- Video of the Canadian genebank.
- First video in series on Indian women farmers: Bowing to No One, by Sarah Khan.
- Whole bunch of coconut videos. See what I did there?
- Good news for cricketers: willow variety catalog out.
- The skinny of what crop models say about the effects of climate change. Spoiler alert: it ain’t good.
- The latest call for a new Green Revolution.
- Safe to say cantaloupes won’t feature much in that, which is a pity.
- Maybe some other weird plants will, though.
- Wild camels are pretty tough. And since we’re on the subject, what’s a heritage animal breed?
- Wait, they solved dog domestication?
- Top 100 development research questions for our SDG world, including ten on food security and agriculture.
Yes, we have bananas
What better way to start the new year than with an attractive catalog of banana accessions from USDA? Especially as, coincidentally, the Musa Germplasm Information System also debuts a new iteration of the website. This from a Facebook post today:
It is now possible to order ITC accessions from MGIS, an online database on genebank accessions of wild and cultivated bananas. The latest release also added information on 1,288 accessions for a total of 3,630 accessions maintained in 11 field and in vitro collections.
That Mai’a Maoli Eka cultivar in the photo from the USDA catalog of course features in MGIS, so you can order it if you like the look of it…
Ah no, wait. According to GRIN, it’s not available. Bummer.
Brainfood: Grazing, Dung beetles, Intensification, Pineapple diversity, Grassland N
- Behavioural Response of Pure Ankole and Crossbred (Ankole x Holstein) Cows to Seasonal Pasture Variations in Southwestern Uganda. The cross-bred cows have to eat for longer than the local breed, which makes for problems during both wet and dry seasons.
- Functionally rich dung beetle assemblages are required to provide multiple ecosystem services. It’s not just about the dung removal. No word on whether cross-bred dung tastier.
- Swiddens under transition: Consequences of agricultural intensification in the Amazon. Intensification without diversification is going to be a problem.
- Developing single nucleotide polymorphism markers for the identification of pineapple (Ananas comosus) germplasm. High redundancy in the USDA collection, and little correspondence between horticultural classifications and genotyping.
- Grassland biodiversity bounces back from long-term nitrogen addition. Pollution bad for grassland biodiversity, stopping pollution good for grassland biodiversity.
News from IPK
A workshop on “Genetic Resources: Conservation and Trait Improvement” is going on for the next couple of days at the German national federal genebank in Gatersleben. Our mole in the audience has just sent us the latest infographic on where IPK’s material goes. You saw it here first. Well, if you click on the photo you will see it here first.
How long can rice seeds stay alive for?
Of course, the answer is what it always is: it depends. But you can hear (and see) all the details thanks to Mike Jackson, who has made available on his blog both an audio file and the PowerPoint slides pertaining to a recent seminar on the subject by Fiona Hay of IRRI’s genebank. Thanks, Mike. And thank, Fiona.
And if the subject really grabs you, there’s a post-doc position going in France.