- “Sustainable food production may not begin in this cold Arctic environment, but it does begin by conserving crop diversity.” Words of wisdom from the frozen lips of Ban Ki Moon.
- Organic vs local. A survey.
- Civil Society opposes seed laws in Chile.
- Jeremy gets stuck into a bowl of basmati and Five Farms.
- “Pest to pesto.”
- Tropical fruit flies have less genetic diversity than temperate fruit flies, may have trouble adapting to climate change.
- “It is difficult to imagine what the first taste of sugar or coffee must have been like to those accustomed to weak beer and bread.”
- Lethal yellowing spreads in Ghana?
Chinese interdependence
A paper just out in Agricultural Science in China reminded me that I wanted to say something about one of the great meta-narratives of plant genetic resources: interdependence — the old no-country-is-self-sufficient-in-PGR mantra. Which, unlike some other meta-narratives, is generally recognized as being true — witness the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). And that despite the fact that measuring interdependence is not by any means easy, and has not often been done.
The paper which caught my eye is not really primarily about interdependence. ((ZHAO, Y., Ofori, A., & LU, C. (2009). Genetic diversity of European and Chinese oilseed Brassica rapa cultivars from different breeding periods. Agricultural Sciences in China 8(8):931-938. DOI: 10.1016/S1671-2927(08)60297-7.)) It just shows that cultivars of winter oilseed rape (canola) from China are very distinct from European ones, on the basis of molecular markers. Which presumably means that yield gains could be had from cross-breeding between the two groups. Which does say something about interdependence, but not very forcefully.
However, that paper reminded me about two others that a colleague had recently sent me, along with the thought that they should be enough, in a perfect world, for China to ratify the ITPGRFA.
The first is about soybean. ((Qin, J., Chen, W., Guan, R., Jiang, C., Li, Y., Fu, Y., Liu, Z., Zhang, M., Chang, R., & Qiu, L. (2006). Genetic contribution of foreign germplasm to elite Chinese soybean (Glycine max) cultivars revealed by SSR markers. Chinese Science Bulletin, 51(9):1078-1084. DOI: 10.1007/s11434-006-1078-4)) It shows, using molecular markers again, that a couple of elite Chinese cultivars benefited greatly, in terms of both specific traits but also their difference from previous Chinese cultivars (that is, the genetic base of the crop as a whole was broadened) from the fact that US and Japanese germplasm was involved in their development, rather than just Chinese stuff.
The second paper makes the interdependence point even more strongly by quantifying the contribution of foreign maize germplasm to production in China, rather than just genetic diversity. ((LI, H., HU, R., & ZHANG, S. (2006). The Impact of US and CGIAR Germplasm on Maize Production in China. Agricultural Sciences in China, 5(8):563-571. DOI: 10.1016/S1671-2927(06)60093-X.)) It turns out that a 1% contribution by US material (based on the coefficient of parentage) translates to an additional 0.01 t/ha (0.2%), and a 1% contribution by CIMMYT germplasm to an additional 0.025 t/ha.
The conclusion: “The extensive utilization of US and CG germplasm improved maize yield potential in China… The government should provide funds to support research on germplasm introduction…” And, we could add, it should ratify the ITPGRFA. No country is self-sufficient in PGRFA. Not even the largest.
Cary does TED
Nibbles: Fish, Lupines, Dogs, Seeds, Sorghum, Oca
- Farm ponds for water, fish and livelihoods: The role of farm ponds in sustaining livelihoods.
- The nutritional value of Andalusian lupines. Domesticate ’em, someone.
- Saving the Akita … and other things.
- Bob Brockie wants to know what happened to the seeds his dad sent to Vavilov. Good luck with that.
- Q&A about sorghum farming for Guinness Ghana.
- Oca breeding in the UK. This is SO exciting …
Herbaria get it together
Looks like the Paris herbarium (P, to taxonomy geeks), one of the largest in the world at 8,000,000 specimens, is finally sorting itself out. That’s really good news, because Paris is also perhaps the most frustrating herbarium in the world, due to the backlog in processing specimens and the generally sub-par conditions. All that’s going to change.
Once work moving and reclassifying the herbarium is complete, it will also be the world’s largest collection of plant specimens available on the internet. “We shall have 8m images, with a photograph of each plate on the museum’s website,” says the senior curator Jean-Michel Guiraud.
But I was particularly intrigued by this little throwaway final paragraph in the Guardian piece on the catch-up project. ((Maybe someone could explain to me why it was that the Guardian Weekly thought its readers would be interested in a French herbarium. In any case, I for one am really glad it did.))
International collaboration is under way to avoid duplication between the world’s top herbaria: primarily Kew Gardens and the Missouri Botanical Gardens, the two largest alongside Paris, but also smaller collections belonging to natural history museums or botanical gardens in London, Edinburgh, Berlin, Washington and New York.
I need to find out more about what this really means. You certainly don’t want to avoid duplication of specimens entirely, for safety reasons. Maybe it’s more a question of exchanging information on holdings so that at least herbaria know the extent of duplication. Anyway, I want to know how they’ll do it. Because it will be a cold day in genebank database hell before “international collaboration” will be able to “avoid duplication” in the world’s top genebanks.