Genebanks

November 8, 2013November 8, 2013

Reconnecting with an old amaranth

It was the US government shutdown, believe it or not, that prevented me posting this item sooner. I needed to link to a GRIN entry, and the website was down for the duration of the stalemate, and then other stuff came up. Anyway, here we go at last.

A few weeks ago we had a meeting in Ames, Iowa, which included a visit to USDA’s North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station and its genebank. The germplasm collections at Ames are not just in the form of seeds. There are some medicinal and ornamental shrubs and trees around in the fields, and of course if you go at the right time of year you can see a lot of regeneration taking place in pollination cages. There are also some demonstration plots scattered around, and the amaranth one turned out to have a special resonance on this occasion.

That’s because one of the accession involved, PI 482051, just happened to have been collected 30 years ago in Zimbabwe by my colleague Jane Toll, who was on the tour, and was very happy, as you can see from the photo, to be reunited with it. ((If you click on the photo, you can just make out the PI number.)) David Brenner, the curator, swears it was just a coincidence…

November 8, 2013November 10, 2013

Nibbles: Vilsack on ice, Genebank standards, Indigo, Sardinian food, Seeds of Time, Musa genome, Wild rice collecting, Palm oil, Markets

Secretary of Agriculture tours Ft Collins genebank. With video goodness.
Which genebank I’m sure follows the Genebank Standards for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. With video goodness.
Prince of Wales sows organic rice. In white suit. With video goodness.
The story of indigo. No video, but lots of photos.
Sardinian blood soup. No video, but one photo. Which is more than enough.
Wanna watch Seeds of Time? Here’s where. Includes much on Svalbard, of course. And a bit on USDA wild potato collecting. I plead the fifth.
So there’s a second banana genome? Thankfully no video.
“We are only using the tip of the iceberg.” Rice genetic resources, that is. Could easily have had a video.
Face palm oil.
Photo essay on the bazaars of Central Asia.

November 6, 2013November 6, 2013

‘Dead Souls’ in genebanks?

We have received this contribution from Theo van Hintum and Liesbeth de Groot of the Centre for Genetic Resources, The Netherlands (CGN). We very much welcome such submissions. Many thanks to Theo and Liesbeth.

CGN strives to promote the use of its plant genebank collections by collaborating with private breeding companies in the search for useful traits. It usually selects material, preferably from its own collection, and organises evaluation trials in consultation with, and funded by, these companies. In this context, CGN recently searched for additional material of a wild leek (Allium ampeloprasum), the most important member of the primary genepool of leek, in order to identify resistance against two fungal diseases, as well as insect tolerance. CGN only has nine accessions of this species, and for the evaluation we aimed at about twenty.

The search in EURISCO for A. ampeloprasum germplasm resulted in a list of 52 accessions from 7 genebanks, and GRIN showed an additional 12 accessions from the USDA network. Most of the accessions of the USDA network came up as unavailable in GRIN; only 2 out of the 12 were available for distribution. In Europe, availability was even worse. The five collections holding more than two accessions were approached. Apart from the nine accessions from CGN itself, the other four collections, holding 40 accessions in total, could effectively provide CGN with only one accession. One collection did not respond to the email request despite repeated attempts, the others informed us that, due to the difficulty in regeneration of this species, no seed was available for distribution, one accession excepted.

The bottom line is that, apart from its own collection, from 52 reported and requested accessions in EURISCO and GRIN, only three were available for distribution. What does this mean for the overall availability of plant genetic resources from national collections. Are we maintaining a database of ‘Dead Souls’?

November 5, 2013November 7, 2013

Nibbles: Soil testing kit, Sustainable farming, Coffee and climate change, BGI genebank, Bamboo genebank, Genebank management, India’s malnutrition, Phenotyping conference, CIP genebank video, CG impact, Feed the World

Luigi went on a three-week trip, and all he came back with was this:

A new soil testing kit? Really?
Ok, how about a SciDev Spotlight featurette on sustainable farming? No? Well, can I tempt you with the British Ecological Society on agroecology then?
Oh, I bet this thing on coffee and climate change will hit home.
I’m pretty sure news of yet another Chinese genebank (of sorts) won’t.
Pssst. Got room for a new bamboo genebank too?
They’ll need a genebank management system, won’t they? GRIN and bear it.
News too of hunger and malnutrition in India, by Indians, for … er …
Phenotyping conference, anyone? Anyone at all? Some EU breeders will no doubt be there. And some of them at least will find a new map of water risk useful in their work.
And to end with, Al Jazeera on the CIP potato genebank. You heard me.
As you were, there’s the CGIAR Knowledge Day too, all about delivery and impact. I wonder if the genebanks will feature…
Not so fast, there’s also a live webcast of the conference Feeding the World without Consuming the Planet that awaits you.

November 4, 2013October 2, 2013

Brainfood: Pollinator communities, Supply chains and deforestation, Restoration in cities and connected landscapes, Forages in China, Forages in Australia, Indian eggplant minerals, Mediterranean eggplant, Carpathian agrotourism, Nordic apples, Hungarian grape, Saline SP

Landscape heterogeneity and farming practice alter the species composition and taxonomic breadth of pollinator communities. Pollinator species richness decreases along with landscape heterogeneity, but different taxonomic groups do different things, so you have to consider composition.
Enhancing the sustainability of commodity supply chains in tropical forest and agricultural landscapes. You got your institutions, policies, incentives, information and technologies, and now you’ve got a framework to work out how they can combine to produce the desired outcome of less deforestation from the production of agricultural commodities like beef, cocoa, palm oil, rubber and soybean. That’s the theory done, now on with the practice. Which basically comes down to governance.
Urban Grassland Restoration: A Neglected Opportunity for Biodiversity Conservation. Beyond green roofs. Rooves?
A Framework to Optimize Biodiversity Restoration Efforts Based on Habitat Amount and Landscape Connectivity. I guess we should apply this to the above? It’s the lack of connectivity that’s gonna kill ya in those urban landscapes.
Research Progress of Forage Germplasm Resources Innovation in China. Among other things, that progress came with “ion beam implantation” and “spaceship-carried”, which really makes me want to read beyond the abstract, which however would require knowledge of Chinese. If there’s anyone out there who can explain the spaceship, I’d be thrilled.
Pasture legumes in Queensland: a new wave? Maybe, but if so very much on the cheap. No spaceships in Oz.
Mineral composition and their genetic variability analysis in eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) germplasm. 2 out of 32 Indian genebank accessions were good for wide range of minerals.
The Population Structure and Diversity of Eggplant from Asia and the Mediterranean Basin. An eastern and a western genepool according to SSRs, and 3 parallel morphological groups in each of these. No word on their mineral content.
Green economy and agri-rural tourism. Marketing local eco-bio-products are the way forward for the Carpathians. Would pay money to see that.
Genetic diversity in Swedish and Finnish heirloom apple cultivars revealed with SSR markers. The Finnish ones are weird.
Morphological and molecular characterization of varieties and selected clones of ‘Kadarka’ grape. Formerly the widest grown red wine cultivar in Hungary, and a total nomenclatural mess.
Using salt-tolerant sweet potato varieties in Than Hoa Province, Vietnam. Ok, maybe not peer-reviewed, but interesting as hell. From 530 genebank accessions to 2 promising cultivars, via lab and field trials.