- A new-to-science sweet-and-sour banana. The crop wild relative wallahs better get on it.
- Tasty report on chocolate diversity.
- It says here that “Agricultural diversity the key to food security”. Why weren’t we told before?
- Big push for “radical new thinking on biodiversity conservation”. No sign of agriculture.
Nibbles: Halloween roots, Fred’s great potatoes, Ellis on TV, CIP genebank online, Weird potato, Weird watermelon, Paul Gepts, Caucasian sheep, Livestock hybrids, COP23
- Halloween is an agricultural thing. Basically.
- Frederick the Great had a thing for potatoes. Among other things.
- CIP genebank manager on TV. He has a thing for potatoes too. As you can tell from his new website.
- Pop quiz: Can you find this N American potato in the CIP genebank?
- The extraordinary story of the ancient Native American crookneck watermelon. Bet it goes well with S. jamesii.
- Paul Gepts gets award. No word on his thoughts on potatoes, but he does like beans.
- Transhumance lives in the Caucasus.
- What in tarnation is a zubron?
- Making the case for climate action on agriculture at COP23. And vice versa.
Brainfood: Finger millet genotyping, Spanish apple diversity, Wheat value chains
- Development of SSR Markers and Their Use in Studying Genetic Diversity and Population of Finger Millet (Eleusine coracana L. Gaertn.). “This study may form the basis for a finger millet breeding and improvement program.” My emphasis.
- Analysis of the genetic diversity and structure of the Spanish apple genetic resources suggests the existence of an Iberian genepool. Iberian material different to international and commercial stuff.
- Sustainability Performance of Food Chains: Linking Biodiversity and Nutritional Value in Italian Wheat-to-Bread Chains. We have indicators!
Brainfood: Rice introgression, African rice cores, Cereal domestication rates, Power vegetables, Biodiversity services, Afrikaner cattle diversity, Conservation funding
- Introgression from cultivated rice alters genetic structures of wild relative populations: implications for in situ conservation. Not totally wild any more.
- Genetic Variation and Population Structure of Oryza glaberrima and Development of a Mini-Core Collection Using DArTseq. 2,179 accessions, 5 geographic groups, 16% recover >95% of polymorphisms.
- Geographic mosaics and changing rates of cereal domestication. Applying fancy maths to archaeobotanical remains shows that selection pressures varied in time, and started slow.
- Tapping the economic and nutritional power of vegetables. Eat your veggies, damn it!
- To what extent can ecosystem services motivate protecting biodiversity? Not enough.
- Genetic diversity of Afrikaner cattle in southern Africa. 3 groups, but not geographically determined, and lots of diversity despite recent declines in numbers.
- Nominal 30-m Cropland Extent Map of Continental Africa by Integrating Pixel-Based and Object-Based Algorithms Using Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 Data on Google Earth Engine. Next level. But when will be be able to distinguish crops?
- Reductions in global biodiversity loss predicted from conservation spending. But the impact of spending goes down with with increasing development pressure.
Irish apples are smiling
There’s always something on the intertubes about “the Great British Apple” this time of year (ok, not only British), but instead of reading the rather turgid Guardian article, why don’t you do yourselves a favour and listen to Jeremy’s podcast from Irish Seed Savers instead?