- Building value chains for indigenous fruits: lessons from camu-camu in Peru. It’s the local markets, stupid.
- Assessing the potential for niche market development to contribute to farmers’ livelihoods and agrobiodiversity conservation: Insights from the finger millet case study in Nepal. What they said.
- Agro-biodiversity of Mediterranean crops: farmers’ preferences in support of a conservation programme for olive landraces. See above.
- Is resilience a useful concept in the context of food security and nutrition programmes? Some conceptual and practical considerations. Yes, because it integrates a lot of stuff. But it’s difficult to measure.
- The Changing Nature of Agricultural Livelihoods along a Peri-urban to Rural Gradient in Eastern Madagascar. Rural people farm less if they can. Wonder what that means for crop diversity.
- A Belated Green Revolution for Cannabis: Virtual Genetic Resources to Fast-track Cultivar Development. Oh my.
- On-farm diversity of sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] and risks of varietal erosion in four regions of Burkina Faso. 73% of lost varieties were found.
Brainfood: China cereal yield, US soybean breeding, Breadfruit genomics, Field app, Urban ag, Rose breeding, Strawberry cryo, Global biodiversity loss, Oceania bananas, Vegetable breeding, Badass Chinese sheep
- Patterns of Cereal Yield Growth across China from 1980 to 2010 and Their Implications for Food Production and Food Security. There has been yield stagnation over about 50% of total area of rice and maize, 15% of wheat.
- Genomic signatures of North American soybean improvement inform diversity enrichment strategies and clarify the impact of hybridization. 579 soybean varieties released 1940-2009 fall into 3 maturity groups, the overall diversity of which is not too different from the diversity of the ancestor landraces.
- Low-Coverage, Whole-Genome Sequencing of Artocarpus camansi (Moraceae) for Phylogenetic Marker Development and Gene Discovery. There’s been a whole genome duplication in Artocarpus.
- ColectoR, a Digital Field Notebook for Voucher Specimen Collection for Smartphones. So many of these things around.
- Potential ecosystem services of urban agriculture: a review. Important at local scale, not so much at global scale.
- Nineteenth century French rose (Rosa sp.) germplasm shows a shift over time from a European to an Asian genetic background. Ah, the lure of the exotic; 19 genetic groups, not corresponding to horticultural groups.
- Cryopreservation of in vitro shoot tips of strawberry by the vitrification method — establishment of a duplicate collection of Fragaria germplasm. The German national collection, including wild relatives, is a bit safer.
- Has land use pushed terrestrial biodiversity beyond the planetary boundary? A global assessment. Looks like it. Cross-reference with crop wild relatives?
- Traditional Banana Diversity in Oceania: An Endangered Heritage. Out of New Guinea…
- The contribution of international vegetable breeding to private seed companies in India. Vegetable breeding by AVRDC still has a role as R&D shifts to the private sector, but it’s different to what it was.
- Whole-genome sequencing of native sheep provides insights into rapid adaptations to extreme environments. Genomes of 77 Chinese breeds from extreme environments reveal genes likely to be useful in extreme environments.
Nibbles: African fruits, Old apple, Ancient barley, GRAIN study, Desertification, Biodiversity loss
- ICRAF helps us understand little-understood African fruit trees.
- The apple is pretty well understood, but this one important, 200-year-old tree is dying. Tissue culture to the rescue.
- I see your 200-year-old-tree and I raise you 6000-year-old barley.
- GRAIN takes aim at FTAs.
- Desertification may not be a thing.
- Biodiversity loss is, though, right?
Nibbles: Indian ag, West African rice, Interdependence day, Animal cryo, NASA, Biopiracy?
- “…nor could they survive during inclement phases of a seasonal climate with a cheery hardiness the way our traditional varieties could.
- “How does the centrality of rice production mediate social reality among the Jola?”
- “When we say, ‘As American as apple pie,’ we think of baseball and hot dogs without ever considering not one ingredient in apple pie originates from what we call the United States.”
- “The absolute minimum we should do is preserve tissues from these animals in such a way they can be thawed and grown again.”
- “We’re botanists; we’re plant experts. Plus we had this humongous network of students, citizen scientists who were eager to do so much research that scientists at Kennedy simply didn’t have time to do.”
- “It is essential that all countries join and ratify the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol.”
Brainfood: Maize domestication, Eastern European grazing, Silk Road, Hybridization, European agroforestry, Japanese pears
- Recent demography drives changes in linked selection across the maize genome. Only a small part of teosinte contributed to maize.
- Changing year-round habitat use of extensively grazing cattle, sheep and pigs in East-Central Europe between 1940 and 2014: Consequences for conservation and policy. Animals don’t graze as much, or the same habitats, as they used to, which may not be altogether good for conservation of either plants or livestock because grazing was an important management intervention for thousands of years.
- Between China and South Asia: A Middle Asian corridor of crop dispersal and agricultural innovation in the Bronze Age. Wheat goes east, millets go west.
- Hybridization and extinction. Genetic swamping can happen, but hybridization can rescue a species too.
- Do European agroforestry systems enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services? A meta-analysis. Yes.
- Estimation of loss of genetic diversity in modern Japanese cultivars by comparison of diverse genetic resources in Asian pear (Pyrus spp.). The modern cultivars are variations on “Nijisseiki.”