- The potential of desho grass (Pennisetum pedicellatum Trin.) for animal feed and land management practices in Ethiopia: A review. “Physiologically, desho grass has a peculiar characteristic of drought tolerance, ability to produce large biomass per unit of land.”
- Wheat genetic resources in the post-genomics era: promise and challenges. Need to go for more wide crosses, which requires more cytological expertise.
- Native seed trade of herbaceous species for restoration: a European policy perspective with global implications. Current policies are inadequate.
- Screening African Rice (Oryza glaberrima) for Tolerance to Abiotic Stresses: II. Lowland Drought. 4 out of over 2000 accessions are promising.
- Dietary species richness as a measure of food biodiversity and nutritional quality of diets. Number of species consumed is a good indicator of the quality of the diet, across seasons and countries.
- Could taxonomic misnaming threaten the ex situ conservation and the usage of plant genetic resources? Only 3% of Citrullus accessions in major genebank databases correctly named.
- Genetic breeding of silkworms: from traditional hybridization to molecular design. Brave new world.
- Domestication origin and breeding history of the tea plant (Camellia sinensis) in China and India based on nuclear microsatellites and cpDNA sequence data. 3 domestication areas, in China and India.
- Preservation of the genetic diversity of a local common carp in the agricultural heritage rice–fish system. Farmers like to select different colour types.
- Abyssinian pea (Lathyrus schaeferi Kosterin pro Pisum abyssinicum A. Br.) – a problematic taxon. May have been the result of a spontaneous interspecific cross under cultivation.
- Managing and Discovering Agronomically Beneficial Traits in Chickpea Germplasm Collections. Cores, mini-cores and reference sets facilitate use.
- Evaluation of resistance to Blumeria graminis (DC.) f. sp. avenae, in Avena murphyi and A. magna genotypes. In oats, the lower-ploidy species have better resistance.
- Editorial: Plant Phenotyping and Phenomics for Plant Breeding. The name of the game is integration.
- Trade and the equitability of global food nutrient distribution. Trade is important to nutrition.
Nibbles: Irradiated mangoes, PNG genebank, Chinese taro, Strawberry breeding, DNA sequencing, Googling sheep, Weird pineapple, Agroforestry, Olive diversity, Xylella, Fermentation, Pulque & mezcal, Cheese & donkeys, Italian food double, Tomato double, Fairchild, Vanilla history, Potato history, Kelemu
- Did you miss us? Well, we’re making up for lost time today. Buckle up.
- Seafaring mangoes.
- India to help PNG get (another?) genebank.
- Somebody mention taro? The Chinese are coming.
- Strawberries for Christmas.
- Handheld genotyping. Brave new world.
- All the sheep in the world.
- Trees > lungs.
- Pink pineapple. Yeah, why not.
- Tuscan olives are Etruscan.
- Wonder if they’ll survive.
- Fermentation never went away.
- Case in point #1: pulque.
- Which is a cousin of mezcal.
- Case in point #2: cheese.
- Of which this is the most expensive, apparently.
- 2018 is the year of italian food, according to italians.
- Maybe they’ll use this infographic to advertize it.
- The transatlantic history of a mainstay of italian cooking, the tomato.
- Which looks really diverse in the Canaries too.
- “Food spy” is a bit harsh on Fairchild.
- Wonder if he ever collected vanilla.
- Or potatoes.
- Hero is about right for Segenet.
Brainfood: Maize diversity, Genetic ecology, SeedStor, Conservation impact, Women & seed, Wild pea, Wild walnuts, Livestock 4 wildlife
- Contributions of Zea mays subspecies mexicana haplotypes to modern maize. That’s the highland teosinte, not the lowland from which maize was domesticated, and 10% of the maize genome shows some evidence of introgression from it.
- The ecological importance of intraspecific variation. …is comparable to that of interspecific variation.
- SeedStor: A Germplasm Information Management System and Public Database. Interested in the John Inness Centre’s genebank? Here, go crazy.
- From displacement activities to evidence-informed decisions in conservation. It’s all about impact.
- Breeding next generation tree fruits: technical and legal challenges. Not going to be easy.
- Women’s empowerment through seed improvement and seed governance: Evidence from participatory barley breeding in pre-war Syria. What is done locally may be undone globally.
- Genomic diversity and macroecology of the crop wild relatives of domesticated pea. P. fulvum is a good species, P. sativum subsp. elatius has 5 mainly geographic clusters; genetic diversity likely to be impacted by climate change.
- Demographically idiosyncratic responses to climate change and rapid Pleistocene diversification of the walnut genus Juglans (Juglandaceae) revealed by whole-genome sequences. Every walnut species is different.
- The consequences of replacing wildlife with livestock in Africa. More fires, woody species and methane.
Brainfood: Wheat exudates, Conservation threats, Resilience, Dietary recommendations, Urban green spaces, Dog spread, Wild foods, Ethnic fish, Brazilian cattle, Nocturnal fixation, Agroforestry impacts
- Evolution of the crop rhizosphere: impact of domestication on root exudates in tetraploid wheat (Triticum turgidum L.). Domestication and breeding have led to (probably adaptive) changes in root exudates.
- Threats from urban expansion, agricultural transformation and forest loss on global conservation priority areas. Vertebrate Biodiversity Hotspots are most threatened by all three factors. Plants too?
- Patterns and drivers of biodiversity–stability relationships under climate extremes. Species richness may not be enough to buffer ecosystems from extreme precipitations events. But a different metric would give a different result?
- Evaluating the environmental impacts of dietary recommendations. Adopting nationally recommended diets would help the environment.
- On the Use of Hedonic Price Indices to Understand Ecosystem Service Provision from Urban Green Space in Five Latin American Megacities. There’s an overall strong positive correlation between urban greenery and house prices, but it’s context-specific.
- Disease: A Hitherto Unexplored Constraint on the Spread of Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) in Pre-Columbian South America. Yes, why are there no dogs in the Amazon?
- Children and Wild Foods in the Context of Deforestation in Rural Malawi. Fewer wild foods in more deforested sites, and fewer sold by children from better-off households. What of the nutrition outcomes, though?
- Biodiversity defrosted: unveiling non-compliant fish trade in ethnic food stores. About 40% of samples in Liverpool and Manchester mislabelled.
- Population viability analysis of the Crioula Lageano cattle. It’s going to be fine.
- The Kalanchoë genome provides insights into convergent evolution and building blocks of crassulacean acid metabolism. Next stop, CAM rice.
- Contribution of trees to the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes. It depends. But what would those kids in Malawi say?
Crop genomics conference in the past, but only just
Sorry, everyone, I should have given a shout-out to the Crops Genomics: Present & Future conference at ICRISAT, which started yesterday. All the usual social media channels are in play, and the tweeting has been considerable already. But what I don’t see, yet, is concrete applications to make the work of genebank managers (as opposed to breeders) easier and more effective. Or is that the future part?