Genebanks

March 27, 2024

An award for conserving seeds

Did you have to develop new methods to clean the seed? Is it one of the longest cleaning or dormancy breaking processes? Was it the first time your species was germinated in a collection and unique germination methods had to be found?

The catch is that the “you” has to be a botanic garden, but I do like the idea of the Global Seed Conservation Challenge Awards. The above is just one of six different categories. A few more days only for nominations, so get cracking.

March 26, 2024March 25, 2024

Nibbles: VACS, FAO forgotten foods, African roots, Hopi corn, Adivasis rice, Sustainable farming, Llama history, Vicuña sweaters, Portuguese cattle, Mexico genebank, NZ genebank, Bat pollination, Eat This Newsletter, WEF

More on the US push for opportunity crops.
Oh look there’s a whole compendium on African opportunity crops from FAO.
Many of them are roots and tubers.
For the Hopi, maize is an opportunity crop.
For the Adivasis, it’s rice.
And more along the same lines from Odisha.
Llamas were an opportunity for lots of people down the ages.
…and still are, for some.
Portugal eschews llamas for an ancient cattle breed.
I bet Mexico’s genebank offers some amazing opportunities.
And New Zealand’s too.
Let’s not forget bats. Yes, bats.
Jeremy’s latest newsletter tackles turmeric, pepper and sweet potatoes, among other things.
And the best way to frame all of the above is that the World Economic Forum wants governments to ban people from growing their own food because that causes climate change.

March 25, 2024March 21, 2024

Brainfood: Wild melon dispersal, Fertile Crescent domestications, Angiosperm threats, Wild rice alliance, Wild potato leaves, Brassica oleracea pangenome, Wild Vigna nutrients

Frugivory by carnivores: Black-backed jackals are key dispersers of seeds of the scented !nara melon in the Namib Desert. Jackals pee on wild melon relatives and disperse their seeds, not necessarily in that order.
Out of the Shadows: Reestablishing the Eastern Fertile Crescent as a Center of Agricultural Origins: Part 1. Go East, young archaeobotanists!
Extinction risk predictions for the world’s flowering plants to support their conservation. Fancy maths says 45% of angiosperms are potentially threatened. Same for crop wild relatives in the Eastern Fertile Crescent? Black-backed jackals unavailable for comment.
Global Wild Rice Germplasm Resources Conservation Alliance: WORLD WILD-RICE WIRING. Scientists get together to conserve global wild rice germplasm resources, understand the ecology of wild rice environments, identify and address threats, define effective ways to use wild species in rice improvement, and provide data for decision-making. Not a minute too soon, given the above.
Morphometric analysis of wild potato leaves. Who needs genotyping anyway.
Large-scale gene expression alterations introduced by structural variation drive morphotype diversification in Brassica oleracea. Brassica scientists need genotyping, apparently, that’s who.
Exploring the nutritional potentials of wild Vigna legume species for neo-domestication prospects. Not much potential if they go extinct though. Quick, photograph their leaves!

March 19, 2024April 5, 2024

Brainfood: US edition

Vulnerability of U.S. new and industrial crop genetic resources. More germplasm (especially wild relatives) and breeders are needed in the US of castor bean, gumweed, guar, guayule, kenaf, roselle, safflower, sesame, sunn hemp, rubber dandelion and Vernonia.
Safeguarding Plant Genetic Resources in the U.S. But the conservation system itself has its challenges, due to climate change.
Operationalizing cultural adaptation to climate change: contemporary examples from United States agriculture. But climate change is not the only thing that agriculture (and possibly the conservation system too) needs to adapt to.
Efforts to cryopreserve shrimp (Penaeid) genetic resources and the potential for a shrimp germplasm bank in the United States. Sure, why not, let them eat shrimp.
Mother Tubers of Wild Potato Solanum jamesii can Make Shoots Five Times. Are enough populations of this thing in genebanks, I wonder? No, not compared to shrimps.
‘Hybrid’ US sheep breeder used endangered genetic material, faces jail. Yes, I know this is not peer-reviewed, but would you have left it out of this American round-up?

March 19, 2024March 19, 2024

How to get training in crop diversity conservation redux

Every once in a while I get the urge to remind everyone where they can get information on training courses in crop diversity conservation, and indeed training materials.

So, anyway, of course there’s the Plant Treaty. A couple of online courses are available, on the Treaty itself and on Farmers’ Rights.

Then there’s USDA’s GRIN-U. Great range of topics, materials and formats.

The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership at Kew Gardens also has a bunch of training opportunities.

And finally there’s BGCI’s Online Training Platform. You need to register for the online courses but it’s worth it.

It’s kind of crazy that there isn’t a more formal place than a random blog post where different organizations can share opportunities and direct people to the right training for them, but there we are.

LATER: Oh gosh, how could I forget CGN’s courses? And indeed other offers from Wageningen, such as this on seed systems.

EVEN LATER: There’s also the Applied Plant Conservation Course from the Center for Plant Conservation.

AND FINALLY… the MS in Plant Genetic Resources Conservation and Management from the Crop Breeding and Genetic Resources Laboratory, Institute of Crop Science, College of Agriculture and Food Science, University of the Philippines, Los Baños.