- Svalbard among things being discussed at EATx Cali today. Who knows, maybe other genebanks too?
- The cucumber’s wilder relatives.
- Armenian wine going back to the future.
- Whole grains deconstructed.
- Unpicking domestication in chickens and cattle. And the original paper on the latter, featuring the aurochs genome.
- Breeders have bred omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) out of soybeans, but are now going back to wild relatives to breed it back in.
Ephesian mystery
As you may have realised, Luigi and I were both in Izmir, Turkey, for the past few days. While there, we joined a trip to the ruins at Ephesus. And while there, I snapped this picture.
The thing on the right is quite obviously a pomegranate, still very much in evidence at juice stands everywhere. But what’s that thing on the left? A stylised palm? A radish? What?
Brainfood: Forage diversity, Chinese cherry, Meta-diversity, Sunflower ecogeography, Lima bean domestication, Dog breeding, Goat ethnogenetics, Pigs vs chickens
- Complementary effects of species and genetic diversity on productivity and stability of sown grasslands. Species diversity good for total production, genetic diversity good for regular production throughout the year, regardless of water. And more, and more.
- Genetic Diversity and Population Structure Patterns in Chinese Cherry (Prunus pseudocerasus Lindl) Landraces. Perhaps 2 domestication sites.
- Inter-individual variation promotes ecological success of populations and species: evidence from experimental and comparative studies. More diverse populations are less vulnerable to environmental changes, more stable in population size, less extinction prone, have better establishment success and larger ranges, especially under stress.
- Ecogeography and utility to plant breeding of the crop wild relatives of sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.). Many close relatives of the crop in extreme environments.
- Domestication of small-seeded lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus L.) landraces in Mesoamerica: evidence from microsatellite markers. Two domestications events. Maybe.
- Trends in genetic diversity for all Kennel Club registered pedigree dog breeds. Popular sires have made for a lot of inbreeding, but this has been getting better of late.
- The N’Dama dilemma: ethnogenetics and small ruminant breed dynamics in the tsetse zone, The Gambia. Saving the name is not enough.
- The Pig and the Chicken in the Middle East: Modeling Human Subsistence Behavior in the Archaeological Record Using Historical and Animal Husbandry Data. Chickens replaced pigs in the first millennium Middle East because they were smaller and more efficient. Oh, and eggs.
Brainfood: Wild wheat breeding, Global pea breeding, Old Swedish peas, Prolific Chinese pigs, Genomics & CC, Veggies & food security, Agrobiodiversity use, Land use double, Agrobiodiversity use
- Genealogical analysis of the use of aegilops (Aegilops L.) genetic material in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). 1350 varieties in 50 years, involving mainly 3 wild species, the proportion of total releases using wilds steadily growing. But many pedigrees may be wrong. Not to mention the taxonomy.
- Pea. In the Grain Legumes volume of the Handbook of Plant Breeding, that is. Two cultivated species, >70,000 accessions, 28+ national and international collections, yield gains of 2% per year over past 15 years, plus good progress in lodging, disease resistance and seed visual quality and modest improvement in abiotic (heat, frost, salinity and herbicide resistance) stress resistance. Genome on the way.
- Diversity in local cultivars of Pisum sativum collected from home gardens in Sweden. Add about 70 to that number of genebank accessions.
- Genetic diversity and population structure of six Chinese indigenous pig breeds in the Taihu Lake region revealed by sequencing data. They are indeed pretty much 6 breeds. The most prolific in the world too, apparently.
- Global agricultural intensification during climate change: a role for genomics. ‘Course there is.
- The Role of Vegetables and Legumes in Assuring Food, Nutrition, and Income Security for Vulnerable Groups in Sub-Saharan Africa. ‘Course there is.
- Drivers for global agricultural land use change: The nexus of diet, population, yield and bioenergy. Livestock, in a word.
- Resolving Conflicts between Agriculture and the Natural Environment. You need “policies dedicating high-quality habitat towards nature conservation, while encouraging intensive production on existing farmland with stringent limits on environmental impacts.” But see above; although they do say in the previous paper that the trend has been slowing lately.
- Using our agrobiodiversity: plant-based solutions to feed the world. “…the preservation and development of existing agrobiodiversity has not been given sufficient attention in the current scientific and political debates concerning the best strategy to keep pace with global population growth and increasing demand for food.”
CIMMYT genebank history in one jpg
CIMMYT’s genebank has a fancy new profile pic on Facebook. Not sure if they’ll make it more generally available, so here it is for those of our readers who are not into social media. Click on it if you want to read the captions.
