- A genomic variation map provides insights into the genetic basis of cucumber domestication and diversity. Four geographic groups, bottleneck not too bad. Opportunity for breeding for better nutritional value. But I suspect that’s a low bar.
- Dietary mineral supplies in Africa. Zn seems to be the lowest hanging fruit, as it were. I wonder if above’s super-cucumbers would help.
- Mechanisms for flowering plants to benefit arthropod natural enemies of insect pests: Prospects for enhanced use in agriculture. If you chose the right plants to plant, you can boost biological control of insect pests on farms.
- Agricultural expansion and its impacts on tropical nature. Roads will lead to increased conversion of natural ecosystems to agriculture in South America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Sustainable intensification is the answer.
- From Food Insufficiency towards Trade Dependency: A Historical Analysis of Global Food Availability. If most of us have more food now, it’s because of trade.
- Technical challenges in evaluating southern China’s forage germplasm resources. Nothing they can’t handle, clearly.
- Sustaining Frafra potato (Solenostemon rotundifolius Poir.) in the food chain; current opportunities in Ghana. Better varieties and processing. Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, in every single paper on neglected crops.
- Rayada specialty: the forgotten resource of elite features of rice. It’s a weird variant of deepwater rice from Bangladesh with possible enhanced stress tolerance due to longer root system.
- Persea schiedeana: A High Oil “Cinderella Species” Fruit with Potential for Tropical Agroforestry Systems. Superior genotypes of this neglected avocado relative identified in fairs in Mexican region, and targeted for vegetative propagation and participatory breeding.
- Quality characteristics of European avena genetic resources collections. The modern varieties are better, but that doesn’t mean the old ones are useless.
- Nutrient Intake, Morbidity and Nutritional Status of Preschool Children are Influenced by Agricultural and Dietary Diversity in Western Kenya. Low food variety is associated with stunting. Kinda sorta.
Nibbles: Water buffalo, Beans, Rhizowen, Fisheries, Frankincence, Gender and gender, US CWR, Cropland, Forests and food security
- Today’s genome of passing interest, the water buffalo, less than two years after it was promised.
- Saluting the true amateurs, on bean and tuberous diversity.
- Unconsidered benefits of capture fisheries — except for the captured fish, I suppose.
- Eleven months early, AoBblog links to a new paper on how to best to tap frankincense.
- Not to be outdone, Modern Farmer relates how maple syrup could be industrialised as a row crop. H/t Metafilter.
- An e-learning course on Gender in Agriculture.
- Which is unlikely to please Ed Carr, author of Gender and adaptation: Time to do it differently.
- US inventories its crop wild relatives.
- Demand for cropland will increase.
- Which is bad for forests, which are good for food security, but not as much as they could be.
Brainfood: Domestication syndrome, Açaí cultivation, FIGS galore, Bean FIGS, Polish wheat, Rice groups, Chickpea QTLs, Cuban ag history, Agroforestry domestication, Conservation markets
- Plant domestication versus crop evolution: a conceptual framework for cereals and grain legumes. Only traits showing clear dimorphism between wild and cultivated taxa are really part of Domestication Syndrome. If there’s a continuum, it happened afterwards.
- Reconfiguring Agrobiodiversity in the Amazon Estuary: Market Integration, the Açaí Trade and Smallholders’ Management Practices in Amapá, Brazil. Açaí driving out other crops. Sometimes those underutilized crops should stay that way? Maybe not, as at the same time, homegardens are diversifying.
- Mining germplasm banks for photosynthetic improvement — wheat, rice, potato, legumes and maize. You need maps.
- Do faba bean (Vicia faba L.) accessions from environments with contrasting seasonal moisture availabilities differ in stomatal characteristics and related traits? Yes. Those maps again.
- Can Polish wheat (Triticum polonicum L.) be an interesting gene source for breeding wheat cultivars with increased resistance to Fusarium head blight? What do you think?
- Genetic diversity and classification of Oryza sativa with emphasis on Chinese rice germplasm. Six major groups, not five. We shall see.
- Genetic dissection of drought tolerance in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.). It could all (or mostly) be down to one genomic region.
- Historical changes in the process of agricultural development in Cuba. I suppose one could say that, in a way, it’s back to the future.
- Developing more productive African agroforestry systems and improving food and nutritional security through tree domestication. Participation, post-production, private-public partnership.
- Market-based mechanisms for biodiversity conservation: a review of existing schemes and an outline for a global mechanism. Need to have a standard unit of measurement, and a mechanism for ensuring a long-term perspective. Can agricultural biodiversity learn from this?
Nibbles: Freekeh, Teff, African Chef, Inga agroforestry, Apple erosion
- Freekeh is the new quinoa. What, the next environmental and social catastrophe for the Bolivian altiplano?
- Oh no, sorry, it’s teff that’s the new quinoa.
- Only a matter of time until African Chef gets hold of it then.
- And no doubt Inga edulis is not far behind.
- Let’s hope it doesn’t go the way of the McIntosh.
Brainfood: Tanzanian maize, ITK, Genebank value, Congolese bananas, Amaranth domestication, Ethiopian coffees, Dacryodes diversity, Apple diversity, Breeding pulses, Commons, Beet genetic structure, Restoring landscapes, Indian agrobiodiversity
- Modern maize varieties going local in the semi-arid zone in Tanzania. OPVs from the 80s are creolizing still, and that’s a good thing.
- Traditional Knowledge Systems, International Law and National Challenges: Marginalization or Emancipation? Well, it looks like it’s the former, but should be the latter. ‘Twas ever thus.
- Valuing insurance services emerging from a gene bank: The case of the Greek Gene Bank. Benefits are greater than costs. Phew.
- Banana genotype composition along the Uganda-Democratic Republic of Congo border: a gene pool mix for plantain and highland bananas. You can still find new stuff. And get funding to look for it, clearly.
- Relationships between the Weedy Amaranthus hybridus (Amaranthaceae) and the Grain Amaranths. Multiple domestications? And why not.
- Genetic Diversity Analysis of Some Ethiopian Specialty Coffee (Coffea arabica L.) Germplasm Accessions Based on Morphological Traits. As ever, useful variation was found. We await its arrival in our morning cup.
- Genetic diversity of Dacryodes buettneri (Engl.) H.J. Lam (Burseraceae), a timber tree in Central Africa. There is some. It could be important, yada yada.
- Malus sieversii: A Diverse Central Asian Apple Species in the USDA-ARS National Plant Germplasm System. The infra-specific taxa may not hold up.
- Exploiting Genomic Resources for Efficient Conservation and Use of Chickpea, Groundnut, and Pigeonpea Collections for Crop Improvement. It’s so close, these guys can taste it. When will we?
- Is genetic information a commons? Maybe it should be.
- Genetic structure and gene flow in Beta vulgaris subspecies maritima along the Atlantic coast of France. The latitudinal cline that wasn’t.
- Restoration of degraded agricultural terraces: Rebuilding landscape structure and process. Restoration is not enough, you need continuous management thereafter. Probably applies to the agricultural biodiversity too, when you think about it.
- Agro-biodiversity in rice–wheat-based agroecosystems of eastern Uttar Pradesh, India: implications for conservation and sustainable management. Resource-poor farmers are better at agrobiodiversity conservation than rich ones. ‘Twas ever thus.