Genetic diversity

August 23, 2010August 23, 2010

Fruit diversity in SE Europe

Fuad Gasi tells us about an interesting effort to document the diversity of fruits in the former Yugoslavia.

A new regional collaboration between the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences, University of Sarajevo and the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zagreb has been established in the field of fruit (including Vitis) genetic resources. This collaboration is being strengthened through the SEEDNet project (South East European Network on Plant Genetic Resources) financed by SIDA (Swedish International Development Agency). So far, we have had a publication on apple genetic resources in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a result of this collaboration. We are currently preparing a similar publication on plum genetic resources that will present results of a study made on autochthonous plums from B&H, Croatia and Serbia, focusing mainly on different synonyms of Pozegaca, but not exclusively (molecular and morphological data, as well as some food processing qualities). Similar work has been done on the chestnut and is currently being done on the pear.

August 19, 2010

Diversity of tastes

A long article from The New Yorker last November is all about the world of artificial flavours — but it does contain a fascinating section on the diversity of citrus fruits that the taste-makers explore in search of inspiration.

August 10, 2010August 10, 2010

Nibbles: Bent, Rice, Cheez, Pavlovsk, Millennium Seed Bank, Livestock, EUCARPIA

Fine memoir of Sir Bent Skovmand. Thanks Dag.
Rice yields falling — and not just in experimental stations. The paper.
In all the eulogies to the inventor of the Cheez Doodle, a note of truth.
You could buy the Pavlovsk genebank site for just USD3.3 million, it says here. Is that even doable?
Meanwhile, over in England, Researchers Rush to Fill Noah’s Ark Seed Bank While Politicians Bicker.
Meanwhile, in Australia, worries about declines in livestock diversity.
EUCARPIA’s meetings calendar. Handy.

July 31, 2010July 31, 2010

Nibbles: Trojan Horse? Farmer preferences, Yucca moths, Bees, GM bananas, Coffee

This is not a Trojan Horse. Madcap agrobiodiversity antics in Abruzzo, Italy. No, I don’t get it either.
Farmers are willing to forego some extra income or yield to obtain a more stable and environmentally adaptable crop variety. They are? Someone tell the Nabobs.
Yucca moths and yuccas; an astonishing evolutionary story.
Bee research gets USD1.5 million for a big database. Hope it helps.
“GM bananas could cut blindness, anaemia in East Africa.” Because nothing else will?
Coffee, a history.

July 29, 2010July 31, 2010

Can Science Feed the World?

That’s the question posed by the title of a big splash in Nature. The answer, in case you don’t want to work your way through the various contributions, as summarized in a handy pamphlet, is yes, by enabling sustainable intensification, although not on its own. So nothing wildly new there. Also not new is that once again agrobiodiversity gets the shaft. One of the articles does focus on plant breeding, but it doesn’t mention the need to ensure the long-term availability of its raw material — crop and livestock genetic diversity, including that in genebanks. There’s also a piece by Jeffrey Sachs and numerous co-authors on the need for better global monitoring of agriculture, which doesn’t mention the desirability of monitoring levels of agricultural biodiversity on-farm. Oh well.