- New emperor, new rice.
- Breeders discover GxE.
- The Millennium Seed Bank is not just for millennials.
- ICARDA’s genebank in the news again.
- ICRISAT’s gene-jockeys have their 15 minutes.
- Australia’s genebank in the news again too.
- Maybe they should sort out macadamia next.
- How botany works. Lots from Oz today.
- Foraging in Berlin.
- Kenya sees the agricultural biodiversity light.
- Video on CWR from Mexico.
Brainfood: Napier diversity, Clover expansion, Social media & conservation, Orphan crops double, Rewilding chestnut, N-fixing trees, Horse diversity double, Steppe weed, Old medicinals, Wild dates, Sorghum resistance
- Genotyping by sequencing provides new insights into the diversity of Napier grass (Cenchrus purpureus) and reveals variation in genome-wide LD patterns between collections. Complementarity between ILRI and Embrapa collections.
- Breaking Free: the Genomics of Allopolyploidy-facilitated Niche Expansion in White Clover. From two quite different, specialized habitats, to a global presence, through polyploidy.
- Likes, comments, and shares of marine organism imagery on Facebook. Use really nice pictures, and don’t worry too much about the captions.
- African Orphan Crops Consortium (AOCC): status of developing genomic resources for African orphan crops. 150 African breeders trained, one or more forms of sequence data produced for 60 crops, reference genome sequences for 6 species published, 6 near completion, 19 in progress.
- The role of genetics in mainstreaming the production of new and orphan crops to diversify food systems and support human nutrition. Well it’s a good job there’s the above, then.
- Evaluation of sites for the reestablishment of the American chestnut (Castanea dentata) in northeast Georgia, USA. Overwhelmingly on federal land, which may or may not be a good thing.
- Patterns of nitrogen‐fixing tree abundance in forests across Asia and America. Much rarer in Asia than in the Americas.
- Tracking Five Millennia of Horse Management with Extensive Ancient Genome Time Series. Iberian and Siberian domesticated horse lineages went extinct, but the Muslim conquests injected some much-needed diversity.
- Chinese Mongolian horses may retain early domestic male genetic lineages yet to be discovered. Wait, does Mongolian=Siberian?
- Cannabis in Asia: its center of origin and early cultivation, based on a synthesis of subfossil pollen and archaeobotanical studies. The northeastern Tibetan Plateau, to be precise, with the first steppe communities.
- Paleomedicine and the use of plant secondary compounds in the Paleolithic and Early Neolithic. Self-medication goes back a long time.
- Genetic characterization of tertiary relict endemic Phoenix theophrasti populations in Turkey and phylogenetic relations of the species with other palm species revealed by SSR markers. Probably endangered.
- Genome wide association analysis of sorghum mini core lines regarding anthracnose, downy mildew, and head smut. 9 photo-sensitive and 4 photo insensitive accessions are multiple sources for resistance to anthracnose, SDM and head smut.
Nibbles: Retiring Ellis, Teff patent, Rice in Bangladesh, Indian wild wheat, Livestock wild relatives, Bambara groundnut, Han diversity, Danone cultures, Drumming, IPBES, World Bee Day, Agroforestry
- Dave Ellis retires, world celebrates. Wait, that came out wrong…
- The Dutch teff patent saga.
- Saving rice diversity in Bangladesh.
- Conserving and using wild wheat in India.
- Livestock have wild relatives too.
- It’s the “minor” crops, stupid.
- The most expensive pistachios in the world.
- Human diversity and domestication in E Asia, summarized in a cool map.
- Open yoghurt.
- The connection between Nigerian music and watermelons. Yes, there is one.
- Summarizing reaction to IPBES.
- Happy World Bee Day.
- Oh, and I almost forgot, follow the livestream of the World Congress on Agroforestry.
Brainfood: Rice longevity, HTFP, Carob diversity, Coffee diversity, Tea in China, In situ CWR, Hot potatoes, Luffa diversity, Sorghum production constraints, Flax diversity, Fox snout drugs, Hybrids and adaptation
- A high proportion of beta-tocopherol in vitamin E is associated with poor seed longevity in rice produced under temperate conditions. The ratio of different antioxidants is an indicator of seed longevity.
- Review: High-throughput phenotyping to enhance the use of crop genetic resources. Phenomics is the new genomics.
- Genetic structure analysis and selection of a core collection for carob tree germplasm conservation and management. NE Spain is different to the rest.
- Population structure and genetic relationships between Ethiopian and Brazilian Coffea arabica genotypes revealed by SSR markers. Western Ethiopian diversity is largely untapped.
- Clustering analysis for wild ancient tea germplasm resources in Debao County and Longlin County, Guangxi based on SSR molecular markers. They’re quite different to tea from others parts of China.
- Modeling of crop wild relative species identifies areas globally for in situ conservation. 150 sites needed for 65% of 1200 CWR species in 167 genepools.
- Heat Tolerance in Diploid Wild Potato Species In Vitro. S. kurtzianum and S. sogarandinum were the most heat tolerant.
- The establishment of the species-delimits and varietal-identities of the cultivated germplasm of Luffa acutangula and Luffa aegyptiaca in Sri Lanka using morphometric, organoleptic and phylogenetic approaches. The less grown species tasted better.
- A Regional Comparison of Factors Affecting Global Sorghum Production: The Case of North America, Asia and Africa’s Sahel. New varieties needed, and seed exchange.
- The genetic structure of flax illustrates environmental and anthropogenic selections that gave rise to its eco-geographical adaptation. 4 major groups: Temperate, South Asian, Abyssinian and Mediterranean.
- Chemical evidence for the use of multiple psychotropic plants in a 1,000-year-old ritual bundle from South America. Well that’s like your opinion, man.
- Hybridization speeds adaptive evolution in an eight-year field experiment. n=2, but still.
It’s Meyer time!
There’s nothing on the website yet, but it looks like Dr Tom Payne, genebank manager at CIMMYT, has been awarded the Frank N. Meyer Medal for Plant Genetic Resources for 2019. This is richly deserved. Congratulations to Tom, who joins a very illustrious club.
Tom will no doubt celebrate in the newly refurbished lobby of the genebank.
This morning at @CIMMYT's HQ, we inaugurated the new lobby of the Wellhausen-Anderson Plant Genetic Resources Center.
The multi-disciplinary team that led this revamp has truly honored the maize and wheat diversity safeguarded in the genebank. pic.twitter.com/bWN33zrRRR— MartinKropff (@KropffMartin) April 26, 2019