- Modelling crop diversification and association effects in agricultural systems. Intercrop, people!
- Cooking up Diverse Diets: Advancing Biodiversity in Food and Agriculture through Collaborations with Chefs. Yeah, yeah, chefs are great. Now show me the data.
- Multivariate analysis and selection criteria for identification of African rice (Oryza glaberrima) for genetic improvement of indica rice cultivars. Go for high number of productive tillers and early maturity.
- Strategies for Sustainable Use of Indigenous Cattle Genetic Resources in Southern Africa. Not just genetic improvement: also need better nutrition, healthcare, marketing, and infrastructure; integration and empowerment of women and youth; and capacity building, regulatory, and policy frameworks. Not unlike crops, really.
- Population structure of Miscanthus sacchariflorus reveals two major polyploidization events, tetraploid-mediated unidirectional introgression from diploid M. sinensis, and diversity centred around the Yellow Sea. The centre of origin in under water.
- Remote sensing for agricultural applications: A meta-review. Yeah, yeah. Call me when you have a way of distinguishing landraces from modern varieties.
- Genetic Diversity of Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas L. Lam) Germplasms Collected Worldwide Using Chloroplast SSR Markers. 500 is not enough.
- Seed germination and storage studies in seed-fertile Musa indandamanensis and its conservation. Intermediate.
- Cultivated olive diversification at local and regional scales: evidence from the genetic characterization of French genetic resources. Areas with unexpected frosts have been, paradoxically, good for olive diversity.
- Genetic diversity of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) throughout West Africa. Corresponds to river basins. Well there’s a shocker.
- Protecting half of the planet could directly affect over one billion people. Add lowest-footprint pixels to PAs until you get to 50% coverage of each ecoregion, then count how many people live in PAs, for good or ill.
- Food Access Deficiencies in Sub-saharan Africa: Prevalence and Implications for Agricultural Interventions. Livestock helps, higher income not necessarily.
- Can a speed breeding approach accelerate genetic gain in pigeonpea? I’m going to guess yes.
- Hypoallergen Peanut Lines Identified Through Large-Scale Phenotyping of Global Diversity Panel: Providing Hope Toward Addressing One of the Major Global Food Safety Concerns. Lots of diversity to play with.
- Revolturas: resisting multinational seed corporations and legal seed regimes through seed-saving practices and activism in Colombia. Everybody’s at it.
Brainfood: Accessibility data smorgasbord, Microclimate megadataset, Breeding strategies, Aeroponic cassava, Jatropha conservation, Wheat diversity, Botanic gardens, Polyploid duo, Rhizosphere symbiosis, Selfing niches, Pepper priorities, Eggplant core, Ipomoea evolution, Kenyan supermarkets
- A suite of global accessibility indicators. How long it takes to get from anywhere in the world to settlements of different size. Or took, in 2015.
- A method for computing hourly, historical, terrain‐corrected microclimate anywhere on Earth. Why you might want to move in the first place.
- Genetic strategies for improving crop yields. “Valuable genetic diversity for increasing crop resilience resides in cultivated landraces, heirloom varieties and the wild relatives of crops.”
- A low-cost aeroponic phenotyping system for storage root development: unravelling the below-ground secrets of cassava (Manihot esculenta). But sometimes you have to work hard to get at it: case in point.
- High SNP diversity in the non-toxic indigenous Jatropha curcas germplasm widens the potential of this upcoming major biofuel crop species. And here’s another.
- Genome-wide variation patterns between landraces and cultivars uncover divergent selection during modern wheat breeding. In China and Pakistan anyway.
- Plant populations of three threatened species experience rapid evolution under ex situ cultivation. So don’t cultivate, store seeds instead. Or as well.
- Genes derived from ancient polyploidy have higher genetic diversity and are associated with domestication in Brassica rapa. Polyploidy pre-adapts plants for domestication.
- Genome duplication effects on functional traits and fitness are genetic context and species dependent: studies of synthetic polyploid Fragaria. Case in point.
