Genetic diversity

August 18, 2026August 19, 2026

A picture is worth a thousand descriptors

For decades, germplasm characterization has relied on people looking at plants, seeds and fruits and recording what they see; first on paper forms, more recently admittedly on tablets and the like. I’ve done that myself, and let me tell you, recording the colour of taro stems on bits of damp paper in the middle of a forest clearing in Vanuatu is no fun.

Lately, thankfully, the camera has been taking over.

A recent overview of new tools for plant genebanks highlights digital photography as a way of capturing standardized information on the colour, size and morphology of seeds and other plant parts, alongside more sophisticated technologies such as hyperspectral imaging and mobile field sensors. The attraction is obvious: instead of recording a handful of descriptors by eye, images can capture a much richer set of characteristics that can subsequently be measured and analysed at your leisure.

The potential is particularly striking for fruit crops. A new study of heritage apples used controlled multi-view imaging to characterize about 350 accessions over three years and two locations. Fancy maths achieved 95% accuracy in distinguishing 38 cultivars, rising to 99% when images of three fruits were combined.

And the technology does not necessarily require sophisticated equipment. In a recent demonstration with beans with complex colour patterns, Miguel Angel Acosta Chinchilla used ordinary photographs, image pre-processing and clustering algorithms to extract dominant palettes and colour distributions.

We’re moving from a limited number of human-defined descriptors to infinitely explorable machine-readable phenotypes. An image can preserve information that nobody thought to score at the time, and algorithms can return to it later to measure traits that were not originally part of the characterization protocol. For genebanks, that could be transformative. A photograph taken today may become a source of data for questions that don’t actually arise until tomorrow.

I wish I had a digital camera with me in that taro patch twenty-odd years ago. Goodness knows what people could be finding in those photos now.

August 17, 2026August 17, 2026

Brainfood: Mung bean pan-genome, Sunflower resistance, Olive adaptation, Allergic peanuts, Weird coffees, Chinese tea, Measuring selection

Graph-based pan-genome reveals structural variations associated with agronomic traits in mung bean. Pan-genome captures extensive structural variation missed by a single reference genome, providing new targets for mung bean improvement.
Wild genes to the rescue: high-throughput genomics reveals the wild source of broomrape resistance in sunflower. Combining high-throughput root phenotyping with genomics identifies wild introgressions underlying broomrape resistance in sunflower and exposes valuable adaptive variation for breeding.
Genomic insights into the local adaptation of spontaneous olive trees in the Mediterranean Basin highlight the need for conservation planning in the face of global change. Genomics of wild West Mediterranean olive trees reveals patterns of local adaptation across temperature and rainfall gradients that it will be important to conserve as climates change.
Genetic regulation of major immunogenic protein accumulation in peanut seeds. Genomics provides targets for breeding peanuts with reduced allergenicity.
Genomic elucidation of hybridization between Liberica and excelsa coffee and its implications for coffee crop development. Genomics confirms that Liberica and excelsa coffee readily hybridize and produce fertile, genetically diverse offspring with intermediate agronomic traits, a possible source of diversity to broaden coffee’s climate resilience.
Simple sequence repeat (SSR) marker-based genetic diversity and population structure of large-leaf tea germplasm across four major tea-producing regions of Yunnan, China. Genomics of Yunnan’s large-leaf tea germplasm finds substantial genetic diversity but remarkably little regional differentiation, showing that seed propagation, natural crossing and human movement have maintained genetic connectivity across tea-growing regions.
Measuring maternal line selection driven by differential survival in ex situ collections for plant conservation. A new method distinguishes random mortality from selection among maternal lines in ex situ collections, offering conservationists a way to detect whether plant deaths are systematically eroding the genetic variation they are trying to preserve. And no genomics involved.

August 13, 2026August 12, 2026

Nibbles: Festivals, Wheat breeding, Cowpea, Community seed bank, Mint diversity

Festivals, rituals and seed-saving go hand in hand, as this photo essay on Koraput’s Adivasis shows for World Indigenous Peoples Day.
Speaking of unlikely alliances, Israeli and Palestinian researchers have teamed up on wheat that can take the heat in a warming, drying Middle East.
Not to be outdone in the resilience stakes, the cowpea shrugs off both drought and flooding, according to FAO.
If all this talk of resilient crops has you inspired, here’s a how-to on starting your own community seed bank, in South Africa or anywhere else for that matter.
And for when preservation is really about nostalgia: Romania’s Buzau genebank is keeping childhood mint flavours alive, chocolate, clove and vanilla notes included.

August 10, 2026August 10, 2026

Brainfood: Avocado history, Brazil commuity seedbanks, Citizen science, Agroecology double, Indigenous knowledge, Turkish seeds, Swiss biodiversity

Ethnobotanical and genetic assessments of Central American avocado landraces reveal novel sources of biodiversity and ancient migration patterns. DNA from landraces, and interviews with farmers, show that people transported and cultivated avocados across the Americas long before European contact, with landraces from lowland Nicaragua and Honduras in particular showing evidence of ancient migration from South America.
The Circle of Seeds: An Ethnography of Seed Guardianship and the Making of Agroecological Futures in Paraná, Brazil. Community seed banks depend on relationships of care, reciprocity and collective labour, especially among women farmers, and not just on knowing how to store seeds properly. Though that helps, clearly.
iNaturalist as a Tool to Improve Agroecological Biodiversity Knowledge: An Ecuadorian Case Study. A citizen science platform can strengthen agroecological biodiversity knowledge, but more efforts are needed to engage farmers.
Are agroecological practices pro-poor? Evidence from smallholder farms in Zimbabwe. Farmers using agroecological practices were generally wealthier and their farms were more diverse in crop and livestock species, but the association between the use of improved practices and diet outcomes was inconsistent.
Regenerative agriculture for dietary diversity and food security in Zambia. Agroecological practices were positively correlated with improved dietary quality and food security, including (though not exclusively) through farm production diversity. No word on the wealth of the farmers involved.
Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge systems and practices for climate survival. Indigenous knowledge systems, including of farmers, offer tested approaches to climate adaptation and resilience that warrant a central place in responses to environmental change.
Guardians of Agricultural Biodiversity: Farmer Perceptions and Sustainability of Local Seed Varieties in Turkish Highlands. Farmers continue to maintain local seed varieties, driven as much by social, cultural and market considerations as by agronomic performance. But they need support.
Religion, spirituality and faith of Swiss farmers in relation to biodiversity-linked farming behaviour. Farmers’ religious and spiritual values can shape biodiversity-friendly management decisions, showing personal belief systems are important in conservation. Even in Switzerland.

August 9, 2026August 9, 2026

Nibbles: Museum of Cider, Aport apple, Rattan genebank, Sri Lanka rice, Saudi coffee landscapes

In the UK, Herefordshire’s Museum of Cider is picking up national recognition for its genebank of heritage apple trees. The BBC’s canonical autumnal apple story comes a little early this year.
Speaking of iconic apples, Kazakhstan is scaling up efforts to bring back the Aport, the giant heirloom that once made Almaty famous. No word of museums, though. Or cider.
Over in the Philippines, Department of Environment and Natural Resources is beefing up its rattan genebank to keep pace with demand, with forest stewards in Bukidnon planting seedlings to match. Furniture makers need genebanks as much as cider makers.
Sri Lanka’s pre-Green Revolution heirloom rice varieties, purana haal, are being eyed for their resilience and disease-management potential. Good thing they’re in the national genebank.
Saudi Arabia’s Jazan terraced coffee farms are turning into rural and ecotourism hotspots, proving not all agrobiodiversity needs to be in a genebank to survive. But it helps.