History

October 22, 2024October 22, 2024

The latest on the Carolina African Runner Peanut

Jeremy’s latest newsletter discusses the (partial) revival of the Carolina African Runner Peanut by chefs. We have blogged about that here on before, but this is a useful update.

Believe it or not, there are other food podcasts worth listening to. One of them is Gravy, produced by the Southern Foodways Alliance. Recently I listened to the episode America’s Lost Peanut and the Price of Bringing it Back and I have no hesitation in recommending you do the same. It explores both the delight chefs have found in that Lost Peanut and the difficulties in making the peanut available at a price that non-chefs can afford.

The Carolina Runner peanut first hit modern headlines at the tail end of 2016, when it was exciting enough for me to record a little rumination casting doubt on some of the wilder claims that surrounded its resurrection. I also wrote at some length about the history of the peanut and world affairs. I did not, however, foresee how hard it would be for the Carolina Runner to compete with Virginia peanuts (which have more than a drop of African peanut in their bloodlines). The episode of Gravy explains that the nuts currently have to be shelled by hand, unlike Virginia peanuts that can be fed into huge and expensive machines. A quick look around the internet showed a few hand-operated shellers; is it really that difficult to adapt one to work with Carolina Runners?

October 14, 2024October 14, 2024

Brainfood: Beverage edition

Crop-to-wild gene flow in wild coffee species: the case of Coffea canephora in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. DNA bits diagnostic of domesticated coffee are finding their way into wild rainforest populations, but not all that much.
The genome and population genomics of allopolyploid Coffea arabica reveal the diversification history of modern coffee cultivars. Diversity was already pretty low in pre-domestication wild arabica, and continued going downhill after that. Time to re-synthesize the crop, I say.
Beyond the Orthodoxy: An Overview of the Potential of ‘Other’ Coffee Species for Crop Use and their Associated Challenges. All well and good, but don’t forget there’s more to coffee than just arabica and robusta.
Advancing Coffee Genetic Resource Conservation and Exchange: Global Perspectives and Strategies from the ICC 2024 Satellite Workshop. Time to properly secure all coffee diversity in genebanks, and that includes sorting out ABS.
Expanding the cacao group: three new species of Theobroma sect. Herrania (Malvaceae: Byttnerioideae) from the Western Amazon Basin. Plenty of “other” cacao species too, and more coming.
Seed morphometrics unravels the evolutionary history of grapevine in France. There was wild-domesticate geneflow in early grapevines in France as well as in robusta coffee in the DRC, and you don’t need to trace bits of DNA to prove it.
Characterization and analysis of a Commiphora species germinated from an ancient seed suggests a possible connection to a species mentioned in the Bible. Thousand-year-old seed is a distinct and possibly long-lost species of myrrh. Which ok is not a beverage but still vaguely liquid, at least initially.
Sesame, an Underutilized Oil Seed Crop: Breeding Achievements and Future Challenges. Ok, since we’re doing liquid-producing crops, let’s include this review of sesame improvement. Lots of wild species to use. No word on wild-domesticate geneflow though.

October 11, 2024

Nibbles: China genebanks, African genebanks, PNG genebank, Opportunity crops, Bananocalypse, IRRI genebank, African Runner Peanut, Australian genebank, Agrobiodiversity, Navajo agriculture, Wayuu agriculture, COPs

With remarkable regularity, China announces some impressive genebank thing. Like a catalog for 105 tropical crop genebanks. But where is it?
On the other hand, we probably don’t hear enough about African genebanks, so this piece is very welcome.
Or about genebanks in Papua New Guinea, for that matter.
Have we heard enough about “opportunity crops” yet? No, probably not.
We will never stop hearing about the “bananocalypse,” I suspect.
Or about the IRRI genebank from Mike Jackson. Not that I mind.
The latest on the African Runner Peanut, about which we have blogged before. Several times. Not that I mind.
I will never tire of hearing about genebanks getting loads of money.
I will also never tire of hearing about win-win outcomes for biodiversity and food production.
The Navajo know all about that. And the Wayuu people in Guajira, Colombia for that matter.
We will soon all be tired of hearing about all the various COPs, but for now let’s see what the Dutch genebank and, let’s see who else we have, ok, sure, why not, ESG investors — what do they have to say?

September 30, 2024September 30, 2024

Brainfood: EU landraces, EU GIs, Citizen fruit scientists, Nordic potatoes, Czech wheat, German wheat, Wild Brassica collecting, Chinese & European soybeans, Italian goats

Landrace in situ (on-farm) conservation: European Union achievements. Lots of organizations and farmers are conserving landraces in Europe, in lots of ways, and pretty successfully, but the most sustainable way to do so would be to decrease barriers to their marketing, in particular in the context of organic agriculture.
An assessment of the implementation of the EU policy for conservation varieties from 2009 to 2023 and its relationship to Geographical Indications. Few European GIs use conservation varieties (i.e. landraces), but this should, and probably will, change.
New citizen science initiative enhances flowering onset predictions for fruit trees in Great Britain. Imagine doing this for European landraces.
Genetic markers identify duplicates in Nordic potato collections. Ooops, some alleged landraces in European genebanks turn out to be old improved varieties.
Curation of historical phenotypic wheat data from the Czech Genebank for research and breeding. You need data on all those landraces if people are going to use them. Citizen scientists might help, I guess.
Trait-customized sampling of core collections from a winter wheat genebank collection supports association studies. But you need to use that data to create subsets first, and you can do that in lots of different ways, for different purposes: let the German genebank show you how.
Collecting Mediterranean wild species of the Brassica oleracea group (Brassica sect. Brassica). Even in Europe some gap-filling collecting is still necessary.
A comparison of Chinese wild and cultivar soybean with European soybean collections on genetic diversity by Genome-Wide Scan. Even breeders in the soybean center of diversity might find material from Europe’s genebanks useful.
Can Sustainability and Biodiversity Conservation Save Native Goat Breeds? The Situation in Campania Region (Southern Italy) between History and Regional Policy Interventions. Conservation livestock breeds, anyone?

September 25, 2024September 26, 2024

Nibbles: CWR double, Banana threats, Banana collecting, Rice breeding, Cassava breeding, SADC livestock genebank, Community seedbank, Sunflower mapping, Restoration

Why we need crop wild relatives.
No, really, we need crop wild relatives.
The banana is in trouble.
Which is why we need to conserve banana wild relatives and landraces.
Lots of wild relatives are conserved in the IRRI genebank mentioned in this Guardian article on breeding low glycemic index and high protein rice. Some of them may even have been used in this work. May look that up one day.
I doubt that IITA used wild relatives in breeding these high quality cassava varieties, but there’s always a first time, and there may even be some in its genebank. I should probably look but I don’t have time for this rabbit hole today.
And livestock get conserved in genebanks too, though not as much as crops. I’m really not sure how many livestock wild relatives are in the world’s genebanks, but my guess is not many.
Farmers conserve crop (and livestock) diversity too, of course. And sometimes even their wild relatives.
It’s amazing what can be done from space to figure out what farmers are growing. This is an example of sunflower in Ukraine, but one day we’ll even be able to locate crop wild relatives, I’m sure.
To finish off, a reminder that we need conserved seed of wild species for more than just breeding: restoration too.