- The preservation of genetic resources of the vine requires cohabitation between institutional clonal selection, mass selection and private clonal selection. Intra-varietal diversity, that is. They apparently do it best in Portugal.
- Association of dwarfism and floral induction with a grape ‘green revolution’ mutation. Cool things I learned from this paper: 1. Pinot Meunier is a periclinal mutant. 2. Tendrils are inflorescences. 3. Dwarf grapes are dwarf for the same reason dwarf wheat is dwarf. No word on what the Portuguese are doing about it. And the fact that the paper is over 10 years old is irrelevant to its coolness.
- Quantifying the impacts of ecological restoration on biodiversity and ecosystem services in agroecosystems: A global meta-analysis. Supporting ecosystem services go up 40% on average, regulating ES by 120%. Well worth having.
- Can a Botanic Garden Cycad Collection Capture the Genetic Diversity in a Wild Population? Yes, but need to “(1) use the species biology to inform the collecting strategy; (2) manage each population separately; (3) collect and maintain multiple accessions; and (4) collect over multiple years.” Maybe they should talk to the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden guys.
- Genebanking Seeds from Natural Populations. It’s more difficult than with crops. And then you’ve got the above.
- Genomics-assisted breeding for boosting crop improvement in pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan). “…pigeonpea has become a genomic resources-rich crop and efforts have already been initiated to integrate these resources in pigeonpea breeding.” And now we wait.
- Crop wild relatives of pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.]: Distributions, ex situ conservation status, and potential genetic resources for abiotic stress tolerance. 15 of them need collecting. And, presumably, genotyping (see above).
- Diversity in the breadfruit complex (Artocarpus, Moraceae): genetic characterization of critical germplasm. 349 individuals from 255 accessions are 197 unique genotypes from 129 lineages.
- Musa spp. Germplasm Management: Microsatellite Fingerprinting of USDA–ARS National Plant Germplasm System Collection. Used to identify mislabelled in vitro accessions. Data in GRIN-Global.
- Education and access to fish but not economic development predict chimpanzee and mammal occurrence in West Africa. Having fish to eat means you leave chimpanzees alone.
- Community Perspectives on the On-Farm Diversity of Six Major Cereals and Climate Change in Bhutan. About 30% of varieties lost over last 20 years. But what does it mean that “93% of the respondents manage and use agro-biodiversity for household food security and livelihood”? What exactly does that other 7% of farmers do?
- Amino acid composition and nutritional value of four cultivated South American potato species. S. goniocalyx is best for you. But does it taste any good?
Nibbles: Year of the Goat, Nutritional guidelines, Healthy diets, IK & conservation, Healthy orchards, Indian endemics trouble, CWR garden, NGS & food security, 3000 rice genomes at work, C4 rice, It’s economics stupid, US animal products map, Milk production history, Old Chinese cheese, Old Arabian seashells by the seashore, Gordon Bleu insects, African agriculture visions, Agroecology conference report, Smallholder diversity, Seed systems project, Supermarket farms, Toronto beer, Herbs factsheets, Ecosystems map, Contested Agronomy
Sorry about no blogging last week. Was watching sausages being made. Here’s a quick roundup of most of the stuff I would have Nibbled.
- But first of all, Happy Year of the Ram, everyone. No, wait…
- Brazil has the best nutritional guidelines.
- But Chad the best diet. Both are kinda ironic.
- Well, what can governments do about supporting healthy food preferences anyway?
- Folk knowledge vital to conservation.
- Well I never, say the East Timorese.
- Farming in a national park can be a win-win.
- Maybe even a win-win-win, if cider apples are involved.
- India’s endemic plants could be in trouble. Many crop wild relatives among them?
- Maybe they should do what the Royal Horticultural Society will be doing at the Malvern Spring Festival and make a garden with crop wild relatives. But then it won’t be the world’s first.
- Next generation genomics is this generation’s jetpack.
- No, wait, here’s that jetpack you’ve been expecting for so long… Well, more the first concept of the assembly instructions, really.
- We’ll get that jetpack before C4 rice, I expect. But we will get both.
- But of course it’s not all about production anyway.
- Squid is Rhode Island’s most lucrative animal product. Otherwise it’s mainly milk, in that part of the US.
- Maybe cheese was the Taklamakan’s. Three thousand years ago. And sea molluscs Saudi Arabia‘s. Five thousand years ago.
- When and where will insects be.
- “Large-scale investment in African agriculture and agribusiness, whether foreign, domestic, private, government-backed, or a combination of these, could pay a vital role in providing urgently needed financing, technology and markets, thereby assisting to ensure food security, contributing to poverty reduction and propelling agriculture-driven growth, with significant implications for achieving more inclusive growth.” Is that really all one sentence?
- Or maybe small-scale investment?
- How much investment in agroecology will there be, I wonder. Even after this report from last year’s FAO conference.
- Oh good, 75% of crop diversity still on small farms. Would that be 75% of the 25% remaining from the last century?
- What effect will the Integrated Seed Sector Development Project Africa have on that 75%, I wonder.
