- When Cotton was King.
- America’s longest-operating outdoor market.
- Australia builds a genebank for native plants. Some crop wild relatives may be involved, I guess.
- Undergraduate review of colony collapse disorder. Resist the temptation to mark. Or don’t.
Truth or consequences?
According to John Ioannidis, most published research findings are false ((Ioannidis is likely of Greek extraction, perhaps even of Cretan blood?)). This is because of the Winner’s Curse: scientists need to oversell to get heard, published and funded ((Young, Ioannidis & Al-Ubaydli in PLoS Medicine; and discussed in The Economist.)).
Does this affect agrobiodiversity research?
Yes, it does.
Take this press release that came in today: “Research finds way to double rice crops in drought-stricken areas.” Right. Perhaps there were some extreme experimental conditions where this is true, but I find it hard to believe there is a magic set of markers that will let you select for double rice yield under normal drought conditions relevant for farmers. I think that’s a bit much. Perhaps the typical benefit might be as high as 10%, but that does not make for a good headline (even though it would be a staggering result, really) ((The paper’s abstract speaks of an effect of 40% in the extreme case, that’s more reasonable. I wonder if 40% means doubling to the person who wrote the press release )) .
If only, then we could also throw in the Hardy gene, for another 50% boost.
Here’s another example of overselling, say Stuart Orr and colleagues ((Stuart Orr, James Sumberg, Olaf Erenstein & Andreas Oswald. 2008. Funding international agricultural research and the need to be noticed. A case study of NERICA rice. Outlook on Agriculture 37:159-168.)) in a recent review article on NERICA — “New Rice for Africa”.
NERICA is a group of rice varieties produced at the Africa Rice Center (WARDA). They have been produced after a breakthrough in rice genetics, the use of embryo rescue to cross Asian (Oryza sativa) with West African (O. glaberrima) rice. The offspring of these crosses has been back-crossed a number of times with sativa parents such as IR64.
NERICA varieties have been referred to as “miracle rice” and are said to be higher yielding, have higher quality, compete better with weeds, be more stress resistant, etc. etc. etc. This has created a lot of interest, enthusiasm and funding for their continued development and dissemination. Orr says that all the hoopla about NERICA is not backed up by the (published) facts. This perhaps explains why adoption of NERICA varieties is not what was hoped for.
Wopereis and colleagues ((MCS Wopereis, A Diagne, J Rodenburg, M Sié & EA Somado. 2008. Why NERICA is a successful innovation for African farmers. A response to Orr et al. from the Africa Rice Center. Outlook on Agriculture 37:169-176.)) defend WARDA and NERICA saying that NERICAs perform well, that there are new published data, that the outlandish claims were made by others, and that there is nothing wrong with enthusiasm.
I do not know how good NERICAs are, but some farmers like them, which is good. And WARDA definitely has created a renewed interest in breeding rice varieties for Africa, where many, it seems, had given up. That’s good too. Better still would be to move beyond the NERICA brand, and try and disseminate a broad and diverse set of varieties. Let the farmers decide.
Nibbles: Radishes, Fungi, Genomics, Bagel, Eels, Barack Hussein, Pomegranate
- Vavilov does radishes.
- “How would you describe the smell and taste of a fresh white truffle?“
- “The gene … is in an identity crisis.”
- “The basic roll-with-a-hole concept is centuries old.”
- “He slid her gently into a nylon sack and hung her from a scale on which she clocked two kilograms, then slid her out and into the V of a varnished plywood measuring board, where she lay quietly, like a metre-long slab of tenderloin.”
- “Activists” buttonhole Obama.
- The Afghan pomegranate to hit supermarket shelves.
The Lost Cities of the Amazon
That’s the cheesy title of what should be a fascinating National Geographic documentary on a subject that we’ve covered here a number of times: the idea that the Amazon was once thickly settled. If anyone sees it, do let us know what it’s like.
Nibbles: Food, Potatoes, Medicine, Bees, Beer, Food miles, Fungi, Fruits cubed
- “Food is the most cost-effective intervention.”
- Peru promotes potatoes.
- The Importance of Biodiversity to Medicine. Anyone got access? Any mention of nutrition?
- EU Says bees should rest. Problem solved.
- Extreme beer. All problems solved.
- Eat local? I don’t think so.
- Itchy Italian gourmands gutted over climate change-caused truffle troubles.
- Mulberry trees pay the price for immodesty.
- While fig trees planted by Jesuits survive. It’s a funny old world. Fruit tree trifecta in play.
- And it comes in! Today’s saving-the-frigging-English-apple story comes to you from The Guardian. Enough already, the English apple is going to be fine.