Genetic diversity

July 5, 2015July 8, 2015

The phylogeny of Czech hops

Long breeding work aimed at fine aroma hops results in high quality aroma aspects, which are used to produce the best beer. Czech hops are the security of the highest brewing quality in many breweries all over the world. Saaz hops are considered as the standard of high brewing quality not only in Czech Republic but in other countries as well. Saaz hops are a very important raw material for the best quality beer. All Czech hop varieties, which have been developed recently, have in their origin Saaz and therefore they show excellent brewing characteristics.

You had me at beer.

July 3, 2015July 3, 2015

Nibbles: Monocultures redux, Seedless watermelons, Red kiwifruit, Herbaria problems, Forest foods, Sorghum beer, SIRGEALC, Chinese veggies, Organic tomatoes, Andean women, Rise origins, Fermentation

Deploy your cover crop diversity in time rather than space. But deploy it.
Triploid goodness.
Searching for a red kiwi.
Herbaria on the rack.
Let them eat non-timber forest products.
Sorghum spurts in Kenya. Because beer.
Sign up for SIRGEALC 10.
Knowing your 菠菜 from your 西洋菜.
400 tomato varieties. No pesticides. No water. No problem.
Women are conserving Andean crops. Sure, though with some occasional help from genebanks.
The Rice Origins Wars continue.
Sauerkraut changed the world.

June 30, 2015June 30, 2015

Of plants and their pests

For whatever reason, there was a spate of papers on the coevolution of plants and their pests last week. Or at least I got to hear about them last week.

The one that got the most attention by the popular press — well, actually, the only one that got any attention by the popular press — was a study comparing changes in glucosinolates in the brassica family with speciation in the Pieridae butterflies, whose caterpillars feed on these plants. Glucosinolates give wasabi and mustard their zing (hence the press interest), but are deadly to insects, which is why they evolved in the first place. Each major innovation in the chemistry of glucosinolates since they first arose in the brassicas at the K-T boundary is correlated, the authors found, with a burst of diversification in detoxification mechanisms among the insects at which they were aimed.

The other two studies don’t delve quite so deeply back into evolutionary time, focusing on the role of domestication. The first looked at populations of the green peach aphid (Myzus persicae) growing on a diversity of both crops and their wild relatives. The authors found that aphid populations on domesticated species were more genetically diverse, but evolved more slowly, because selection was less strong and populations larger, weakening the effect of genetic drift. Applying this result to the brassica-butterfly model would suggest that the strength of the association between glucosinolate and butterfly diversity should decrease for the domesticated brassicas compared to the wild ones, but I’m not sure this was looked at in that study.

The third paper investigated the apple’s fungal pathogen Venturia inaequalis. The dispersal characteristics of dozens of strains collected on both domesticated and wild apples in Kazakhstan were compared. The authors found that apple domestication has led to enhanced colonization capacity by the pathogen: strains from orchards have more, bigger spores. Seems to me that’s somewhat contradictory to the aphid example.

The relationship between plants and their pests is, well, complicated.

June 29, 2015June 23, 2015

Brainfood: Nigerian fruit & veg, South African veggies, Veggies in home gardens, Standardizing phenotyping, Potato diversity, Triploid chamomile, Chocolate chip, Fungi & oils, Melon diversity, CC and grasslands

Promoting food security and enhancing Nigeria’s small farmers’ income through value-added processing of lesser-known and under-utilized indigenous fruits and vegetables. It’s the infrastructure, stupid.
The role of wild vegetables in household food security in South Africa: A review. No, it’s the information, stupid.
Indigenous wild food plants in home gardens: improving health and income — with the assistance of agricultural extension. Nope, it’s the extension, stupid.
Towards recommendations for metadata and data handling in plant phenotyping. It’s the standardization, stupid.
Cytoplasmic diversity in potato breeding: case study from the International Potato Center. It’s a genetic bottleneck, stupid.
Towards breeding of triploid chamomile (Matricaria recutita L.) — Ploidy variation within German chamomile of various origins. It’s the triploids, stupid.
Making a chocolate chip: development and evaluation of a 6K SNP array for Theobroma cacao. Oh, very clever, now everybody and their uncle will be able to breed cacao, stupid.
Arbuscular mycorrhiza differentially affects synthesis of essential oils in coriander and dill. It’s not just genetics, stupid.
Comparative transcriptional profiling analysis of developing melon (Cucumis melo L.) fruit from climacteric and non-climacteric varieties. It’s the sugar metabolism, stupid.
Climate-driven diversity loss in a grassland community. It’s the increasing aridity, stupid.

June 23, 2015June 23, 2015

Nibbles: Pope, CGIAR, Agroecology, ABS, Food shortage, World flora, Nutella, Bees, GMOs, CC & wheat, CC & legumes, EU satellite, Seed saving, Wheat breeding, Strawberry breeding, Adopt-a-crop, Organic tea, Malagasy yams, Seed app, Ebola seeds, Sorghum spoons

And we’re back! While we were away…

…the Pope pontificated on climate change and GMOs, among other things.
And so did the CGIAR.
Boffins in the UK suggested that agroecology might be important to sustainable intensification. No word on whether the CGIAR is listening.
Bioversity asked for contributions on whether ABS can support farmers. No word on whether anyone is listening.
And The Economist asked: who cares, anyway?
Google said it would help botanists catalogue all plants.
Nutella was bad, and then ok again.
Bees were again found to be important to agriculture, but not all bees.
The pros and cons of GMOs were trotted out again. And again.
Climate change was blamed for smaller loaves of bread. Which as far as I can tell might not be a totally bad thing.
And for the need to grow drought-resistant legumes.
The EU launched a satellite to monitor crops.
Meanwhile, people just got on with it, in their own, sometimes weird, way…
…breeding wheat. Even organic wheat. Even perennial. Even in Scotland.
…breeding strawberries. Even with wild relatives.
…or just adopting the raw materials of breeding.
Growing organic tea in China.
Conserving yams in Madagascar.
Trying to find the appropriate seeds to grow in Kenya.
And giving probably inappropriate seeds to Ebola-hit farmers.
Which they can now eat using sorghum spoons.