Genebanks

May 11, 2016May 11, 2016

CWR front and centre

Screen Shot 2016-05-11 at 8.59.14 AM To coincide with the State of the World’s Plants Symposium, which starts today, Kew have just dropped a monumental report of the same name, complete with fancy website. Nice to see crop wild relatives get a decent amount of space (p. 21) in the section on useful plants. Oh, and the report and symposium come along with some good funding news for Kew.

Speaking of funding for crop wild relatives:

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) today announced a five-year partnership to provide funding to broaden the scope of The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. This will significantly increase knowledge on the extinction risk of more than 28,000 species, including many that are key food sources for a significant portion of the global population.
…
IUCN experts have chosen to focus much of the newly funded research on the populations of plants and fish that billions of people depend on as a vital source of food. These will include species of wild rice and wheat that are crucial to food security because they are the source of genetic material used to increase the yield, fertility and resistance to disease of staple crops produced by farmers across the world.

Don’t see any of this happening even a few years back. Do you?

Prof Kathy Willis @kewgardens @KewScience putting #plants on the map #SOTWP pic.twitter.com/g45pTxZPfk

— David Cope (@DrDrCope) May 11, 2016

May 9, 2016May 5, 2016

Brainfood: Old chestnuts, Seed networks, Seed health, Soybean GWAS, Quinoa ABS, Taro breeding

Mapping the Genetic Diversity of Castanea sativa: Exploiting Spatial Analysis for Biogeography and Conservation Studies. Mapping genetic data is both fun and instructive.
Effects of farmer social status and plant biocultural value on seed circulation networks in Vanuatu. Big Men control Important Plants.
Diagnostics of Seed-Borne Plant Pathogens for Safe Introduction and Healthy Conservation of Plant Genetic Resources. Genebanks need seed health labs.
Characterization of Disease Resistance Loci in the USDA Soybean Germplasm Collection using Genome-wide Associations. Phenotypic data in GRIN meets SNP data, hilarity ensues.
The global expansion of quinoa: trends and limits. From 8 to 75 countries in 35 years. But need new arrangements for access and benefit sharing for genetic resources.
Evaluation of Vegetative Growth, Yield and Quality Related Traits in Taro (Colocasia esculenta [L.] Schott). A lot of the characters you want to improve are strongly heritable.

May 4, 2016

Will international tea party include genebanks?

Announcements such as this from UC Davis, of the launch of the Global Tea Initiative, make me wish there was a market for roving agrobiodiversity bloggers and tweeters. Alas, I’m reduced to the usual ploy of asking participants if they’d like to blog the thing for us.

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Will genebanks be discussed? There aren’t that many collections around the world, and one of them, in Japan, accounts for 7,500 of the 11,700 accessions WIEWS knows about. And where’s China? Can’t help thinking that’s not altogether healthy. Lots to talk about…

May 2, 2016May 1, 2016

Brainfood: Sesame diversity, Teff & drought, Semen bank, Forest genomic monitoring, Sahiwal cattle status, Genomic prediction, Ecuadorian homegardens, Spinach association mapping, ICRISAT pigeonpea & pearl millet, Women & milpa, African rice at AfricaRice, Bacteria helping wheat

Analysis of Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Sesame Accessions from Africa and Asia as Major Centers of Its Cultivation. Strong geographic structure, and more diversity in Asia than Africa.
Performance of Tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter] Genotypes for Yield and Yield Components Under Drought-Stressed and Non-Stressed Conditions. Out of 144 genotypes, 15 were good in ideal conditions, 8 under stress, and none, alas, in both cases.
Genome resource banks pay conservation dividends. Banked semen from “genetically valuable” individuals used to slightly raise diversity in captive populations. Of black-footed ferrets.
Conservation and Monitoring of Tree Genetic Resources in Temperate Forests. Theory.
Logging by selective extraction of best trees: Does it change patterns of genetic diversity? The case of Nothofagus pumilio. Praxis: maybe.
Population structure and demographic trends of the registered Sahiwal cattle in Kenya. It’s losing diversity, so Something Must Be Done.
Genomic Prediction of Gene Bank Wheat Landraces. It’s not perfect, but not bad either.
Plant diversity and ecosystem services in Amazonian homegardens of Ecuador. Ethnicity is the stongest determinant of floristic composition.
Association mapping of leaf traits in spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.). “Five, seven and 14 SNPs were identified to be associated with surface texture, edge shape and petiole colour, respectively.”
Pre-breeding to expand primary genepool through introgression of genes from wild Cajanus species for pigeonpea improvement. Even the tertiary genepool is interesting.
Characterization and genetic potential of African pearl millet named landraces conserved at the ICRISAT genebank. 5 agronomic clusters, each with good stuff, but different good stuff.
The participation of farm women in the milpa system of the Yucatán, Mexico. …is minimal.
Screening African rice (Oryza glaberrima) for tolerance to abiotic stresses: I. Fe toxicity. 3 out of 2000!
Alleviation of salt stress by halotolerant and halophilic plant growth-promoting bacteria in wheat (Triticum aestivum). Not by a huge amount. For one wheat variety. In hydroponics.

April 27, 2016

Nibbles: Bears loose cherry, Swiss cheese birth, Aussie genebank, Palestinian genebank, Wine genebank, Mexican maize, Beer in Israel & Germany

Bears shit wild cherry seeds in the woods. But uphill.
The origins of Swiss cheese. And I mean WAY back.
The Australian Grains Genebank in the news. Well deserved too.
Likewise the new Palestinian genebank.
And the Bourgogne grapevine genebank too, since we’re at it.
Saving popcorn.
Jesus’ beer recreated. But would it pass the German purity law?