- A mutualistic interaction between Streptomyces bacteria, strawberry plants and pollinating bees. The rhizosphere protects.
- Do selfing species have greater niche breadth? Support from ecological niche modeling. Yes indeed.
- Modelled distributions and conservation status of the wild relatives of chile peppers (Capsicum L.). 50% are high priority for conservation. No word on their mating systems.
- Construction of a core collection of eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) based on genome-wide SNP and SSR genotypes. From 893 to 100, in 4 geographical clusters.
- A taxonomic monograph of Ipomoea integrated across phylogenetic scales. A whole bunch of new species, and evidence that some 60 species independently developed storage roots before humans were even around. Yes, even sweetpotato.
- Supermarket food purchases and child nutrition in Kenya. Not a bad thing.
Nibbles: Saviour edition
- The Parque de la Papa will save us all.
- David Fairchild tried to save us all.
- Gardens in Florence and Warsaw team up to save citrus oddities.
- Save land through indigenous mapping.
Nibbles: GB8, Aqueduct, Soviet tea, Tilapia virus, Quelites, NUS, Golden Thread, China Neolithic, Organic maize
- Virginia Gewin on GB8.
- Mapping water risks around the world.
- The decline and rise of Georgian tea.
- Virus hits tilapia. A lot of people could be hurt.
- Amaranthus in Mexico.
- Just one of many relatively neglected crops around the world that shouldn’t be.
- How wheat took over China. That was kinda underused at first too.
- Long webinar on organic maize breeding. Amaranthus next?
- The rise of fabric.
Brainfood: Cereal grains, Cerrado threats, Potato conservation, Maize rhizosphere, Coconut diversification, Lombard landraces, Lupinus evaluation, Genetic markers, Pathogen evolution, PAs & productivity, Agricultural expansion, Trade & obesity, ILRI genebank
- Large‐scale GWAS in sorghum reveals common genetic control of grain size among cereals. QTLs for grain size potential (rather than capacity to fill grains) identified in sorghum, turn out to be similar to other cereals.
- Linking global drivers of agricultural trade to on-the-ground impacts on biodiversity. Specific soy buyers with disproportionate impact on endemic and threatened cerrado species identified by fancy maths. Yes, you’re probably responsible for the plight of the giant anteater.
- Long-term conservation of potato genetic resources: Methods and status of conservation. Useful brief roundup.
- Impacts of Maize Domestication and Breeding on Rhizosphere Microbial Community Recruitment from a Nutrient Depleted Agricultural Soil. Hybrids changed the rhizosphere.
- Genome-wide diversity of northern South America cultivated Coconut (Cocus nucifera L.) uncovers diversification times and targets of domestication of coconut globally. Atlantic tall cultivar splits from Pacific cultivars approximately 5400 years ago, then Pacific Tall and Pacific Dwarf cultivars split from a shared common ancestor 1600 years ago.
- Forest pattern, not just amount, influences dietary quality in five African countries. Forests are good for you.
- Plant agro-biodiversity needs protection, study and promotion: results of research conducted in Lombardy region (Northern Italy). 78% of landraces lost in last 70-80 years, 72 left.
- Genomic prediction of grain yield in contrasting environments for white lupin genetic resources. It’s worth genotyping everything…
- Genetics without genes? The centrality of genetic markers in livestock genetics and genomics. …but genotyping-by-sequencing may not be necessary.
- Opportunities from the genetic diversity of the ILRI genebank forage germplasm collection. Genotyping-by-sequencing and morphology used to define mini-core subsets for important forages. So it is necessary for some things?
- The Green Revolution shaped the population structure of the rice pathogen Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae. Strong selection leads to adaptation, fast. Well I never!
- Land productivity dynamics in and around protected areas globally from 1999 to 2013. Productivity increases are most common outside protected areas. But does that increase or decrease pressure on them? See below.
- Assessing the ecological vulnerability of forest landscape to agricultural frontier expansion in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. This is how you find out.
- Weight Gains from Trade in Foods: Evidence from Mexico. Food imports from US explain 20% of the increase in obesity in Mexican women.