Genebanks

June 30, 2017June 30, 2017

Arise, Sir Daniel

From the Facebook page of the Crop Trust:

Our friends at CIAT inform us that yesterday Daniel Debouck received the Order of Leopold for his 40 years of service to the scientific community. Named in honour of King Leopold I, and awarded by Royal order, this is the highest order of Belgium. We congratulate Daniel, who’s one of the tireless scientists at the front lines of agro-biodiversity conservation. As head of the Genetic Resources Unit at CIAT, he’s made sure the world’s largest bean, cassava and forages collections are safe and available for plant breeders, researcher and farmers to use.

Since its inception, CIAT’s genebank has distributed more than half a million samples from 141 countries to requesters in more than 160 countries. Find out more here.

Well done, Daniel! Great to see the work of another genetic resources scientist being recognized.

Read more about Daniel’s work on a recent CIAT blog post, “On the trail of ancient treasure in Peru.”

June 28, 2017June 28, 2017

Maize for Haiti; but from Haiti?

Good news for hard-pressed Haitian farmers.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has grown 150 tons of renewed, improved maize seed that will be sent to Haitian farmers to help jump-start the country’s seed sector, improve local food security and decrease malnutrition. This will be the largest seed shipment to any country in CIMMYT’s history.

But are there any maize landraces left in Haiti that this much-needed effort will displace? If so, it will be important to collect them. Genesys lists 78 landraces from the country, most at the genebank of CIMMYT itself, collected thus:

Maybe enough. Maybe not…

June 26, 2017June 26, 2017

Brainfood: Banana GWAS, MGIS, Commodification and racialization, Native tree seeds, Tea in China, Potato in China, Indian eggplant, Rapid phenotyping, Ag & environment

Trait variation and genetic diversity in a banana genomic selection training population. You can use easy-to-measure traits as proxies for important but difficult-to-measure traits. Both of which will hopefully end up in…
MGIS: managing banana (Musa spp.) genetic resources information and high-throughput genotyping data. Very cool. So when can we expect the data in Genesys?
Heirloom rice in Ifugao: an ‘anti-commodity’ in the process of commodification. Calling a landrace a “heirloom variety” is just another form of capitalist oppression.
Race, Status, and Biodiversity: The Social Climbing of Quinoa. Not to mention racist.
To what extent are genetic resources considered in environmental service provision? A case study based on trees and carbon sequestration. Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) afforestation/reforestation project design documents are often unrealistic about the chances of sourcing sufficient quantity and quality of seeds of indigenous species.
Diversity analysis on catechin genetic of wild tea plant from Yunnan province. They determine whether a variety is used for green or black tea.
Genetic differences between potato strains introduced from International Potato Center (CIP) and domestic potato resources by SSR molecular markers. The CIP varieties are quite different to the Chinese ones. But we kinda knew that.
SSR marker analysis points to population admixture and continuum of genetic variation among Indian landraces of brinjal (Solanum melongena L.). Brinjal gets moved around a lot.
A high-throughput, field-based phenotyping technology for tall biomass crops. Estimate plant height and stem diameter in sorghum, say, without leaving the office.
Comparative analysis of environmental impacts of agricultural production systems, agricultural input efficiency, and food choice. Better for environment to change dietary habits than production systems.

June 26, 2017June 26, 2017

Botanical gardenfest takes root

The 6th Global Botanic Gardens Congress of Botanic Gardens Conservation International is being hosted by the Conservatory and Botanical Garden of Geneva, Switzerland, starting today. Follow with #6GBGC.

Oh, and there’s also Plant Biology 2017 in Hawaii, with #plantbio17. So many hashtags, so little time…

June 20, 2017June 20, 2017

Geoff Hawtin gets OBE

It’s been on social media, and the local papers, for a day or two already, but well worth a shout-out here as well. Dr Geoff Hawtin, lately of ICARDA, Bioversity, the Crop Trust, CIAT, Kew, and much else besides, an indefatigable champion for agricultural biodiversity in general and genebanks in particular in the service of development, was recognized in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List at the weekend.

Well deserved, and indeed long overdue.

Congratulations, Geoff!