Genetic diversity

February 15, 2024February 15, 2024

The Coalition for Conservation Genetics is looking to grow

The Coalition for Conservation Genetics (CCG) brings together four field-leading organizations with a shared goal: Improving the integration of genetic information into conservation policy and practice.

If you think that sounds cool, consider applying to join. Deadline is 29 Feb.

This application is for potential new members of the Coalition for Conservation Genetics, or CCG. The CCG aims to better support policy and management of within-species genetic diversity globally, through outreach, coordination, dissemination, and engagement. We invite new members to help co-develop, plan and implement the future of the CCG as a global organization, and are excited to incorporate new vision, perspective, and leadership. We are seeking to expand our membership beyond high income and moderate-high income countries, and beyond mostly academic training, so we especially welcome applicants from, living in, and/or working in the Global South. Persons with government, non-profit, and indigenous and local knowledge or similar experience are also very welcome. Applicants do not need to be current members of the CCG founding networks (GEO BON, IUCN, SCB, and GBIKE).

February 13, 2024February 14, 2024

Nibbles: Cheese microbes, OSSI, Mung bean, Sustainable ag, Agroecology, Collard greens, African orphan crops, Olive diversity, Mezcal threats, German perry, Spanish tomatoes, N fixation

A sustainable blue cheese industry needs more microbial diversity.
The Open Source Seed Initiative gets written up in The Guardian. Looks like we need something similar for cheese microbes.
The Guardian then follows up with mung bean breeding and fart jokes.
But then goes all serious with talk of trillions of dollars in benefits from sustainable food systems. Diversity not mentioned, alas, though, so one wonders about the point of the previous pieces.
Fortunately Indigeneous Colombian farmers have the right idea about sustainability.
Collard greens breeders do too, for that matter.
More African native crops hype for Dr Wood to object to. Seriously though, some crops do need more research, if only so they can be grown somewhere else.
There’s plenty of research — and art for that matter — on the olive, but the international genebanks could do with more recognition.
The mezcal agave, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have much diversity in genebanks, and it is threatened in the wild.
Perry culture in Germany is also threatened. Pretty sure there are genebanks though.
This piece about tomato diversity in Spain is worth reading for many reasons (heroic seed saving yada yada), but especially for the deadpan take on the Guardia Civil at the end.
Maybe we could breed some of those tomatoes to fix their own nitrogen. And get the Guardia Civil to pay for it.

February 12, 2024February 10, 2024

Brainfood: Breeding edition

Climate-resilient crops: Lessons from xerophytes. Breeding for Na+ exclusion to improve salinity tolerance in crops has compromised their drought tolerance, but both tolerances are down to more gene copies in key families when comparing species.
Innovation and Technological Mismatch: Experimental Evidence from Improved Crop Seeds. Breeders should strive to give farmers what they want, even if it means releasing multiple locally adapted varieties rather than a single blockbuster.
Stressors and Resilience within the Cassava Value Chain in Nigeria: Preferred Cassava Variety Traits and Response Strategies of Men and Women to Inform Breeding. Man and women want different things from cassava breeders.
Intra-household discrete choice experiment for trait preferences: a new method. If only there was a new way to measure that…
Genome editing to re-domesticate and accelerate use of barley crop wild relatives. No word on whether men and women would edit different genes.
Understanding Genome Structure Facilitates the Use of Wild Lentil Germplasm for Breeding: A Case Study with Shattering Loci. I suspect neither men nor women would tolerate shattering lentils.
Repeat turnover meets stable chromosomes: repetitive DNA sequences mark speciation and gene pool boundaries in sugar beet and wild beets. But you can’t use wild species in breeding if you can’t cross them with the crop, and in beet that’s down to the repeatome. So maybe this would make a better case for domestication through gene editing than barley or lentils?
Development of trait-specific genetic stocks derived from wild Cicer species as novel sources of resistance to important diseases for chickpea improvement. Would be really cool to domesticate one of the really resistant tertiary genepool species.
Developing Genetic Resources Within the Chenopodium Genus to Advance Quinoa Breeding and the de novo Domestication of C. berlandieri. Not that you need gene editing for domesticating crop wild relatives.
Genomic traces of Japanese malting barley breeding in two modern high-quality cultivars, ‘Sukai Golden’ and ‘Sachiho Golden’. Old-fashioned breeding has been pretty successful, so who needs CWR, gene editing and discrete choice experiments? ((Last bit added purely for clicks, I’m desperate.))
Consistent effects of independent domestication events on the plant microbiota. I hope all those gene-editing de novo domesticators are considering the novo microbiomes.

January 29, 2024January 24, 2024

Brainfood: Nutrition edition

Which crop biodiversity is used by the food industry throughout the world? A first evidence for legume species. Mainly soy, alas. Which is bad because…
Diversified agriculture leads to diversified diets: panel data evidence from Bangladesh. …promoting diversified farming systems and market participation is good for women’s empowerment and better diets. Which is just as well because…
Historical shifting in grain mineral density of landmark rice and wheat cultivars released over the past 50 years in India. …breeding hasn’t been good for nutritional content in staples.
Surviving mutations: how an Indonesian Capsicum frutescens L. cultivar maintains capsaicin biosynthesis despite disruptive mutations. But if you can breed for extreme pungency, you can surely breed for better nutrient content.
Exploiting Indian landraces to develop biofortified grain sorghum with high protein and minerals. Yep, simple selection can make a sorghum landrace more nutritious.
Genome-edited foods. Or you could resort to gene editing.
Adoption and impact of improved amaranth cultivars in Tanzania using DNA fingerprinting. Although maybe it might be easier to just eat more amaranth.
Stakeholders’ perceptions of and preferences for utilizing fonio (Digitaria exilis) to enrich local diets for food and nutritional security in Nigeria. But documenting knowledge will be key in either case.
Domestication through clandestine cultivation constrained genetic diversity in magic mushrooms relative to naturalized populations. And watch what you’re doing to diversity.

January 24, 2024January 24, 2024

Nibbles: CAAS genebank, VACS, Opportunity crops, Ross-Ibarra, Canary sweetpotatoes, Land Institute crowdsourcing, BBC seed podcast

The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences genebank fills some gaps.
I wonder if any of those new accessions are “opportunity crops.”
Because they are sorely needed, for example in Africa.
Which is not to say working on staples like maize isn’t cool. Just ask Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra.
Working on sweet potato can also be, well, sweet. Case in point: gorgeous book on the varieties of the Canaries.
There’s an opportunity to help the Land Institute with its research on perennial crops.
And yes, seeds are indeed alive. Just ask CAAS.