- Genetic Nature of Elemental Contents in Wheat Grains and Its Genomic Prediction: Toward the Effective Use of Wheat Landraces from Afghanistan. Only one significant marker, for Zn.
- Strategies for exchange of coconut germplasm in Brazil. Zygotic embryos in Petri dish containing Y3 culture medium without sucrose can last a couple of days without bacterial infection.
- Phylogenetic relationships within Lactuca L. (Asteraceae), including African species, based on chloroplast DNA sequence comparisons. The African species are probably not Lactuca at all.
- The Pacific yam (Dioscorea nummularia Lam.), an under-exploited tuber crop from Melanesia. It can be improved through crossing with itself, or with other species.
- Eco-geographical assessment of Avena L. wild species at the VIR herbarium and genebank collection. Some more collecting to be done.
- The database of the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) project. Including 15,000 plants. No word on whether any of them Avena.
- Your Poison in My Pie—the Use of Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) Leaves in Sakartvelo, Republic of Georgia, Caucasus, and Gollobordo, Eastern Albania. Only used as first vegetable in spring in isolated high mountain areas in the southern Balkans.
- Toward a taxonomic definition of perennial wheat: a new species ×Tritipyrum aaseae described. Not entirely clear why naming it as a new species is necessary, but it’s still pretty cool.
- Dynamics of variety change on wheat farms in Pakistan: A duration analysis. For marginal farmers, it’s about yield, for others, quality. No word on how perennial wheat might do.
Brainfood: Aichi 14, Dwarf coconut diversity, Food system sustainability, African data, Pepper core, Australian flora, EU seed law, Rice conservation, Israeli genebank, ICRISAT pearl millet diversity
- Status and Trends in Global Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital: Assessing Progress Toward Aichi Biodiversity Target 14. 21 datasets, and the only “state” indicator for the “food” service is fisheries stocks?
- SSR markers reveal the population structure of Sri Lankan yellow dwarf coconuts (Cocos nucifera L.). They’ve been naughty with the talls.
- Identifying attributes of food system sustainability: emerging themes and consensus. Diversity, modularity, transparency, innovation and congruence. You had me at diversity.
- CELL5M: A geospatial database of agricultural indicators for Africa South of the Sahara. 134 data layers for harvested crop area.
- Genetic diversity and population structure analysis to construct a core collection from a large Capsicum germplasm. Based on transcriptome, no less.
- Genetic diversity and structure of the Australian flora. Meta-analysis finds some surprises. But for CWR?
- Securing Crop Genetic Diversity: Reconciling EU Seed Legislation and Biodiversity Treaties. EU seed law is an ass.
- Diversity Among Rice Landraces Under Static (Ex Situ) and Dynamic (On-Farm) Management: A Case from North-Western Indian Himalayas. For two landraces, more alleles per locus in situ compared to ex situ. And?
- Strategies and priorities in field collections for ex situ conservation: the case of the Israel Plant Gene Bank. Sort of a core collection of the whole flora.
- Adaptation Pattern and Genetic Potential of Indian Pearl Millet Named Landraces Conserved at the ICRISAT Genebank. Agronomically derived clusters show geographically structured distributions.
Brainfood: Pre-breeding, Wheat in Ethiopia, CAP & minor crops, IITA germplasm management, Cassava improvement, B73 maize inbred, Livestock uses, Range expansion, Sustainability standards, Soybean origins, Popping sorghum
- Evolving gene banks: improving diverse populations of crop and exotic germplasm with optimal contribution selection. Crop genebanks should learn from livestock breeding.
- Ethiopian wheat yield and yield gap estimation: A spatially explicit small area integrated data approach. You can explain 40% of the variation in wheat yield without leaving your office.
- Land Use, Yield and Quality Changes of Minor Field Crops: Is There Superseded Potential to Be Reinvented in Northern Europe? The CAP has been really bad for minor crops in Finland.
