History

February 28, 2020February 28, 2020

AfricaRice’s new genebank opens for business

With all that’s been going on in Svalbard, I neglected to note that Africa Rice has just inaugurated its new genebank, the Rice Biodiversity Center for Africa, in Bouaké, Côte d’Ivoire. Here’s the press release. And here’s a Q&A from a few years back with the genebank manager, Dr Marie-Noëlle Ndjiondjop. This piece from the Genebank Platform gives the background: it’s a sad story with a happy ending, do read it. There’s more information on the genebank on the Platform website. And of course there’s an overview of its holdings in Genesys.

February 25, 2020February 24, 2020

Nibbles: Columella, Thomas Bowrey, Dreamtime, Oz seedbank, Kenya sweetpotato, Dalla Ragione, Apple hunter, Cydonia, Caribbean nutmeg, Wheat synthetics, ICARDA forages, Land cover map

Recreating Roman wine. It’s the tar, stupid.
Decolonizing weed.
Ancient Aboriginal foraging and cooking was quite something.
The National Seed Bank at the Australian National Botanic Garden makes the news. See what I did there?
So does sweetpotato in Kenya.
Turning to art to find lost fruit varieties in Italy.
Remembering Lee Calhoun of North American Fruit Explorers.
Bringing back the quince. That’s the fruit trifecta.
Might as well bring nutmeg back too.
CIMMYT’s synthetic hexaploid wheat programme explained in a PowerPoint.
Report on screening ICARDA’s wild forages.
Nerd out with cool land cover map in Google Earth Engine. Mash up with above, for example?

February 24, 2020February 14, 2020

Brainfood: Grassland diversity, Perennial crops, Ancient dates, Armenian grapes, Endangered trees, HLB sniffers, Household data, NUS, Phenotyping, Sorghum parasites, Wild Vigna, Ancient foods, Climate frontier

Economic benefits from plant species diversity in intensively managed grasslands. More species means more milk, more money and less risk.
Community structure of soil fungi in a novel perennial crop monoculture, annual agriculture, and native prairie reconstruction. Perennial monoculture not unlike native prairie.
Origins and insights into the historic Judean date palm based on genetic analysis of germinated ancient seeds and morphometric studies. Ancient Judean dates may have come from further east.
Genetic diversity and traditional uses of aboriginal grape (Vitis vinifera L.) varieties from the main viticultural regions of Armenia. 71 genotypes, no less.
Mapping tree species vulnerability to multiple threats as a guide to restoration and conservation of tropical dry forests. About 50% of the distribution of 50 trees in northwestern Peru and southern Ecuador is vulnerable.
Canine olfactory detection of a vectored phytobacterial pathogen, Liberibacter asiaticus, and integration with disease control. Dogs can sniff out a nasty citrus disease.
The Rural Household Multiple Indicator Survey, data from 13,310 farm households in 21 countries. 758 variables, no less.
Local Solutions for Sustainable Food Systems: The Contribution of Orphan Crops and Wild Edible Species. Increasing dietary diversity, more market opportunities for smallholders, and more attention to biodiversity conservation. Do orphan crops feature among the 758 variables above?
Breeder friendly phenotyping. Focused, rapid and precise. Much like me, then?
Genomics of sorghum local adaptation to a parasitic plant. Why we need on-farm conservation.
Mapping patterns of abiotic and biotic stress resilience uncovers conservation gaps and breeding potential of Vigna wild relatives. Sources of resistance to biotic stresses are more common than to abiotic stresses, in terms of the number of species that have them.
Archaeobotanical evidence of food plants in Northern Italy during the Roman period. Nice take-homes from Dr Lisa Lodwick on Twitter.
The environmental consequences of climate-driven agricultural frontiers. Areas newly suitable for one or more crops store a lot of C, cover a lot of important watersheds and are home to a lot of biodiversity.

February 21, 2020February 24, 2020

Nibbles: Medieval Iceland, Lebanese wine, Yemeni coffee, Ghana cowpea, SeedShare, Roman hamburger

Ag diversification was a thing even in medieval Iceland.
Not to mention contemporary Lebanon.
Dumping qat for coffee is the good news we all wanted to hear. Jeremy provides the context.
Ghana gets some new cowpeas. I just think it’s cool that they made the news.
The joys of seed saving: the backstory of SeedShare.
Procuring a hamburger in ancient Rome. This is a great sub-Reddit, BTW.

February 18, 2020February 19, 2020

Nibbles: Trade & nutrition, Apple trifecta, Cider, Neolithic migrations, IIED double

Getting trade to contribute to nutrition. Hard row to hoe.
Elegiac introduction & postscript by Robert Macfarlane to a fabulous pean to wild Kazakhstan apples by the late, great Roger Deakin called East to Eden.
And the connection between the above and “wild” apples in Scotland.
An expensive poster showing how domesticated apple varieties relate to each other. I have to say I’m sorely tempted.
Sorely tempted by this documentary on some cidermakers’ trip to Kazakhstan too.
Nice to see my map of barley genebank accessions used in a blog post about mapping human DNA phylogenies.
Your regular reminder that “PCLG is an international network of organisations coordinated by IIED that promotes learning on the linkages between people and biodiversity conservation” and that their newsletter is well worth subscribing too.
And here are IIED’s best publications of 2019, including “Biodiversity loss is a development issue,” which is one of the great titles of our time, and not a bad paper either.