- The farm as a supermarket. Almost makes you believe in that 75%.
- The beery history of Toronto. Yes, Toronto.
- The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) has nutritional fact sheets on herbs.
- A great new global ecosystem map has the GIS nerds all excited.
- “Contested Agronomy 2016 is a conference about the battlefields in agricultural research, past and present.” Oh to have the live-tweeting gig. Hell, I’d do it for free. Wait, don’t I already do it for free? Hasn’t this whole Nibbles been about contestation in agricultural development?
And on that note, that’s all folks. Because this was such a pain to put together after a week’s hiatus, I’m going to leave it on the front page for a day or two before sending it to the Siberia of the sidebar. Oh and BTW, people. We want to reach 6,000 followers on Twitter, preferably before that jetpack arrives, so follow us already, and tell your hipster friends.
Wait, too needy?
Nibbles: Old breweries, Old grape seeds, New beer, Sheep breeds, Indian rice landraces, GM rice in China, Barley breeding, Botanical tipple, Mata Atlantica conservation, Quinoa
- There are some really old breweries out there.
- And some really old grape seeds in Sardinia.
- The beauty of hops. New and old.
- Some very photogenic old sheep breeds in the Lake District.
- Someone has discovered some old salt-tolerant rice landraces. Also medicinal and aromatic rices. Well I never.
- Meanwhile, at the other end of the rainbow, the Chinese dip a toe into gourmet GM rice.
- Brit boffins breed flood-proof barley.
- Botanical gin. Two of my favourite things, combined.
- Saving the Pau Brasil is, well, complicated. But what else was it going to be?
- Yet another roundup of the pros and cons of quinoa.
Nibbles: Avocado rising, Cynobiofuel, Ginseng in situ, MGIS, Strawberry breeding, Maca biopiracy, Certification
- The avocado was once quinoa.
- Cyanobacterium found in an algal collection at the University of Texas in Austin will save us all.
- You need the cops on your side if you want to save American ginseng.
- Banana genetic resources get a new website.
- Peace breaks out in UC Davis strawberry dispute.
- How did maca get from Junin to Yunnan?
- Philippines may label biodiversity-friendly products.
Brainfood: Cassava descriptors, Core collections, Oat breeding, Indigenous fruits, Sandalwood in Fiji, Eggplant diversity treble, Globally important mushrooms, High amylose rice, Chickpea diversity, Finger millet diversity, Lethal yellowing, Spanish peppers, Local potato experts
- Selection of the most informative morphoagronomic descriptors for cassava germplasm. From 51 to 32. Hardly seems worth it. And dropping descriptors can be dangerous.
- Advances in core collection of plant germplasm resources. In Chinese, alas, but it sounds intriguing.
- Trends in breeding oat for nutritional grain quality – An overview. You want high β-glucan, and you can get it by breeding for high yield, luckily. A. atlantica has high β-glucan.
- Indigenous Fruit Trees of Tropical Africa: Status, Opportunity for Development and Biodiversity Management. Need for “exploiting the under-tapped treasuries of IFT.” Still? People have been saying that for years. They’ve even designated agroforestry systems as globally important and everything.
- Promoting Santalum yasi Seeman (Sandalwood or yasi) in agroforestry systems to reverse agrodeforestation in Fiji. An attempt to introduce a high value species into a threatened agroforestry system. Not just fruit, then.
- Genetic diversity and population structure of wild/weedy eggplant (Solanum insanum, Solanaceae) in southern India: Implications for conservation. Quite a lot of geneflow.
- The potential for crop to wild hybridization in eggplant (Solanum melongena; Solanaceae) in southern India. Transgenes from the crop could spread to the wild relative.
- Variation in Antioxidant Activity and Flavonoid Aglycones in Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) Germplasm. So, the leaves are good for you. But I suspect they taste like crap.
- The Qingyuan Mushroom Culture System as Agricultural Heritage. Would pay money to see that.
- Selecting High Amylose Rice Germplasm Combined with NIR Spectroscopy at the RDA Genebank Conserved. From 9481 to 14 with high amylose and decent agronomy. But why bother?
- Field response of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) to high temperature. There are some heat tolerant lines in the ICRISAT genebank.
- Genetic diversity in East African finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn) landraces based on SSR markers and some qualitative traits. The diversity is high, mainly within countries, and missing from the ICRISAT minicore. Naughty.
- Analyses based on the 16S rRNA and secA genes identify a new phytoplasma subgroup associated with a lethal yellowing-type disease of coconut in Côte d’Ivoire. The international genebank is threatened.
- New Insights into Capsicum spp Relatedness and the Diversification Process of Capsicum annuum in Spain. Limited genetic diversity has differentiated in Spain into pungent, elongated peppers in the South and Center, and sweet, blocky and triangular types in the North.
- Knowing native potatoes: finding local experts through innovative methods in the Peruvian Andes. Community Biodiversity Register methodology applied to potato landraces. Don’t see anything much new here, but good to have it nicely documented.