Genebanks

May 3, 2014May 3, 2014

For the well-being of one and all on the planet Earth

The four largest national collections in the world are located in the USA, Russia, India and China. The National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) in the USA and the N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Plant Industry (VIR) in Russia are both in the process of backing-up their collections at Svalbard, while the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR) in India has signed the SDA, but has not yet started safety duplication. The Institute of Crop Germplasm Resources (ICGR-CAAS) in China is not participating so far. Out of the five other national institutions with more than 100,000 accessions in storage, the national genebank in Japan is not currently a depositor, whereas the national genebanks in Brazil, Canada, Germany and the Republic of Korea have all deposited seeds at Svalbard. The most significant origin country gap is India… However, safety duplication of the Indian collections is expected in the future…

That’s from a recent PLOS paper “Global Ex-Situ Crop Diversity Conservation and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault: Assessing the Current Status.” And it’s out of date, because the future is now. Though it may be a small step, it’s a significant step, and the message on the box, from which we take our title, says it all.

May 2, 2014March 5, 2026

Embrapa’s new genebank illustrated

If we missed reporting the opening of Embrapa’s new genebank, ¹ it’s because the news seems only to have come out in the Brazilian press.

A modern building of over two thousand square feet, divided into two floors, will house one of the largest collections of genetic resources and is the third largest facility in the world in terms of storage capacity. Opened on the morning of April 24, the new genebank started the celebrations of 41 years of Embrapa.

If you search around, you’ll find various photos of the interior of the new building, but I could not find a single one of the outside. So here goes. It was taken a couple of months ago. I expect it’s all tidied up now.

For completeness, the green building in this last shot is the old genebank, which is next door to the new one.

May 1, 2014May 1, 2014

Nibbles: Extreme aquaculture, GMO ver. 2.0, Wheat genebank, Infrared coffee spectroscopy, Farmer photos, Land grab, Reindeer herder photos, Mapping blight, Food security software, Fragaria moschata

Farming cobia off Panama. Look it up.
Gene editing is the future. But is it GM?
More on the CIMMYT genebank from the Australian press. Get a room already.
Fancy machine can tell fancy Yemeni coffee from lesser stuff. No, not DNA. Producers of lesser stuff unavailable for comment.
Some of them may end up being photographed by National Geographic though.
Before being forced off their land.
Different sort of land grab in the Gran Chaco. Pity those poor wild Arachis. And here’s a meta-analysis of the drivers of the problem.
Feeling left out, herders get fancy photos too.
“The data indicates a broad distribution of this clone from Spain to Russia and Scotland to Cypress.” Good grief. Potato blight, if you’re still interested.
From household survey data to food security assessment: The software.
The bubbleberry is increasingly a thing.

April 30, 2014May 5, 2014

South Pacific genebank overture

Can’t resist posting this video from my old colleagues at SPC. ~~It ends a bit abruptly, but Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees, and a nice overview of its work.~~

LATER: This is the full version of the video, without that weird abrupt ending. Some problem with the uploading, apparently.

April 30, 2014

Nibbles: New plant journal, Randomized trials under fire, WB to the rescue, Spirit in the sky, Please sir may I have some more, Flour powerless, Tom Payneless, Collecting for CIP, Regen redux, Cultivating my garden, Animal Crackers, Ethnomycology

Nature has new Plants journal. With blog.
More from the randomized trials backlash frontlines.
World Bank sets up internal task force on climate smart agriculture. Oh good.
No word on whether spiritual values on agenda.
Hacking the school lunch.
Indian flour mills winding down. Implications for crop diversity unknown.
Big Australian writeup of CIMMYT genebank.
Big CIP writeup of CIP genebank. And other collections, to be fair.
It’s the regeneration, stupid.
Gardens save plants.
Sustainable diets defined to within an inch of their lives. Common factor is less animal products. But, as Susan McMillan of ILRI points out, for whom, and where?
Traditional Maori use of weird fungus.