- A drug company is almost ready to go with a pain reliever from the Peruvian rainforest, based on Acmella oleracea, “also known as toothache plant”. Clues, wherever you look.
- Why biodiverse beehives do better. It’s partly down to biodiverse bacteria.
- Producing blood oranges anywhere. I’ll enjoy my Sicilian ones more, now I know why only some are bloody.
- A hymn to the diversity of fermented milk products.
- Interview with Melaku Worede of Ethiopia; “we are still losing diversity at an alarming rate”.
- Rajiv Shah, administrator of USAID, explains what it is all about.
Brainfood: Beans, Potatoes, Lettuce, Agave, Gaming, Mangroves, Ancient millets, Ancient missions
- Mesoamerican origin of the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is revealed by sequence data. Revealed is kinda strong isn’t it? This from a bean expert of my acquaintance: “Yes, we knew that, as it seems to be the case of all species of the Phaseoli section. They could have done a bit better in including the 2 populations of Cordoba mountain, in order to see whether these belong to the first migration to the Andes, or the second one. Wild vulgaris from western Panama, or Venezuela, could have helped in this regard too. We have shown years ago that the complex genetic structure in Mexico and in Colombia is the result of these floristic migrations combined with gene flow events because beans cross among themselves.”
- The Enigma of Solanum maglia in the Origin of the Chilean Cultivated Potato, Solanum tuberosum Chilotanum Group. These are long-day adapted and therefore crucial to the history of the potato in Europe. But the various sorts of evidence looked at to investigate their relationship to the rare Chilean wild relative S. maglia just do not agree. Bummer.
- Wild and weedy Lactuca species, their distribution, ecogeography and ecobiology in USA and Canada. So Iowa is a wild lettuce hotspot. If you’re interested in the germplasm, it’ll be in the genebank of Palacký University in the Czech Republic.
- Sustainability of the traditional management of Agave genetic resources in the elaboration of mezcal and tequila spirits in western Mexico. Tequila industrial agriculture should learn from the traditional kind.
- Fate of the World: computer gaming for conservation. Worth a try. No, really.
- The Economic Value of Mangroves: A Meta-Analysis. You might think there would be a value in the abstract; you would be wrong.
- Early millet use in northern China. That would be Setaria italica and Panicum miliaceum, and new evidence from ancient starch grain on pottery and grinding stones found in archaeological sites has pushed back their cultivation in N China by 1000 and 2000 years respectively, to about 9500-7500 BC. The Archaeobotanist has more, as ever.
- Digitization and online availability of original collecting mission data to improve data quality and enhance the conservation and use of plant genetic resources. They’re there (and here; what’s up with that?) to consult and make use of if you want.
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Nibbles: Women, Diplomats, Murderers, Speculators, Brainiacs, Participators, Cartographers, Foodographers, Native American agrobiodiversity
- Mo’ women power, mo’ better food security. ILRI leads the pack of CGIAR centres, but there’s loads of stuff elsewhere.
- British diplomat ponders the value of biodiversity.
- Less than a human life, at least in some parts of Brazil.
- Speaking (cynically) of values and prices, informed speculation on speculators is at hand.
- Berries make you brainy; so I guess that reporter hasn’t eaten any lately.
- You too can determine future-oriented research pathways for food security in East Africa, and no need to pig out on berries.
- A kinda sorta interactive map of European agricultural biodiversity. Is it sustainable?
- That map may need a special section for Florence, if one person’s photographic Florentine feast is anything to go by.
- If there were a similar map for the US, it would probably include this kind of thing from the Cherokee.
Brainfood: Bison on the prairie, Tilapia breeding, AM on banana, Phenomics,Yam collection, Nopales, Arable flora
- Can bison play a role in conserving habitat for endangered sandhills species in Canada? Maybe, hence the recommendation to re-introduce them. Incidentally, there are a few crop wild relatives on the list of threatened plants of Canada.
- Genetic improvement of farmed tilapias: Genetic parameters for body weight at harvest in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) during five generations of testing in multiple environments. The 10-year “Genetic Improvement of Farmed Tilapias” (GIFT) project was not a complete waste of time. The GIFT population will respond well to selection for increased body mass, and you dont have to do the evaluation in lots of different environments.
- Mycorrhizal colonization of major banana genotypes in six East African environments. Different banana genotypes had different levels of infection, but environment also plays an important role. Important because arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi may increase production.
- On the use of depth camera for 3D phenotyping of entire plants. An example of this.
- Genetic and phenotypic diversity in a germplasm working collection of cultivated tropical yams (Dioscorea spp.). Should be a good starting point for improvement programmes. Kind of like the GIFT population, then, eh? But starting point? Haven’t people been breeding yams for a while?
- Cytogeography of the Humifusa clade of Opuntia s.s. Mill. 1754 (Cactaceae, Opuntioideae, Opuntieae): correlations with pleistocene refugia and morphological traits in a polyploid complex. The southeastern and southwestern U.S. represent glacial refugia for diploid members of the clade, and a whole bunch of polyploids resulted when the taxa spread out again after glacial episodes. How many of these are eaten is what I’d like to know, and whether ploidy affects that. I suppose climate change will lead to further complications?
- The impact of agricultural intensification and land-use change on the European arable flora. Is significant. Not least because some crop wild relatives are involved, although that’s not really discussed here.
Nibbles: NERICA vs landraces, Asian breeding, Wild wheat threats, Indian agrobiodiversity area, GBIF, Ancient Amazonia
- NERICA shmerica.
- Did you know that the Society for Advancement of Breeding Research in Asia and Oceania (SABRAO) 12th Congress from 13-16 January 2012 in Chiang Mai, Thailand. No, neither did I.
- Whither wild wheat?
- Koraput and its agrobiodiversity, including aus rice, makes it on the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS).
- GBIF has many duplicates. I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
- Amazonia was densely populated. No it wasn’t. Yes it was. No it wasn’t.