Genebanks

November 26, 2014November 27, 2014

The ins and outs of safety duplicating germplasm collections

On that issue of collaboration between national programmes and international genebanks, which we alluded to yesterday when we were talking about ICARDA and Morocco, it might be worth highlighting another example. We Nibbled this before, but it can stand a bit more exposure.

The new genebank of Embrapa, which opened in April this year at Cenargen, one of the 46 units of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation in Brasilia, received today (06/11) the first deposit from an international collection of plant genetic resources. This is a backup of [part of] the potato collection from CIP (International Potato Center) in Peru, which has four thousand samples of wild species and cultivated varieties, and is the most diverse and extensive in the world, as the country [together with neighbours] is the genetic cradle of this Andean crop. This first instalment consisted of 180 [in vitro] samples from nine varieties. The next shipment will be sent in February 2015 and by the middle of next year, probably the whole collection will have arrived in Brazil.

That’s a translation from an Embrapa press release, ¹ by me via Google Translate. Vegetatively propagated (or clonal) crops such as potato and cassava, which are conserved in the field and in tissue culture, require a bit more effort for safety duplication compared to seed crops. See, for example, what’s going on with bananas. It’s great to see CIP and Embrapa coming together in this way. Maybe Embrapa could also eventually safety duplicate in reciprocal fashion its own collections in the international centres. Its cassava clonal collection is very important, for example, and not safety duplicated. Look at Table 3 on page 21 of the global cassava conservation strategy (pdf), and then read the discussion on page 41:

Column 14 [of Table 3] indicates the importance of introducing national program accessions that are not yet represented in the international centers, for safety duplication (see also later sections). These low, medium and high priorities are based on number of in situ or ex situ materials not yet at CIAT or IITA, and the relative importance of that country’s cassava genetic diversity. Critical countries for further representation in the international centers are: Brazil, Peru, Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, D.R. Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania, along with several other countries of medium urgency.

Some seeds from Embrapa are already in Svalbard. But there’s no Svalbard for clonal collections, alas.

November 26, 2014November 26, 2014

Nibbles: Hunger Games, Nutritious markets, Plant secrets, Nutrition soundbites, Buckwheat panic, Olive oil panic, Cannabis breeding, Wild turkey genetics, Quinoa wars, Domestication infographics, Howard-Yana Shapiro

Do they know it’s Christmas? Stocking-filling books for do-gooders.
Wonder if any of them talk about using markets to deliver nutritious food.
The surprising secrets of baobabs, among other plants. I thought we knew all there was to know about baobabs, what with all those factsheets.
The Global Nutrition Report in 12 sound-bites. No sign of baobabs.
Russians in a tizzy about their buckwheat. If only they’d had a factsheet.
Everybody in a tizzy about European olive oil. Maybe they should try the American stuff?
“When skunk was created the people doing it had no idea they were altering the ratios of CBD and THC — they just kept breeding the plants that gave the strongest high and threw the rest away.” Ouch. But fear not, help is at hand.
Restoring wild turkey populations is screwing up its subspecific structure, pissing off taxonomists no end.
Bolivians do not appreciate cheap Peruvian quinoa. Hipsters unavailable for comment.
No, LA’s wild quinoa is not going to put too much of a dent in global food shortages, nor interest many hipsters, but it’s a fun story. Too bad wasn’t mashed up with the US crop wild relatives prize-winning paper.
Cool crop domestication infographics.
Plant geneticists are from Mars.

November 25, 2014November 23, 2014

Genebank fieldwork around the world

Readers may remember that last Friday was the day to be in Toluca, Mexico to see high-latitude Andean maize varieties being multiplied up by the CIMMYT genebank for the very first time. Well, Dr Denise Costich, who is in charge of that genebank, now tells us that it all went off without a hitch. I hope she won’t mind me reproducing her post and one of her photographs here for any maize aficionados who are not on Facebook.

By all accounts, our “Day of High-Altitude Maize” was a success! It was a bit crazy, with our catalogs arriving at the field just before our participants, but, they turned out well in the end. It was great to have Tom Payne and his team from the CIMMYT Wheat Bank there, and also Darell Sison, whom I really appreciate for his enthusiasm and interest in what we do. Tremendous thanks to my team, who worked really hard getting everything ready, and participated fully in the activities on the day–answering questions, acting as guides setting up the displays, taking everything down (very rapidly) as the rain clouds rolled in, etc. That includes Marcial Rivas, Cristian Zavala, Eduardo Velázquez and Paulina Gonzalez, among many others! A special shout out goes to Alex Velazquez, who helped out on so many different things–the invitation, the catalog, all were improved because of his dedication. We had a great discussion afterwards, making lists of what we did well, and what we need to improve…we’re already planning the next field day! the only thing we are really sad about is that we were so busy, we didn’t remember to take a photo of the Maize Bank staff–for the first time ever we had the whole permanent staff, from all three stations, in one place…here are a few photos to capture a bit of the action…

By the way, the maize genebank at CIMMYT does have a Facebook page, so if you want to follow their activities, go and “like” it.

