History

March 2, 2021January 20, 2023

Breeding potatoes back in the day

Via William Whitson of Cultivariable on Facebook comes this nice quote about potato breeding:

It’s from an article by Drs P. Grun and J. Staub in a CIP publication from 1979: Report of the Planning Conference on the Exploration, Taxonomy and Maintenance of Potato Germ Plasm III.

I wonder how much things have changed?

LATER: Maybe this much?

February 23, 2021February 23, 2021

Nibbles: Costich, GHUs, Locusts, Brachiaria, Fruits & veggies, Ag data, Agroecology

Dr Costich’s Odyssey.
CGIAR Germplasm Health Units: Between the Scylla of spreading pests and diseases and the Charybdis of getting stuff out to genebank users too slowly.
Turning insects into food
Feeding cattle under the Congolese sun.
Plenty of intoxicating fruits out there besides lotus.
Weaving a web of data for food security.
Europe heeds the siren song of agroecology.

February 22, 2021February 22, 2021

Brainfood: GBIF, CWR hotspots, Feralization, Gene editing, Japanese seeds, Campesino maize, Tunisian wheat, Dietary diversity, Seed storage, GHUs

Data integration enables global biodiversity synthesis. Biodiversity data is not enough.
Review of congruence between global crop wild relative hotspots and centres of crop origin/diversity. Vavilov is enough.
Feralization: Confronting the Complexity of Domestication and Evolution. Centres of diversity are not enough.
De novo domestication of wild species to create crops with increased resilience and nutritional value. Conservation is not enough.
Evaluating plant genetic diversity maintained by local farmers and residents: A comphrehensive assessment of continuous vegetable cultivation and seed-saving activities on a regional scale in Japan. Economic incentives are not enough.
Beyond subsistence: the aggregate contribution of campesinos to the supply and conservation of native maize across Mexico. Small farmers could be enough.
Unlocking the Patterns of the Tunisian Durum Wheat Landraces Genetic Structure Based on Phenotypic Characterization in Relation to Farmer’s Vernacular Name. Small farmers could be enough.
Linkages between dietary diversity and indicators of agricultural biodiversity in Burkina Faso. Production of diverse crops could be enough.
Seed longevity of two nutrient-dense vegetables (Amaranthus spp.). 5°C and aluminium packets are enough.
Phytosanitary Interventions for Safe Global Germplasm Exchange and the Prevention of Transboundary Pest Spread: The Role of CGIAR Germplasm Health Units. Genebanks are not enough.

February 20, 2021February 22, 2021

Nibbles: Bangladeshi gardens, Rambo root, Invasive hybrids, Pomologia, CWR, Genebanks, Deforestation, Agroecology, Post-2020, Intergenerational justice

Floating gardens are a solution.
Cassava is a solution.
Eco-fusion is a solution.
Art is a solution.
Crop wild relatives are a solution.
Genebanks are a solution.
Understanding the effect of agricultural commodities on forests is a solution.
My agroecology is a solution, but not your agroecology.
2021 will be a solution.
Long-term thinking is the solution.

February 15, 2021February 5, 2021

Brainfood: Bird shit, Ancient Greece, Maize adaptation, Resistant peanut, Adaptive variation, Crop models, AA bananas, Wild wheat, Wild tomatoes, Switchgrass diversity, Phytosanitation, Rice breeding, Seeds 4 Needs double, Wild palm, Threatened biodiversity

‘White gold’ guano fertilizer drove agricultural intensification in the Atacama Desert from ad 1000. And maize was at the heart of it.
What’s new during the first millennium BCE in Greece? Archaeobotanical results from Olynthos and Sikyon. Not maize, alas, but what you’d expect, plus pine and sesame.
Local adaptation contributes to gene expression divergence in maize. Stress-response genes are the ones which have been selected. No word on whether any of them were important in the Atacama.
Genotyping tools and resources to assess peanut germplasm: smut-resistant landraces as a case study. Ok, so it sounds like the resistant line that was previously used is virtually identical to an accession in the USDA collection.
Do We Need to Identify Adaptive Genetic Variation When Prioritizing Populations for Conservation? No, but we’ll need it to prioritize use, surely?
Incorporating Realistic Trait Physiology into Crop Growth Models to Support Genetic Improvement. We’ll need better growth models too.
Wild to domesticates: genomes of edible diploid bananas hold traces of several undefined genepools. 3 of them, in fact, in both SE Asia and New Guinea.
Evolution of the bread wheat D-subgenome and enriching it with diversity from Aegilops tauschii. Three lineages were involved in the hybridizations that led to bread wheat. Coincidence?
De novo genome assembly of two tomato ancestors, Solanum pimpinellifolium and Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme, by long-read sequencing. Thousands of genes not found in the cultivated crop, apparently.
Genomic mechanisms of climate adaptation in polyploid bioenergy switchgrass. Introgression from the northern genepool (one of three) was really important in adaptation after the glaciers retreated. Gene duplication also involved in adaptation.
Economic Studies Reinforce Efforts to Safeguard Specialty Crops in the United States. Where “safeguard” means “provide clean planting material.”
Comparative analysis of genetic diversity of rice (Oryza sativa L.) varieties cultivated in different periods in China. Diversity went up, then down, between the 1980s and the 2010s.
Wheat Varietal Diversification Increases Ethiopian Smallholders’ Food Security: Evidence from a Participatory Development Initiative. Why the diversity in breeding programmes is important, and how farmer participation can help maintain it.
The tricot citizen science approach applied to on-farm variety evaluation: methodological progress and perspectives. How to do the above.
Biodiversity and conservation of Phoenix canariensis: a review. A wild relative in trouble, and what to do about it.
Tropical and Mediterranean biodiversity is disproportionately sensitive to land-use and climate change. As can be seen from the above.