- Navigating international exchange of plant genetic resources amidst biosecurity challenges: experiences of IITA in Africa. Genebanks need to work closely with people who know about phytosanitary rules.
- Rooting for cassava: insights into photosynthesis and associated physiology as a route to improve yield potential. Canopy structure and architecture could do with improvement. No doubt IITA are working on that.
- Genetic variability within accessions of the B73 maize inbred line. Is greater than it should be.
- Using Rare Breeds in Animal-Assisted Activities: A New Model Proposed at the “Animal Farm” in Ladispoli (Rome, Italy). Worthy effort, terrible name.
- Adaptive and non-adaptive evolution of trait means and genetic trait correlations for herbivory resistance and performance in an invasive plant. When plants are released from pressure from natural enemies, they gradually lose resistance to herbivory and perform better, but independently.
- How Can High-Biodiversity Coffee Make It to the Mainstream Market? The Performativity of Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) and Outcomes for Coffee Diversification. Apparently, it can’t, not without changing its flavour.
- Genetic diversity center of cultivated soybean (Glycine max) in China – New insight and evidence for the diversity center of Chinese cultivated soybean. Here. But not only.
- Heritability of Popping Characteristics in Sorghum Grain. You can breed for popping quality, but environment also has an effect.
Brainfood: Sustainable ag, American ag diversity, Valpolicella and CC, Heritage textiles
- Diversification, Yield and a New Agricultural Revolution: Problems and Prospects. It’s not about the yield.
- Spatiotemporal Patterns of Field Crop Diversity in the United States, 1870–2012. It peaked in 1960. Like Elvis.
- Resistance and resilience to changing climate of Tuscany and Valpolicella wine grape growing regions in Italy. Should they ever decide to move those grapes, now they know where to.
- Conservation and Valorization of Heritage Ethnographic Textiles. Like Neolithic beer, only with textiles. Hemp for IPK and VIR genebanks used to conserve and restore old Romanian shirts etc. hed by the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant.
Brainfood: Mate diversity, Species recovery, CC & food, Microbial collections, Chickpea roots, African flora, Bitter gourd diversity, Wild yeast, Cryo double
- Genetic and phytochemical analysis to evaluate the diversity and relationships of mate (Ilex paraguariensis A. St.-Hil.) elite genetic resources in a germplasm collection. Some have low caffeine, which makes them especially useless.
- Genetic factors in threatened species recovery plans on three continents. Are ignored more often than you’d think.
- Climate Change and Food Systems Research: Current Trends and Future Directions. Current research on the effects of climate change on food systems doesn’t pay enough attention to the fact that food production is indeed a system, varies regionally and depends on political structures.
- World data centre for microorganisms: an information infrastructure to explore and utilize preserved microbial strains worldwide. All you need to know about 708 culture collections from 72 countries and >368,000 strains on one website.
- Characterising root trait variability in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) germplasm. Core collection of 270 reveals 3 main groups based on root architecture in hydroponics.
- RAINBIO: a mega-database of tropical African vascular plants distributions. Who will fillet out the CWR species?
- Genetic Variability for Yield and Nutritional Quality in Yam Bean (Pachyrhizus sp.). Can’t access the high dry matter material? No problem.
- Diversity Among a Wide Asian Collection of Bitter Gourd Landraces and their Genetic Relationships with Commercial Hybrid Cultivars. 114 accessions fall into 5 geographic groups based on SSRs. Commercial cultivars are all very similar.
- Yeast biodiversity from Vitis vinifera L., subsp. sylvestris (Gmelin) Hegi to face up the oenological consequences of climate change. Yeasts from wild grapes will save our wine. Look, I’ll take anything.
- The Potato Cryobank at the International Potato Center (CIP): A Model for Long Term Conservation of Clonal Plant Genetic Resources Collections of the Future. 70% of over 1000 accessions are considered successfully cryoconserved.
- Probabilistic viability calculations for cryopreserving vegetatively propagated collections in genebanks. Were these used in the above?