Genebanks

November 29, 2016November 30, 2016

Re-establishing ICARDA’s genebank

One of the reasons I’ve been a bit behind with my blogging in the past month or so is that I’ve been doing a lot of travelling. It shouldn’t matter, you can blog from any hotel room with a half decent wifi connection of course, but the reality is that it can be difficult to find the time, not to mention the energy.

Anyway, just to prove that I was doing some work, here’s some evidence from my visit to the new ICARDA genebank in Morocco. You’ll remember that the collection that used to be just outside Aleppo in Syria is now being re-established in Terbol, Lebanon and Rabat, Morocco with material that was retrieved from the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in late 2015. Earlier this year, we published a shot of the first set of seeds from Svalbard growing in the field at the ICARDA research station in Merchouch, Morocco.

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Here’s the second lot ready for planting, guarded by Ahmed Armi, head of the ICARDA Genetic Resources Section.

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Here is the field being prepared, and the packets of seeds ready for planting.

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And here, finally, are Ahmed’s staff actually putting the seed into the ground for multiplication. They did about 4,000 cereal accessions in a couple of days the week before last.

In a few months, rain willing, the field will look like it did above, last February, and the whole thing can be repeated again. A genebank’s work never ends.

November 21, 2016November 10, 2016

Brainfood: Food diversity, Vigna salt tolerance, Medicinal rice, Sustainable intensification, US wild potatoes, Ethiopian potatoes, Temperate rice, Brazilian maize, Soybean cores, Pea cores, Danish cattle viability

On-Farm Crop Species Richness Is Associated with Household Diet Diversity and Quality in Subsistence- and Market-Oriented Farming Households in Malawi. Correlation is not causation, but one gets one’s victories where one can.
Agroecology and healthy food systems in semi-humid tropical Africa: Participatory research with vulnerable farming households in Malawi. See above.
Diversity and Evolution of Salt Tolerance in the Genus Vigna. Salt tolerance has evolved at least 4 times in the genus among coastal species.
An ethnobotanical study of traditional rice landraces (Oryza sativa L.) used for medical treatment in selected local communities of the Philippines. 19 landraces are used to treat a variety of nutritional and other complaints.
Is it time for a socio-ecological revolution in agriculture? Sustainable intensification is often neither.
Core Collections of Potato (Solanum) Species Native to the USA. Only two species, but more collecting needed, though one population of one of the species captures 82% of total AFLP bands. In other news, people still using AFLPs.
Genetic Diversity and Relationship of Ethiopian Potato Varieties to Germplasm from North America, Europe and the International Potato Center. 15 unique Ethiopian genotypes reflects 2 distinct introductions from Europe.
Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Rice Varieties Cultivated in Temperate Regions. 217 varieties from temperate regions show much diversity, structured by grain type and origin.
Genetic Vulnerability and the Relationship of Commercial Germplasms of Maize in Brazil with the Nested Association Mapping Parents. Brazilian commercial maize hybrids are pretty diverse, but show little overlap with the diversity of the NAM parents.
Evaluation of resistance to Phytophthora sojae in soybean mini core collections using an improved assay system. Resistant materials made up about a third of the world mini-core, but <10% of the Japanese mini-core.
Genetic Diversity of Chinese and Global Pea (Pisum sativum L.) Collections. The USDA global core was more diverse than the Chinese core, which was pretty diverse anyway.
Population viability analysis on a native Danish cattle breed. Jutland cattle has 122 years if nothing is done, but things can be done.

November 14, 2016November 15, 2016

Brainfood: Mate diversity, Species recovery, CC & food, Microbial collections, Chickpea roots, African flora, Bitter gourd diversity, Wild yeast, Cryo double

Genetic and phytochemical analysis to evaluate the diversity and relationships of mate (Ilex paraguariensis A. St.-Hil.) elite genetic resources in a germplasm collection. Some have low caffeine, which makes them especially useless.
Genetic factors in threatened species recovery plans on three continents. Are ignored more often than you’d think.
Climate Change and Food Systems Research: Current Trends and Future Directions. Current research on the effects of climate change on food systems doesn’t pay enough attention to the fact that food production is indeed a system, varies regionally and depends on political structures.
World data centre for microorganisms: an information infrastructure to explore and utilize preserved microbial strains worldwide. All you need to know about 708 culture collections from 72 countries and >368,000 strains on one website.
Characterising root trait variability in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) germplasm. Core collection of 270 reveals 3 main groups based on root architecture in hydroponics.
RAINBIO: a mega-database of tropical African vascular plants distributions. Who will fillet out the CWR species?
Genetic Variability for Yield and Nutritional Quality in Yam Bean (Pachyrhizus sp.). Can’t access the high dry matter material? No problem.
Diversity Among a Wide Asian Collection of Bitter Gourd Landraces and their Genetic Relationships with Commercial Hybrid Cultivars. 114 accessions fall into 5 geographic groups based on SSRs. Commercial cultivars are all very similar.
Yeast biodiversity from Vitis vinifera L., subsp. sylvestris (Gmelin) Hegi to face up the oenological consequences of climate change. Yeasts from wild grapes will save our wine. Look, I’ll take anything.
The Potato Cryobank at the International Potato Center (CIP): A Model for Long Term Conservation of Clonal Plant Genetic Resources Collections of the Future. 70% of over 1000 accessions are considered successfully cryoconserved.
Probabilistic viability calculations for cryopreserving vegetatively propagated collections in genebanks. Were these used in the above?

November 10, 2016November 10, 2016

Genebank accessions to restore old Romanian shirts

The National Museum of the Romanian Peasant has a heritage textile collection, and the odd shirt and carpet understandably occasionally needs restoration. So the museum has launched the interdisciplinary MYTHOS project (Development of Advanced Compatible Materials and Techniques and their Application for the Protection, Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage Assets)…

…which…aims to obtain fibres, yarns and fabrics which will serve as reference materials. They will be greatly similar, biologically and technologically, to the fabrics used in the heritage textiles containing bast fibres. In this way, all restoration and conservation work will be safely carried out, while respecting the cultural and historical value of these heritage objects.

Since flax is not much grown any more in Romania, the museum had to go to genebanks in Germany and elsewhere to obtain old varieties.

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It is also processing the resulting fibre according to traditional methods, and has come up with an artificial ageing process. But that’s not all. The idea is to also revitalize hemp cultivation.

In Romania, the efforts to revitalize the tradition of flax and hemp cultivation follow two directions: an industrial one, focused mainly on the export of seeds and a traditional one, targeting rural households. At this stage of the project, with a view of developing the second direction, we have involved a small producer of traditional fibres. A unique project, “Manual weaving”, undertaken and coordinated by Mr. Andrei Sas, is involved in the marketing of fabrics made from natural fibres: hemp, cotton, wool. Through this activity, it has become a keeper of local traditional weaving techniques, proving that artisans can contribute through their products to their own welfare and that of the region, thus supplementing their income.

Now here’s a fun use of genebank accessions.

November 9, 2016

A giant of seed conservation passes away

His work showed that long-term seed storage was not only feasible but also relatively inexpensive, and he played a key role in setting up and managing seed banks. In the mid-1970s he chaired the expert group on seed storage of the International Board For Plant Genetic Resources, which was aiming to conserve crop diversity. There are now more than 1,400 seed banks all over the world.

That would be Prof. Eric Roberts. “Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice.”