- Ancient DNA reveals 4000 years of grapevine diversity, viticulture and clonal propagation in France. Vegetative propagation of grapevines has been going on since the Iron Age.
- High-throughput olive germplasm classification using morphological phenotyping and machine learning. Olive may be generally vegetatively propagated, but you still have to characterize the fruits.
- Varietal Diversity Analysis of Date Palm and Identification of High Agro-Economic Genotypes in Middle Draa. About half of of the date palms in the middle Draa of Morocco are actually from seed. That makes their diversity difficult to conserve.
- Genebank tools for efficient management of viral infections in tropical clonal crops. All those clonal crops need to be kept clean in genebanks. Here’s how.
- Genome degradation in plant tissue culture. All those clonal crops also need to be kept genetically stable in genebanks, and it can be tricky.
Uprooting crop diversity
Moving house is never any fun, but it’s particularly tricky for collections of crop diversity. You have to get the new facilities all ready, hundreds or even thousands of seed packets or test tubes or indeed live plants need to be kept safe and sound during the process, and then re-established in their new digs, and possibly new people may need to be hired and trained. Safe to say, you probably want to avoid relocating genebanks unless absolutely necessary, which is why it’s not all that common.
Surprising then to come across two examples within a few days.
The Domaine de Vassal grapevine collection in France 1 is being moved to save it from the encroaching waters of the Mediterranean. Or maybe it was a problem with the lease? Anyway, it’s been in the works for at least 10 years, but it does seem to be finally happening. Despite, ahem, some reservations.
The rub with the new proposed site is that only a portion of its soil is sand-based. The collection is destined for a hillside of limestone-clay soils where the vines would be grafted onto rootstock.
“A heresy!” Deiss protested, saying grafting compromises the authenticity of the vines.
In contrast, USDA’s National Soybean Germplasm Collection on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus 2 was supposed to be relocated in fiscal 2026, that was stopped by various stakeholders, but the whole thing is back on the agenda for fiscal 2027. The issue seems to be where the collection can be conserved most cost-effectively, but there may also be a bit of local politics involved as well. Predictably, I suppose.
“Having that vast collection so accessible to U. of I. researchers directly benefits Illinois farmers,” said Abigail Peterson, director of agronomy for the Illinois Soybean Association. “Whether it’s a new disease or soy oleic, I think the germplasm collection is the only avenue to explore and develop new traits. It’s just a huge tool in our toolbox.”
Good luck to the people involved in both cases. Whatever happens, I’m sure we all hope the collections remain safe and available for the long term.
Beat the heat with seeds
I haven’t yet had a chance to read the full FAO–WMO joint report on Extreme heat and agriculture, but some preliminary skimming reveals that agrobiodiversity does seem to be addressed, at least to some extent:
No mention of genebanks, mind you. I guess you can’t have everything, but you’d have thought the following snippets could easily have been used to make the case very explicitly for ex situ conservation of crop diversity.
For domesticated agricultural species, human influence on the genome through selective breeding for enhanced performance in increasingly homogenous production environments has resulted in a loss of natural genetic variability that have accentuated many species vulnerability to temperature extremes.
…
It is only through innovation and the implementation of adaptative measures (e.g. selective breeding, making changes in the physical environment and altering management practices) that the global community can shelter agricultural activities from the larger forces of planetary human induced climate change.
…
Switching to more resilient species to extreme heat may result in reduced genetic diversity, increasing the vulnerability of crops and livestock to large-scale losses due to a narrower genetic base.
Nibbles: Peruvian agrotourism, RSA heirloom apple, Wild tea in China, Native American seeds, Indian chiles, Genebanks, Kenyan tree planting
- Agrobiodiversity inspires tourism in the Andes of Peru.
- South African fruit exporters does its (small) bit for heirloom apple conservation.
- Wild tea doing just fine in the Shunhuangshan National Nature Reserve in Hunan Province, China. Even when harvested by local communities. Looks great for tourism too.
- Native communities in Nebraska getting some support for saving and exchanging seeds.
- Women are in charge of chiles in Tamil Nadu.
- Popular Science does genebanks. At least one genebank has tourism potential, I’d say.
- Want to support forest landscape restoration through native tree planting in Kenya? Go to MyFarmTrees, and help keep Kenya a tourism hotspot.
Brainfood: Animal diversity edition
- Livestock grazing boosts plant diversity in the Greater Serengeti–Mara Ecosystem. Livestock can be good for biodiversity conservation. But can its diversity be conserved too? Let’s see.
- Conservation and Management of Animal Genetic Resources in the Context of African Livestock Production Systems: The Case for In Situ and Ex Situ Conservation. “The multi-stakeholder breeders-researchers-decision-makers approach remains the most robust solution for sound management and preservation of biological units.” What, no farmers and local communities? No, that’s unfair: community-based conservation is discussed. But it doesn’t feel as central to the whole thing as it should be, somehow.
- Genetic Diversity, Adaptation, Wild Introgression, and Coat Color Mutation of Golden Yak. After all, local communities have maintained the golden yak reasonably well.
- Caprine dairy exploitation on the Iranian Plateau from the seventh millennium BC. Not to mention goats in Iran, and for thousands of years…
- Old goats: 3,000 years of genetic connectivity of the domestic goat in Ireland. …and in Ireland, though for not quite as long, admittedly.
- Dogs were widely distributed across western Eurasia during the Palaeolithic. And local communities have been managing dog populations since way before farming even.
- The dispersal of domestic cats from North Africa to Europe around 2000 years ago. Also, local communities managed early cats separately in the Levant and Egypt. Much later than dogs, but that’s cats for you.
- A microbiome catalog of Chinese traditional artisanal cheeses provides insights into functional and microbial diversity. And don’t forget to conserve the associated microbiome too. I wonder what golden yak cheese is like.