Category: In situ

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Reviewing the use and usefulness of cereal landraces

From Eliseu Bettencourt, one of the authors of the paper concerned.

The paper “Cereal landraces for sustainable agriculture. A review” was recently made available on-line at Agronomy for Sustainable Development, though behind a paywall. The paper version will be published soon.

The paper is co-authored by eighteen authors pulling together diverse backgrounds and expertises.

The review addresses the current status and prospects for cereals landraces in the context of sustainable agriculture, discussing the place of landraces in the origin of modern cereal crops and breeding of elite cereal cultivars, the importance of on-farm and ex situ diversity conservation; how modern genotyping approaches can help both conservation and exploitation; the importance of different phenotyping approaches; and whether legal issues associated with landrace marketing and utilisation need addressing.

The paper also deals with the current status and potential for the improved deployment and exploitation of landraces, and incorporation of their positive qualities into new cultivars or populations for more sustainable agricultural production. In particular, their potential as sources of novel disease and abiotic stress resistance genes or combination of genes if deployed appropriately, of phytonutrients accompanied with optimal micronutrient concentrations which can help alleviate aging-related and chronic diseases, and of nutrient use efficiency traits.

The paper is structured in 12 chapters, namely: Introduction; History of cereal landraces; Diversity and germplasm collections; Genebanks and conservation of cereal landraces; Genotyping and phenotyping; Nutrient uptake and utilisation; Nutrition and quality; Biotic and abiotic stress resistance and tolerance; Breeding: conversion of landraces into modern cultivars; Participatory breeding; Legal issues; Conclusions. The paper also counts with an extensive list of bibliographic sources.

The main findings of the paper can be summarised as: A lot of recent research effort has gone into collecting, organising, studying and analysing cereal landraces with a primary goal being to incorporate their positive qualities in new cultivars or populations for a more sustainable agricultural production, particularly in response to recent climate changes.

A major part of this valuable landrace diversity is conserved in the world’s genebanks network and should be exploited systematically for traits such as quality and specific adaptations to stress environments. However, the available genetic variation in adaptive responses to soil and climatic conditions conserved in landraces is little understood, and even less used. More uniform and user-friendly documentation about collection and characterisation of landraces, either morphologically or with molecular tools, is needed to access this variation more effectively. Genebanks should aim at adopting a common concept of landraces and plan special inventories for them. The level of diversity should be monitored during their conservation so that the original level of variation is maintained. More studies are needed in order to investigate if their long-term maintenance by farmers resulted in increasing genetic variation.

New high-throughput genotyping platforms and phenotyping data in common databases will enable powerful association genetic approaches to be used for improvement and direct deployment of landrace resources.

The renewed focus on cereal landraces for breeding purposes is also a response to some negative consequences of modern agriculture and conventional breeding, such as the liberal use of high inputs, the loss of genetic diversity and the stagnation of yields in less favourable areas.

Further enhancement of productivity and stability is achieved through practicing “non-stop selection” within landraces across the marginal production environments, to exploit the constantly released by the genome useful adaptive variation.

The review highlights the value of landraces as resources for the future sustainability of cereal crop production, the methods to enhance their genetic makeup and avoid seed degradation and emphasises the level of co-ordination and resourcing needed to realise the great potential of cereal landraces.

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Where the (European) buffalo roam

Again from Michael Kubisch.

The European bison or wisent, like its North American counterpart, has faced near extinction during its recent history. Both species have been brought back from the brink starting with relatively small populations — in the case of the European bison perhaps with fewer than 50 individuals. The wisent population now numbers somewhere over 3000, but these animals suffer from low genetic diversity and are furthermore separated into a relatively large number of often very small and isolated herds. This is problematic because it is thought that the survival of a species depends on a minimum number of breeding individuals, although there isn’t necessarily much agreement on what that number needs to be.

There is consensus, however, that the fractured nature of the European bison population is unlikely to guarantee its long-term survival. What is needed is a larger breeding population containing perhaps as many as a thousand individuals. Fortunately, it isn’t necessary for these animals to belong to a single contiguous population, as long as smaller populations exist on stretches of connected land that enable them to come into contact with each other. But even that requires suitable land and lots of it — not an easy quest on a crowded continent.

But there is hope. In a recent study described in the journal Conservation Biology, a multinational group of researchers has determined that the Carpathian Mountains could provide a possible habitat for a wisent metapopulation. This area already contains a number of smaller herds, has the type of vegetation wisent seem to like and (in part thanks to a decrease in human population pressures), and consists of relatively large tracts of suitable land. Implementing this idea would obviously require both existing herds to be enlarged and new ones to be established. Whether the means can be found to accomplish this is hard to predict, but there is no doubt that it would constitute a significant step towards preserving one of Europe’s most magnificent herbivores.

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Nibbles: EoL, Mixed farming, Conservation medicine, Indicators, Vitamin A, Hamburger, Rewilding, Tejate

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Geographical indications to preserve Ethiopia’s biodiversity

From André Heitz.

Ethiopia is one of the frontrunners in the use of Intellectual Property to make the best use of its plant genetic and traditional knowledge assets. In the absence of legislation on geographical indications, it has endeavoured to use collective trade marks in the main export markets to add value to its Sidamo, Yirgacheffe, and Harrar/Harar coffees. There is more on the Ethiopian Coffee Trademarking and Licensing Initiative at the Ethiopian Coffee Network and Light Years IP.

The Ethiopian Parliament is now expected to pass geographical indications legislation later this year. This will then provide the legal basis for Ethiopia’s plans to register geographical indications protection, first nationally and then abroad, over emblematic home garden products like coffee, beans, spices and condiments or aromatic plants.

The Home Gardens of Ethiopia project says:

Biodiversity is under threat everywhere, and Ethiopia is no exception.

This country features an exceptional biodiversity, and its gardens, shaped generation after generation by rural populations, represent a unique natural and cultural heritage that must be handed down to future generations.

To preserve this horticultural heritage, Ethiopia has chosen to design and implement an effective institutional and promotional tool: a Geographical Indications system.

The “Home Gardens of Ethiopia” project seeks to promote and develop native horticultural productions, while preserving in situ the biodiversity of the country’s gardens. Its approach is both original and efficient: to offer farmers communities legal protection and help them promote selected native products with new marketing opportunities. Ethiopian farmers will be able to make their traditional modes of production more sustainable, and preserve the biodiversity of which they are the custodians.

We’ll keep fingers crossed.