Talking of the genebanks of CGIAR and their fieldwork, the week before last I was in Morocco seeing at first hand how another centre, ICARDA, is organizing itself now that access to its buildings and fields at Tel Hadya near Aleppo is so problematic. ICARDA now has a North Africa Platform, based in Morocco, bringing together most of its breeders as well as the genetic resources section. The Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) has given the centre 100 hectares at the Marchouch Station for use by these programmes. Here’s what the fields looked like about a week ago, ready for use for upcoming breeders’ trials and various genebank activities.

The actual station is in the distance, among the trees. Staff there were busy preparing seed when we visited.

photo 2 (1)

Those seeds included international nurseries from that other CIMMYT genebank, the wheat one, mentioned by Denise. ² Here’s proof, if any were needed, that collaboration among CGIAR centres, and especially their genebanks, is alive and well.

photo (35)

Best wishes to ICARDA in general, and the genebank in particular, on its strategic decentralization, and its exciting new relationship with the national programme in Morocco. And congratulations to CIMMYT for what sounds like a very successful outreach activity in Toluca last week.

November 24, 2014November 17, 2014

Brainfood: American pigs, Chinese cherries, Sustainable olive oil, Striga diversity, Low Cd durum, Amaranthus in Africa, Ramie core, Campania beans, Forage breeding overview

Genetic characterization of local Criollo pig breeds from the Americas using microsatellite markers. 17 populations from 11 countries derive from 11 ancestral populations, with geographic clustering in some places but not in others.
Physicochemical characterisation of four cherry species (Prunus spp.) grown in China. They’re all different.
Extra-virgin olive oil production sustainability in northern Italy: a preliminary study. Not quite there yet.
Genetic diversity of East and West African Striga hermonthica populations and virulence effects on a contrasting set of sorghum cultivars. Most of the variation in the parasite is within populations, but the most virulent populations are from Sudan.
Assessing diversity in Triticum durum cultivars and breeding lines for high versus low cadmium content in seeds using the CAPS marker usw47. Durum accumulates toxic Cd more than other cereals, but some varieties are better than others, and there are DNA markers to tell you which they are.
The Potential for Utilizing the Seed Crop Amaranth (Amaranthus spp.) in East Africa as an Alternative Crop to Support Food Security and Climate Change Mitigation. There is some.
Development of a core collection for ramie by heuristic search based on SSR markers. 22 accessions is all you need to represent 108. Which doesn’t seem particularly useful given the total collection is over 2000.
Morphological and genetic diversity among and within common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) landraces from the Campania region (Southern Italy). There is a bit, some of it even in agronomic traits.
Forage Breeding for Changing Environments and Production Systems: an Overview. Summary of 4th International Symposium of Forage Breeding. If you want to include all trending topics in one study, apply genomic selection to breeding for persistence.

November 23, 2014November 23, 2014

Nibbles: Farmers’ markets, Pacific news, Solanaceae news, Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems, Tibetan barley, Rice roundup, David Lobell interview, Native American crops, Mesopotamian recipe, Insectophagy, Cities, Land purchases, Dormancy in evolution, Bad news from some crops, Good news from others, Creative Commons at Gates

Hell of a week in the office again, so catching up on accumulated Nibbles on a Sunday. Because we’re here to serve.
Cynical, funny take on farmers’ markets: “No, I don’t save seeds. That’s time-consuming nonsense for backyard gardeners. Yes, I’ve heard of Monsanto. I’m a farmer. I know about goddamn Monsanto.”
Uncynical double from the Pacific: Samoa’s agricultural show and more detail on the aroid breeding work.
High tech breeding of solanaceous crops. Nothing like this for aroids yet, alas. Yeah, but first you have to collect the little blighters.
On the other hand, you also need an awareness of the past. Ask the Tibetans.
And here’s kind of an example of that involving rice in India. Compare with that first Nibble: seed saving not just for backyard gardeners after all? Convinced? Go do it, no, really. Or read Bob Zeigler; you can listen to him too. We could go back and forward on this forever. I know: let’s get some data.
And another example involving wild not-rice in the US and Canada. Though there are some things that haven’t survived quite as well among Native Americans as those wild rice recipes.
And speaking of ancient recipes, here’s one from another wetland, far far away from the above.
Yeah but not all ancient recipes are so resilient, take beetles for example.
Urban farming is big, needs to be bigger.
Meanwhile, agricultural land is being bought up all over the place, for what it’s worth, so maybe cities will be all we have to grow stuff.
International Cocoa Organization calls bullshit on all those chocolate-is-running-out stories.
Maybe we should chill about wine too? I dunno, I think I’d prefer to play it safe with both. Or get help from above. Or from the Fascists.
The banana was going extinct too, wasn’t it?
British apples (and other trees, to be sure) are of course perennially in trouble, but help is on the way, courtesy of Kew. And not just British or apples that get help from that quarter.
“The potato will not only survive climate change, it will help us to survive it as well.” Good news at last.
Mapping cassava, all of a sudden an exciting new crop, if you can believe it. No stopping it now that Bill Gates has called it the world’s most interesting vegetable.
Incidentally, he’s also decided to go totally CC-BY.
And that’s all she wrote. For now.