic limitations in four current African cultivars. The landraces are better at photosynthesis than the improved cultivars. Maybe because the aim of producing the latter was pest and disease resistance rather than yield.
Ecogeography of teosinte. Only 11% in protected areas.
A map of climate change-driven natural selection in Arabidopsis thaliana. Summer is coming.
Urban backyards as a new model of pineapple germplasm conservation. Two thirds of citizen scientists did a really good job.
Identification of unknown apple (Malus × domestica) cultivars demonstrates the impact of local breeding program on cultivar diversity. 330 unknown highly diverse trees in northern Minnesota, 264 unique genotypes, 76 matched to 20 named cultivars from local breeding program at the University of Minnesota, or imported Russian cultivars.
Development of national crop wild relative conservation strategies in European countries. 30 countries: 13 in preparation stage, 14 with drafts, and 3 not yet started.
Current knowledge and breeding perspectives for the spider plant (Cleome gynandra L.): a potential for enhanced breeding of the plant in Africa. I actually like the bitterness of the leaves.
Condiments before Claudius: new plant foods at the Late Iron Age oppidum at Silchester, UK. Benefits of a customs union, I guess.
Adaptation of S. cerevisiae to Fermented Food Environments Reveals Remarkable Genome Plasticity and the Footprints of Domestication. Genetics linked to lifestyle differences.
Plant spectral diversity integrates functional and phylogenetic components of biodiversity and predicts ecosystem function. About 50% of variation in productivity in the Cedar Creek biodiversity experiment explained by spectral diversity.