Category: Genebanks

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21 things to know about seed systems

FAO has a 6-page leaflet out on “Seed systems – Twenty things you need to know.” It’s well-written and comprehensive. These are the 20 things, in case you were wondering:

  • What is a seed?
  • What makes some seeds better than others?
  • What is seed quality assurance?
  • What does it mean when seeds are “certified”?
  • What are “quality declared seeds”?
  • What work does FAO do on seeds?
  • What do seed policies aim to do?
  • What is seed security, and why is it important?
  • What does FAO do to help farmers after a disaster?
  • Why not just give food instead of seeds?
  • How do seeds help farmers recover after disasters?
  • Where does FAO get the seeds it gives to farmers?
  • How does FAO decide what kind of seed help to provide?
  • How do emergency seed responses help farmers become more resilient to future disasters?
  • What’s the difference between hybrid crop varieties and other types of varieties?
  • Are older, farmers’ varieties better than newer ones?
  • What would happen if we lost a crop variety?
  • How do farmers learn about new crop varieties?
  • How are harsh environmental conditions affecting crop varieties?
  • Does FAO tell farmers which crop varieties to use?

Comprehensive, as I say. Even genebanks get a shout-out:

Crop variety loss also reduces the diversity of our cropping systems, thus making them more vulnerable to stresses. That’s why conservation is so important. By safeguarding inter- and intra-specific diversity of crops in genebanks and through on-farm management of diversity varieties are prevented from disappearing forever, their useful traits are documented, and this diversity remains available for the current and future generations. Conserved varieties are an essential resource for plant breeders, as they can be sources of important traits, such as stress resistance or nutritional quality, to be incorporated into new crop varieties.

Though I would personally have maybe included a nod to the potential direct role of genebanks in seed systems. Feeding breeding pipelines is surely not the only way genebanks can make an impact, especially for so-called neglected and underutilized crops — or opportunity crops as we should now call them I guess.

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Brainfood: Targets, Plant Treaty, Decolonization, Fonio germination, Recalcitrant seeds, Microbiome, Taro seed system

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Gaps galore in collards collections

Quick follow-up to my post a few days ago on the recent study of the origin of the collard greens grown in the Moroccan oases of the Draa and Ziz valleys.

Ethnobotanists Bronwen Powell and Abderrahim Ouarghidi used historical texts, linguistics, and Indigenous knowledge in their investigation, but of course it’s also possible to use genetics to figure out where the plants may have came from. Especially as there are plenty of accessions labelled Brassica oleracea var. acephala in the genebanks that share their data on Genesys — just over 1500 in fact.

Alas, that might in practice turn out to be tricky, though, due to the somewhat — ahem — skewed geographic distribution of the accessions in question. The yellow circles in the map below show the approximate locations of those oases on the edge of the Sahara.

Still worth trying, in my view, but really more than anything this should be an encouragement to do some more collecting. Or get more genebanks on Genesys. Or identify more B. oleracea accessions to variety level. Or…

What else has been collected in the Draa and Ziz valleys or thereabouts? Surprisingly little, mainly wheat, barley, chickpea, faba bean and alfalfa. The general location of the valleys is now shown by white squares.

Incidentally, the. map below is where ChatGPT thinks collards are grown around he world. I really have no idea how accurate it is. I hope someone will tell us.

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Nibbles: Middle East genebanks, American crabapples, Community seed banks, Indian banana genebank, Legume breeder spotlight, Agrobiodiversity tourism

  1. The Lebanese and Syrian genebanks in the news. For good reasons, for now at least.
  2. Wild American apples should be more in the news. And probably more in genebanks.
  3. Community seed banks could be good news in fragile states.
  4. Good news for India’s banana diversity. Yes, it now has a genebank!
  5. All those genebanks need breeders, like Mina Nešić.
  6. Genebanks are nice of course, but it’s even better news when the agrobiodiversity gets out and about.
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When the levee breaks

A piece in The Tribune, an English-language daily out of Punjab, reminded me that we have discussed crop diversity and flooding quite a bit here over the years. The article, entitled “Community seed banks help flood-hit Punjab farmers restore crop productivity,” discusses how an initiative of Punjab Agricultural University supported farmers to establish community-level repositories of crop diversity that are turning out to be useful in recovering from recent flood.

Sharing his experience, Paramjeet Singh, a farmer from Baopur Jadid, said that timely access to quality seeds through the community seed bank enabled him to sow his crop without delay and achieve a yield of around 23 quintals per acre.

Farmers acknowledged that the initiative has significantly reduced reliance on outside seed sources, minimised sowing delays, and improved overall crop outcomes. They are also retaining seed of the new wheat variety PBW 872 for the next season. The initiative has strengthened local seed exchange systems and enhanced community preparedness against climate-related challenges. By ensuring the availability of quality seeds within villages, the Community Seed Bank initiative is contributing to sustainable agricultural development and improving the livelihood security of farmers in flood-affected areas.

A couple of points about this are worth noting.

First, only improved varieties are mentioned in the article, but normally community seed banks will also conserve local landraces. I don’t know if this is the case in Punjab, but I do hope so. As Jeremy put it here all of 15 years ago, in a post on a study of rebuilding cowpea cultivation after flooding in Mozambique, that and similar experiences support “the more general conclusion that seeds already in the local system offer the best chance of restoration.” Although do read the comments to that post. It seems that in another case some farmers weren’t particularly interested in recovering the exact varieties they had lost.

Which brings me to the second point. Which is that I also hope that those community seed banks have good links with the national genebank. This can act both as back-up and as a source of new diversity, as I suggested myself in a more recent post after floods in Pakistan.