- Jess dissects nutrition mystification. So hey, Jess, what field do you work in?
- Can agricultural research help eradicate famine? CGIAR boss asks the tough ones.
- Giant FAO document on Payments for Ecosystem Services and Food Security.
- Crop diversity and disease pressure, The case of maize in China.
- Wanna job? Crops for the Future Research Centre is hiring.
- Our chums at the Global Crop Diversity Trust get a Dutch treat.
- Nagoya Protocol threatens to conserve Mexican biodiversity.
- The Scientist Gardener distinguishes hay from straw.
- Ford Denison scrutinizes nitrogen-fixing cereals paper.
Onions evaluated “for food security”
Scientists at Warwick University’s Crop Centre have examined “96 of the world’s onion varieties” for resistance to basal rot (caused by the ubiquitous Fusarium oxysporum) and their ability to form close relationships with certain beneficial fungi. The press release doesn’t go into any detail, such as which varieties top the lists, or anything useful like that, although it does raise some questions. Like, where were the onions from? Andrew Taylor, the researcher in charge, said this:
“We have developed a unique onion diversity set from material sourced from across the globe. We now have a extremely useful library of the variation in traits … all of which will be extremely useful to growers and seed producers dealing with changing conditions and threats to onion crops.”
Spiffy. And a nice alternative, eventually, to current control methods. But what exactly is this “unique onion diversity set”. Is it, by any chance, anything to do with the Allium collection maintained at the old UK National Vegetable Collection at Wellesbourne, recently threatened with closure? And if so, why wouldn’t that have been mentioned by the Warwick Crop Centre, which absorbed Wellesbourne and its Genetic Resources Unit? Surely anything good that comes out of the Wellesbourne genebank is an argument for continued support.
On a purely personal note, I’d love to know whether two varieties, Up-to-date and Bedfordshire Champion, were among the 96 that were evaluated. That’s because in 1948 the UK Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food noted that Up-to-date had excellent resistance to white rot, while Bedfordshire Champion was highly susceptible. In the mid 1960s, MAFF decided they were the same variety, under synonyms, and dropped Up-to-date from the National Catalogue.Wellesbourne did maintain it, and it would be interesting to know whether the two had different profiles in this latest round of evaluation.
A day in the life of archaeologists
Today is Day of Archaeology 2011 and a whole bunch of archaeologists are going to tell you about their day using social media. I bet many of them are digging up the remains of farming communities and studying the origins of agriculture. A great idea. How about A Day in the Life of a Genebanker next? Via.
Nibbles: Heat, Watermelons, Rye, Apples, Solanum melongena, Pinus edulis, Food systems, Indian rice, Glycene
- Heat takes growing toll on Kansas farm crops. Heat, not drought. Just sayin’.
- Amateur Hour I: watermelons.
- Amateur Hour II: perennial rye.
- Amateur Hour III: red-fleshed apples.
- Bronjenas. An eggplant by any other name is still an aubergine (Solanum melongena).
- Not your average pinoli.
- We need to fix the food system. But how? Answers on a postcard, please.
- Saving traditional rice landraces in India. Of which there are maybe 3,000 in the NE alone. No mention of genebanks.
- Superstar Swedish soybeans
At work in the CIMMYT maize genebank
A CIMMYT staff member at work in the maize active collection in the Wellhausen-Anderson Plant Genetic Resources Center. CIMMYT’s germplasm bank contains around 28,000 unique samples of maize seed—including more than 24,000 farmer landraces; traditional, locally-adapted varieties that are rich in diversity—and 140,000 of wheat, including related species for both crops. The bank both conserves this diversity and makes it available as a resource for breeding. The active collection for meeting requests is kept at -3 °C, while the duplicate base collection for long-term storage is at -18 °C. Maize seed is stored in plastic jars, while aluminium envelopes are used for smaller wheat seed, and a sophisticated barcode system enables staff to keep track of the thousands of accessions. “Disaster proof” features of the bank include thick concrete walls and back-up power systems.
Photo credit: Xochiquetzal Fonseca/CIMMYT.