- Improving yams at IITA.
- Improving aroids the world over.
- Parallel evolution in the domestication of cereals. Will it help to improve them?
- Foxtail millet helps with switchgrass genome assembly. And, one supposes, improvement.
Glass gem corn goes viral
This image of ‘Glass Gem’ corn has sort of exploded on Milkwood Permaculture’s Facebook page, with over 3,000 “likes” and 10,000 “shares.” I just hope there’s enough seed out there.
Rewarding excellence in Indian rice breeding
India’s Directorate of Rice Research has just recognized the Paddy Breeding Station of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) as the best rice breeding station among India’s 107. The Vice-Chancellor of the university said that:
“The landmark varieties that have been developed through Pure Line Selection by this station triggered the growth of rice production in the State. The first variety — GEB 24 (Kichili Samba) — released during 1921 played a significant role in the development of rice cultivars over the years, not only in India, but world-wide.”
With help from the irrepressible Nik and his local version of IRRI’s all-knowing germplasm database we can actually kind of quantify that. It turns out that out of the 11 IRRI releases in 2011 (IR155-165), only IR157 (an irrigated japonica) doesn’t have GEB 24 in its pedigree. Just for that, it would seem to be a very well-deserved award. But I’m also told they helped IRRI build up its collection in the early days.
What about the other direction of use, though? Well, IR8 starts to feature, by itself, in the pedigrees of TNAU varieties in the early 70s (e.g. in CO38 and CO40), then by the early 80s there are 5 IRRI lines involved in the development of CO43. But by the 90s there are a couple dozen IRRI lines in the pedigree of CO47. So the flow of germplasm has been two-way.
In more ways than one. Apparently, IRRI are in the process of restoring to TNAU some of their CO varieties, which they had lost for one reason or another, but had taken the precaution of sending to Los Baños. Good collaboration all around. Great to see the achievements recognized in the popular press, if not necessarily the collaboration. But then that’s what we’re here for.
LATER: Further delving into the database by our friends at IRRI reveals that TNAU sent material quite regularly to IRRI from 1961 to 1987, with a peak of 952 accessions in 1978. But “only 40% of TNAU’s CO varieties conserved in the IRRI genebank came directly from TNAU. 30% came via CRRI and 30% via other organizations. TNAU obviously shared their material widely.”
Nibbles: Tomatoes, CATIE, Community seed bank, Law, Dairy breeding, Indian probiotics
- Ruth deconstructs her local tomatoes.
- New Mexico State University reaches out to CATIE’s genebank.
- Montana gets a genebank.
- Long Cymie Payne UBerkeley lecture on international law and biodiversity.
- Milking the data.
- Speaking of milk, indigenous lassi probiotics isolated, sequenced and deposited in genebank.
Is there more than one TME 419 cassava?
The TME 419 cassava that I Nibbled about earlier today has been making quite a splash in both DR Congo and Nigeria. Question is, is it TME 419?
Those who know about such things will recognize TME as an IITA genebank number. And indeed, if you look it up either on Genesys or IITA’s genebank database, you land on a Togolese landrace called Gbazekoute. Unfortunately, that doesn’t look anything like the TME 419 described in IITA’s Improved Cassava Variety Handbook. ((But you wont be able to download it from there. What you have to do is go to the search page, and insert the title of the publication, and then click on the little PDF icon. Trust me, I looked for half an hour for a way to link to the actual PDF, and there just isn’t one.)) There, TME 419 is indeed a Togolese landrace, but with the following characteristics: ((It’s on page 88.))
Compare that with the description in the IITA database. Is the shape of the leaf’s central lobe lanceolate or elliptic? Is there or is there not pigmentation on the petiole? Is the colour of the root pulp white/cream or yellow? And does it have a purple cortex or not? A discrepancy in one of these descriptors I might have understood, but it is clear to me that we’re talking here about quite different cassavas.
So I ask IITA: which one is the real TME 419? I mean the one making news in DR Congo and Nigeria.