- Morphological and phenological consequences of ex situ conservation of natural populations of red clover (Trifolium pratense L.). Regeneration has caused directional morphological changes.
- Breeding Common Bean for Resistance to Common Blight: A Review. A lot is known and has been done, but, still, “Andean and Middle American common bean cultivars with high levels of combined resistance to less-aggressive and aggressive bacterial strains in all aerial plant parts are not available.”
- Half of 23 Belgian dog breeds has a compromised genetic diversity, as revealed by genealogical and molecular data analysis. Especially native breeds with small populations, unsurprisingly.
- Neither crop genetics nor crop management can be optimised. Because of ever-present trade-offs.
- The Influence of Gender Roles And Human Migrations on the Distribution of Crop Biodiversity in Tharaka, Kenya. Crops move with people, and different genders move different crops.
- Somaclonal variants of taro (Colocasia esculenta Schott) and yam (Dioscorea alata L.) are incorporated into farmers’ varietal portfolios in Vanuatu. Farmers have lots of varieties, but they need more variety.
- Morphological and molecular genetics of ancient remains and modern rice (Oryza sativa) confirm diversity in ancient Japan. Modern Japanese rice is a subset of ancient Japanese rice.
Nibbles: Dog origins, Dutch wheat trials, Chinese agricultural origins, Grass endophytes
- This origin-of-dogs saga is getting tedious. Figure it out, already.
- Dutch wheat varieties still improving.
- Chinese ate wild grasses for 20,000 years before domesticating crops.
- Fungal endophyte helps tall fescue cope with drought and high temperatures, but some fungal genotypes more than others. And some do it without producing livestock toxins.
Milking quinoa for livelihoods
We’ve been contacted by Alexander Wankel of Pachakuti Foods with news of an intriguing Kickstarter campaign. Pachakuti is…
…a social enterprise committed to sourcing rare Andean superfoods directly from farmers to create unique products for a healthier life and a better world. By finding markets for underutilized crops, we strive to support biodiversity while providing a fair income for Andean farmers.
The unique product that is the focus of the Kickstarter is, of all things, quinoa milk.
Pachakuti Foods is launching the first quinoa milk made with carefully selected native quinoa varieties that have a naturally milky flavor and texture. Made from some of the yummiest quinoa in Peru, our quinoa milk is richer and creamier than quinoa milk made from conventional quinoa that is currently on the market. It is 100% vegan, gluten free, and contains high quality proteins with all the essential amino acids that the body needs.
They’re about half-way to their goal, which is $15,000.
This Kickstarter campaign is our first opportunity to hit the ground running, both by helping us raise money as well as tell the story of why quinoa diversity is important.
So help them out, if you’re so inclined. Or maybe point them to a bank that might be interested in giving them a business loan.
Brainfood: Chinese royal jelly, Diverse wine yeasts, Heirloom values, Oil and biodiversity, Grassland management, Maize and culture, Minimum viable populations, Good coffee
- High Royal Jelly-Producing Honeybees (Apis mellifera ligustica) (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in China. China supplies 90% of the global market?
- Taking Advantage of Natural Biodiversity for Wine Making: The WILDWINE Project. Back to the future, via yeast diversity.
- Conservation of Landrace: The Key Role of the Value for Agrobiodiversity Conservation. An Application on Ancient Tomatoes Varieties. Fancy maths shows farmer maintaining heirloom tomato variety in Perugia could be charging more.
- Are changes in global oil production influencing the rate of deforestation and biodiversity loss? Less oil production, more agricultural expansion, more biodiversity loss.
- Grazing vs. mowing: A meta-analysis of biodiversity benefits for grassland management. Grazing. Probably. The data sucks.
- Maize diversity associated with social origin and environmental variation in Southern Mexico. Ethnicity trumps altitude in genetic patterning. Morphology is all over the place.
- Genetics in conservation management: Revised recommendations for the 50/500 rules, Red List criteria and population viability analyses. One we missed. 100/1000 is the new 50/500. Multiply by 10 for census population sizes to avoid inbreeding and retain evolutionary potential, respectively.
- Advances in genomics for the improvement of quality in Coffee. We’ll need to sequence the wild species too.
Cooperation-88 featured in National Geographic
Farmers once cultivated a wider array of genetically diverse crop varieties, but modern industrialized agriculture has focused mainly on a commercially successful few. Now a rush is on to save the old varieties—which could hold genetic keys to de- veloping crops that can adapt to climate change. “No country is self-sufficient with its plant genetic resources,” says Francisco Lopez, of the secretariat of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The group oversees the exchange of seeds and other plant materials that are stored in the world’s 1,750 gene banks. — Kelsey Nowakowski
That’s the introduction to a nice feature in the current National Geographic, part of the series The Future of Food. Problem is, I can’t find it online any more. I swear it was there, but it’s not any more. Maybe it was a copyright issue, and it will come back later, when National Gepgraphic is good and ready.
Anyway, the piece is entitled The Potato Challenge:
Potatoes in southwestern China had long been plagued by disease, so scientists began searching for blight-resistant varieties that could be grown in tropical highlands. By the mid-1990s researchers at Yunnan Normal University in China and the International Potato Center (CIP) in Peru had created a new resistant spud using Indian and Filipino potatoes.
The resistant spud is Cooperation-88, of course, and if and when the piece finds its way online you’ll be able to admire some fancy infographics summarizing how it was developed and the impact it has had.