- Australian magazine overdoses on FIGS (Focused Identification of Germplasm Strategy) h/t Dag.
- World Agroforestry Centre says malaria-cure trees are going extinct. World Malaria Day is on Monday 25th.
- New PhD programme on Biodiversity and Society. h/t CFTF, who say it covers diversification and neglected crops.
- China loves US pecans, giving Tom an opportunity for some strategic analysis.
Brainfood: Processing, Berries, Bush tomato, Rwanda, Bean erosion, Agroforestry seed, Trees, Rice nutrition
- Special issue of Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences on food processing, “a critical variable in human economies and social and symbolic systems.” Looks like the editorial is open to all.
- Investigation of genetic diversity in Russian collections of raspberry and blue honeysuckle. Some of them are much richer than others.
- Solanum centrale, bush tucker: new microsatellites reveal diversity and polyploidy; and it benefits from arbuscular mycorrhiza, especially in low P soils.
- The Crop Intensification Program in Rwanda: a sustainability analysis. It isn’t.
- Wholesale replacement of lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus L.) landraces over the last 30 years in northeastern Campeche, Mexico. There was.
- Certification of agroforestry tree germplasm in Southern Africa: opportunities and challenges. Need a scheme based on the FAOs Quality Declared Seed (QDS) with truth-in-labelling, with 3 germplasm categories (audit, select and genetically improved) as a start.
- And speaking of trees … Silver fir stand productivity is enhanced when mixed with Norway spruce: evidence based on large-scale inventory data and a generic modelling approach. Diversity good for silver firs, no effect on Norway spruce.
- Genotypic variation and relationships between quality traits and trace elements in traditional and improved rice (Oryza sativa L.) genotypes. Traditional varieties have more.
Genebank data identifiers
Remember the big discussion about how to ensure that information about genebank accessions can be linked back to the accession itself? Our friend Dr Dag Endresen has written a handy guide to Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) as they might be used by genebanks. In addition to explaining how the system works, he points out that it might be a good idea for one organization to fork over the roughly USD1000 to register a top-level DOI name such as genesys. (Bioversity? The Trust? The Treaty? Is anyone listening?) That would not stop any other genebank flush with cash from registering their own domain, and it would provide something to the data providers at genebanks in return for their data. Dag discusses some other options on his blog, and I’m sure there’ll be lots of discussion there, or here, or some other place. Either way, the sooner some similar system is adopted, the sooner we can trace our collective way out of genebank database hell and satisfy the needs of those who want to link data to accessions.
Nibbles: SEARICE, R&D, Sustainable intensification, Biofortification, Chillies, Safe movement, Mangoes, Weeds, Berries, Blueberries, Cerrado
- SEARICE explains its approach to seed sovereignty and farmer participation.
- Nature on IFPRI’s report on agricultural R&D in Africa. Not pretty.
- Resilience Science on the UN Special Rapporteur’s sustainable intensification thing.
- The Gates Foundation is on a nutritional roll; most of yesterday’s posts are available from this round-up.
- New Mexico gets all protectionist about its chillies.
- IITA explains how it provides healthy germplasm. Various different interesting stories in there, stick with it.
- Farmer conservation power in India.
- How to control invasive species. Eat more weeds.
- Presentation on Trends in global nutrition and health: Local fruits and their potential importance for nutrition and health as seen at Pavlovsk berry meeting.
- Speaking of berries…
- The cerrado (and its crop wild relatives) is in trouble. We talked about this, weren’t you paying attention?
New insights into barley domestication
We asked one of the co-authors, Ian Dawson, who’s an old friend, to briefly summarize for us a paper just out in New Phytologist on the domestication of barley. Here is his contribution. Thanks a lot, Ian, and keep ’em coming…
The power of new technologies to explore crop evolution is illustrated by a just released paper by Russell and co-workers ((Russell, J., Dawson, I., Flavell, A., Steffenson, B., Weltzien, E., Booth, A., Ceccarelli, S., Grando, S., & Waugh, R. (2011). Analysis of 1000 single nucleotide polymorphisms in geographically matched samples of landrace and wild barley indicates secondary contact and chromosome-level differences in diversity around domestication genes New Phytologist DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2011.03704.x)) that explores barley domestication in the Fertile Crescent, a key region in the development of farming. From assessing a collection of more than 1,000 genetically mapped, genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in geographically-matched landrace and wild barley accessions from Jordan and Syria, genetic contact between the two categories was evident, suggesting hybridisation may be a mechanism for the continued adaptation of landraces in the region under climate change. In addition, statistically significant chromosome-level differences in diversity between barley types were observed around genes known to be involved in the evolution of cultivars, indicating regions of the genome that may be subject to selection and therefore of interest in future crop breeding. For example, a significant reduction in diversity in landrace barley –- which suggests a genetic bottleneck during domestication –- was observed around the brittle rachis genes, recessive characters which result in grains remaining longer on plants after maturation, allowing efficient harvest of cultivated compared to wild barley. Jordan and southern Syria, compared to the north of Syria, was supported by SNP data as a more likely origin of domesticated barley, suggesting limited locations for the original development of the cultivated crop. Such studies, which exploit novel and rapidly developing genotyping methods, provide great scope for also exploring the evolution of other crops of both historical and current importance, especially when combined with matched geographic sampling of wild and cultivated material.