- Did you miss us? Well, we’re making up for lost time today. Buckle up.
- Seafaring mangoes.
- India to help PNG get (another?) genebank.
- Somebody mention taro? The Chinese are coming.
- Strawberries for Christmas.
- Handheld genotyping. Brave new world.
- All the sheep in the world.
- Trees > lungs.
- Pink pineapple. Yeah, why not.
- Tuscan olives are Etruscan.
- Wonder if they’ll survive.
- Fermentation never went away.
- Case in point #1: pulque.
- Which is a cousin of mezcal.
- Case in point #2: cheese.
- Of which this is the most expensive, apparently.
- 2018 is the year of italian food, according to italians.
- Maybe they’ll use this infographic to advertize it.
- The transatlantic history of a mainstay of italian cooking, the tomato.
- Which looks really diverse in the Canaries too.
- “Food spy” is a bit harsh on Fairchild.
- Wonder if he ever collected vanilla.
- Or potatoes.
- Hero is about right for Segenet.
Did someone say mainstream?
And the inevitable follow-up:
Oh they are. https://t.co/zxB4bqD2rg
— Vivian Bernau, PhD (@vbern) January 10, 2018
Brainfood: Maize diversity, Genetic ecology, SeedStor, Conservation impact, Women & seed, Wild pea, Wild walnuts, Livestock 4 wildlife
- Contributions of Zea mays subspecies mexicana haplotypes to modern maize. That’s the highland teosinte, not the lowland from which maize was domesticated, and 10% of the maize genome shows some evidence of introgression from it.
- The ecological importance of intraspecific variation. …is comparable to that of interspecific variation.
- SeedStor: A Germplasm Information Management System and Public Database. Interested in the John Inness Centre’s genebank? Here, go crazy.
- From displacement activities to evidence-informed decisions in conservation. It’s all about impact.
- Breeding next generation tree fruits: technical and legal challenges. Not going to be easy.
- Women’s empowerment through seed improvement and seed governance: Evidence from participatory barley breeding in pre-war Syria. What is done locally may be undone globally.
- Genomic diversity and macroecology of the crop wild relatives of domesticated pea. P. fulvum is a good species, P. sativum subsp. elatius has 5 mainly geographic clusters; genetic diversity likely to be impacted by climate change.
- Demographically idiosyncratic responses to climate change and rapid Pleistocene diversification of the walnut genus Juglans (Juglandaceae) revealed by whole-genome sequences. Every walnut species is different.
- The consequences of replacing wildlife with livestock in Africa. More fires, woody species and methane.
Nibbles: Pacific foodways, Taro in Hawaii, Supply chains double, Millet year, Olam Prize, Cicer breeding, Polly the Pig, Virtual Horticultural Library
- Food sovereignty — or lack of it — in the Pacific.
- That should probably start with taro.
- Could the banks help?
- Or blockchain?
- How about an international year?
- And better seed laws?
- Let’s change the subject…
- ICARDA durum breeders run towards the problem, use wild relatives, win prize.
- Wild relatives are good for chickpea improvement too.
- Don’t worry, if we lose an animal breed, we can always get it back. Kinda sorta.
- Source of information on heirloom varieties. Yes, there’s probably something similar for pigs.
Crop genomics conference in the past, but only just
Sorry, everyone, I should have given a shout-out to the Crops Genomics: Present & Future conference at ICRISAT, which started yesterday. All the usual social media channels are in play, and the tweeting has been considerable already. But what I don’t see, yet, is concrete applications to make the work of genebank managers (as opposed to breeders) easier and more effective. Or is that the future part?