Genebanks

January 29, 2016February 7, 2016

The status of wheat landraces in Tajikistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan

Six years in the making, FAO announced today the publication of surveys of wheat landraces in farmers’ fields in Tajikistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan. The work was done in collaboration with CIMMYT, ICARDA and national researchers. Although, perhaps surprisingly, dozens of landraces were still found — 162 distinct names in Turkey — they are certainly under threat:

Local landraces today account for less than 1 percent of total wheat production. Over the past 75 years, according to field surveys, the number of wheat landraces fell from 37 to 7 in Balikesir, a western province of Turkey.

Here’s the distribution of the landrace Zerun, according to the Turkey survey.

There are 14 accessions with this name listed in Genesys, and they do indeed come from the region in question, though mainly from close to roads (click to see better):

It was not clear to me from the report of the work in Turkey whether samples were taken for ex situ conservation, or at least genotypic comparison with existing accessions. But if this one landrace is anything to go by, there might still be scope for some gap-filling collecting.

January 26, 2016January 26, 2016

Nibbles: Value edition

Peru to give value to its biodiversity.
Germany already has, 500 years ago.
Cavendish bananas have a lot of value, but that won’t save them.
The UK’s vegetables genebank is very valuable.
But you can always add more value to genebank collections if you evaluate them, like IRRI’s going to do in an expensive new building.
I’m not sure what the value of Gold Rush-era heritage trees might be, but I think it’s really cool that someone’s looking for them.
The value of genetic engineering for drought tolerance is just around the corner.

January 25, 2016January 25, 2016

Brainfood: Lima bean cyanide, Hybrid powdery mildew, Amaranth core, Cotton core, Tibetan sheep, Water buffalo history

Herbivore damage induces a transgenerational increase of cyanogenesis in wild lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus). Lamarck lives.
Hybridization of powdery mildew strains gives rise to pathogens on novel agricultural crop species. Hybrid crop gives rise to hybrid pathogen.
Trait-specific Amaranth Germplasm—Potentialities to Combat Climate Change. From 5,804 accessions to 623 really useful ones.
Genetic diversity of the two commercial tetraploid cotton species in the Gossypium Diversity Reference Set. 100 SSRs on 2000 accessions yield really confusing results.
Genetic diversity estimates point to immediate efforts for conserving the endangered Tibetan sheep of India. Only 250 individuals, but still some genetic diversity. But for how long?
Water Buffalo Genomic Diversity and Post-Domestication Migration Routes. Two domestications, and some unexpected migration routes.

January 23, 2016January 25, 2016

Ban or breed?

I’m not sure I was aware of the fact that grasspea (khesari dal, or Lathyrus sativus) was actually banned in parts of India due to its toxicity. Devinder Sharma, a food and trade policy analyst, thinks the ban should not be lifted, International Year of Pulses notwithstanding. Instead, alternative crops should be promoted, such as pigeonpea (arhar, or Cajanus cajan). It’s interesting that there’s no Indian grasspea in the genebanks that Genesys knows about (red), ¹ in stark comparison to pigeonpea (blue).

dal

Lathyrism is a problem in situations where grasspea is pretty much the only thing you have to eat. In former times, when famines were more frequent, the ban probably made sense. But is this still the case? And in any case there’s also lots of research going on low-neurotoxin varieties. A ban is hardly likely to provide much of an incentive for such breeding work.

January 22, 2016January 25, 2016

Nibbles: Cashmere goat introduction, ICARDA kudos, Biodiverse software, Green Revolution wheat, Chickpea genomes (plural)

Coals to Newcastle: Afghan goat edition.
Middle East head of Gates Foundation praises ICARDA and its genebank.
New software for mapping biodiversity.
Wheat is special.
I see your 3000 rice genomes and I raise you 3000 chickpea genomes.