- To diversify or not to diversify, that is the question. Pursuing agricultural development for smallholder farmers in marginal areas of Ghana. Diversify.
- Improving grain yield, stress resilience and quality of bread wheat using large-scale genomics. A genotype –> phenotype map at last. I guess that means breeders are superfluous.
- The earliest recorded tomato in Britain, in Wales. In 1590, no less.
- Biotechnology of the sweetpotato: ensuring global food and nutrition security in the face of climate change. A whole special issue. Our troubles are over.
- Probabilistic global maps of crop-specific areas from 1961 to 2014. A new, different, cooler algorithm provides somewhat different results to older, less cool algorithms.
- Potential adaptive strategies for 29 sub-Saharan crops under future climate change. Climatic conditions not currently experienced by these crops will spread, but CWRs and diversity from outside Africa might help.
- Trans Situ Conservation of Crop Wild Relatives. Just means properly integrated in and ex situ.
- Criar y Dejarse Criar: Trans-Situ Crop Conservation and Indigenous Landscape Management through a Network of Global Food Neighborhoods. See what it means? Scaling up the Parque de la Papa.
- Harnessing global fisheries to tackle micronutrient deficiencies. Small fish from the tropics could be really good for nutrition in some countries. Namibia, I’m looking at you.
- Artificial seed aging reveals the invisible fraction: Implications for evolution experiments using the resurrection approach. Store your seeds properly.
- Status of Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Genepool Collected from Western Ghats Region of India: Gap Analysis and Diversity Distribution Mapping using GIS Tools. Out of 678 rice landraces from this region, 43 have been used in crop improvement.
- Advancing an Integrative Framework to Evaluate Sustainability in National Dietary Guidelines. In 32 sub-dimensions, no less. Important.
- Assembly and characterisation of a unique onion diversity set identifies resistance to Fusarium basal rot and improved seedling vigour. Group according to local daylength.
- Australian wild rice populations: a key resource for global food security. Because they’ve been isolated from the crop.
- Novel method for evaluation of anaerobic germination in rice and its application to diverse genetic collections. No word on whether it’s applicable to Aussie wild species, but I bet it is.
Nibbles: Forages, Zimbabwe policy, Kyrgyz nuts, Warwick vegetables, Asparagus breeder
- Brachiaria is the new Napier grass.
- Zimbabwe has a new seed conservation strategy.
- Agroforestry in Kyrgyzstan.
- Podcast on the Warwick University veggies genebank.
- Award for asparagus breeding. Somebody has to do it…
Diversity of genebanks meet in Hanoi
The light blogging this past week was because of the annual meeting of the CGIAR Genebank Platform. I’ll be writing about it presently, but in the meantime, you can check out #genebanks2019 to get a flavour of the proceedings.
Nibbles: Phenotyping, Capsicum expert, Svalbard kudos, Yippee-ki-yay, Future Seeds, Bottoms up, Maps galore, Knepp Wildland Project
- Agar plates, hydroponics, or field? The best way to do your phenotyping in one handy chart.
- Pioneering chilli expert Fabián García inducted into the National Agricultural Center’s Hall of Fame.
- Svalbard Global Seed Vault makes Top 10 of Project Management Institute’s best 50 projects, between M-Pesa and Netflix.
- Saving horse breeds in the USA.
- CIAT’s new genebank is in the works.
- Beer companies try to save their water supply. No word on what they plan to do about saving barley and hops diversity.
- World Bank maps biodiversity and the threats it faces. No plants, but still interesting. Opening the buggers is not easy, though.
- Wildland farming in the UK. A glimpse of the beckoning post-Brexit future.
Brainfood: Tea diversity, Sorghum CWR, Wine certification, Salty maize, Broadening cacao, Wild emmer evolution, Wheat breeding, Nutrition info, Indian rice, Dietary diversity treble, Potato enhancement
- Assessment of Genetic Diversity of Tea Germplasm for Its Management and Sustainable Use in Korea Genebank. There’s not enough.
- Crop wild relatives as a genetic resource for generating low-cyanide, drought-tolerant Sorghum. From Australia, of all places.
- Consumers’ preferences for biodiversity in vineyards: a choice experiment on wine. Even buyers of cheap plonk are willing to pay for biodiversity.
- Characterization of natural genetic variation identifies multiple genes involved in salt tolerance in maize. 8 of them, at least.
- Extending the cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) gene pool with underrepresented genotypes: growth and yield traits. Lots of potential for broadening the base of the crop in West Africa.
- Elevated mutation and selection in wild emmer wheat in response to 28 years of global warming. Evolution continues, but not necessarily in a good way.
- Genetic Gains in Wheat Breeding and Its Role in Feeding the World. Focusing on ICARDA and CIMMYT. How much would have been possible without the genebanks?
- Agriculture–nutrition linkages in farmers’ communication networks. You can spread nutrition information through existing agricultural extension channels, but you have to be gender sensitive and some people may be excluded. Twas ever thus.
- Population genetics analyses of North-East Indian indigenous rice landraces revealed divergent history and alternate origin of aroma in aus group. A real melting pot.
- Review: Meta-analysis of the association between production diversity, diets, and nutrition in smallholder farm households. Increasing production diversity won’t always lead to improved diets. But it could.
- Farm-Level Agricultural Biodiversity in the Peruvian Andes Is Associated with Greater Odds of Women Achieving a Minimally Diverse and Micronutrient Adequate Diet. Like here for instance.
- Farm-Level Agricultural Biodiversity Is Not the Principal Contributor to Diverse and Micronutrient-Rich Diets, nor to Overall Food Consumption in Smallholder Farm Households. Or maybe not.
- Potato Germplasm Enhancement Enters the Genomics Era. About time? Or jumping the gun?