- The potential of desho grass (Pennisetum pedicellatum Trin.) for animal feed and land management practices in Ethiopia: A review. “Physiologically, desho grass has a peculiar characteristic of drought tolerance, ability to produce large biomass per unit of land.”
- Wheat genetic resources in the post-genomics era: promise and challenges. Need to go for more wide crosses, which requires more cytological expertise.
- Native seed trade of herbaceous species for restoration: a European policy perspective with global implications. Current policies are inadequate.
- Screening African Rice (Oryza glaberrima) for Tolerance to Abiotic Stresses: II. Lowland Drought. 4 out of over 2000 accessions are promising.
- Dietary species richness as a measure of food biodiversity and nutritional quality of diets. Number of species consumed is a good indicator of the quality of the diet, across seasons and countries.
- Could taxonomic misnaming threaten the ex situ conservation and the usage of plant genetic resources? Only 3% of Citrullus accessions in major genebank databases correctly named.
- Genetic breeding of silkworms: from traditional hybridization to molecular design. Brave new world.
- Domestication origin and breeding history of the tea plant (Camellia sinensis) in China and India based on nuclear microsatellites and cpDNA sequence data. 3 domestication areas, in China and India.
- Preservation of the genetic diversity of a local common carp in the agricultural heritage rice–fish system. Farmers like to select different colour types.
- Abyssinian pea (Lathyrus schaeferi Kosterin pro Pisum abyssinicum A. Br.) – a problematic taxon. May have been the result of a spontaneous interspecific cross under cultivation.
- Managing and Discovering Agronomically Beneficial Traits in Chickpea Germplasm Collections. Cores, mini-cores and reference sets facilitate use.
- Evaluation of resistance to Blumeria graminis (DC.) f. sp. avenae, in Avena murphyi and A. magna genotypes. In oats, the lower-ploidy species have better resistance.
- Editorial: Plant Phenotyping and Phenomics for Plant Breeding. The name of the game is integration.
- Trade and the equitability of global food nutrient distribution. Trade is important to nutrition.
Nibbles: Development egos, CGN, Fijian adaptation, Seedxit, Fancy coconuts, Seed dealers, Heritage rice, Rumsfeld & biodiversity, Grass-fed beef beef
- Development thinkers pithily skewered.
- CGN’s new brochure.
- Fijian farmers dealing with climate change with diverse, triple-layered systems, and small, phased, staggered planting. Or, common sense.
- Brexit will mean less choice of seeds for British farmers. Maybe.
- £3 for a coconut? Nuts.
- Dealing with seed dealers to speed up new rice variety delivery.
- How about the heirlooms, though? Maybe they can take care of themselves.
- The value of biodiversity is a known unknown.
- Forage quality is known, and decreasing.
Brainfood: Maize diversity, Genetic ecology, SeedStor, Conservation impact, Women & seed, Wild pea, Wild walnuts, Livestock 4 wildlife
- Contributions of Zea mays subspecies mexicana haplotypes to modern maize. That’s the highland teosinte, not the lowland from which maize was domesticated, and 10% of the maize genome shows some evidence of introgression from it.
- The ecological importance of intraspecific variation. …is comparable to that of interspecific variation.
- SeedStor: A Germplasm Information Management System and Public Database. Interested in the John Inness Centre’s genebank? Here, go crazy.
- From displacement activities to evidence-informed decisions in conservation. It’s all about impact.
- Breeding next generation tree fruits: technical and legal challenges. Not going to be easy.
- Women’s empowerment through seed improvement and seed governance: Evidence from participatory barley breeding in pre-war Syria. What is done locally may be undone globally.
- Genomic diversity and macroecology of the crop wild relatives of domesticated pea. P. fulvum is a good species, P. sativum subsp. elatius has 5 mainly geographic clusters; genetic diversity likely to be impacted by climate change.
- Demographically idiosyncratic responses to climate change and rapid Pleistocene diversification of the walnut genus Juglans (Juglandaceae) revealed by whole-genome sequences. Every walnut species is different.
- The consequences of replacing wildlife with livestock in Africa. More fires, woody species and methane.
Nibbles: Pacific foodways, Taro in Hawaii, Supply chains double, Millet year, Olam Prize, Cicer breeding, Polly the Pig, Virtual Horticultural Library
- Food sovereignty — or lack of it — in the Pacific.
- That should probably start with taro.
- Could the banks help?
- Or blockchain?
- How about an international year?
- And better seed laws?
- Let’s change the subject…
- ICARDA durum breeders run towards the problem, use wild relatives, win prize.
- Wild relatives are good for chickpea improvement too.
- Don’t worry, if we lose an animal breed, we can always get it back. Kinda sorta.
- Source of information on heirloom varieties. Yes, there’s probably something similar for pigs.
Brainfood: Wheat exudates, Conservation threats, Resilience, Dietary recommendations, Urban green spaces, Dog spread, Wild foods, Ethnic fish, Brazilian cattle, Nocturnal fixation, Agroforestry impacts
- Evolution of the crop rhizosphere: impact of domestication on root exudates in tetraploid wheat (Triticum turgidum L.). Domestication and breeding have led to (probably adaptive) changes in root exudates.
- Threats from urban expansion, agricultural transformation and forest loss on global conservation priority areas. Vertebrate Biodiversity Hotspots are most threatened by all three factors. Plants too?
- Patterns and drivers of biodiversity–stability relationships under climate extremes. Species richness may not be enough to buffer ecosystems from extreme precipitations events. But a different metric would give a different result?
- Evaluating the environmental impacts of dietary recommendations. Adopting nationally recommended diets would help the environment.
- On the Use of Hedonic Price Indices to Understand Ecosystem Service Provision from Urban Green Space in Five Latin American Megacities. There’s an overall strong positive correlation between urban greenery and house prices, but it’s context-specific.
- Disease: A Hitherto Unexplored Constraint on the Spread of Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) in Pre-Columbian South America. Yes, why are there no dogs in the Amazon?
- Children and Wild Foods in the Context of Deforestation in Rural Malawi. Fewer wild foods in more deforested sites, and fewer sold by children from better-off households. What of the nutrition outcomes, though?
- Biodiversity defrosted: unveiling non-compliant fish trade in ethnic food stores. About 40% of samples in Liverpool and Manchester mislabelled.
- Population viability analysis of the Crioula Lageano cattle. It’s going to be fine.
- The Kalanchoë genome provides insights into convergent evolution and building blocks of crassulacean acid metabolism. Next stop, CAM rice.
- Contribution of trees to the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes. It depends. But what would those kids in Malawi say?