In situ

February 11, 2020February 11, 2020

Help improve PGRFA data

A couple of short surveys for you, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Help the Crop Trust improve Genesys.
Help the Plant Treaty improve the management of data on in situ conservation of crop wild relatives.

Twenty minutes tops to do both, I promise.

February 4, 2020February 11, 2020

Nibbles: Greek breads, Community seed saving double, Seed diversity, Domestication lecture, Food System Dashboard

How many different kinds of bread do you think there are ancient Greek words for?
“As phenomenally important as the USDA [seed banks] and the Svalbard [Global Seed Vault] are, they are repositories for biodiversity, not places we can call up to get seeds to plant five acres of corn.”
As above, but in India.
As above, but from a seed company.
Barbara Schaal on domestication. With video goodness.
A Food System Dashboard to rule them all: describe, diagnose, decide. Not there yet, but almost. It says here.

February 3, 2020February 4, 2020

Brainfood: Food sustainability, Phenotyping barriers, Andean agrobiodiversity, Mango diversity, Wild Brassica diversity, Domestication database, Future crops, Great Dying, Food supplies, Nutritious ag, Wild olives, Pink cassava, Landrace diversity

Global map and indicators of food system sustainability. Includes crop diversity, based on Khoury et al.
Phenotyping and Plant Breeding: Overcoming the Barriers. Mostly comes down to good experimental design.
The Spatial-Temporal Dynamics of Potato Agrobiodiversity in the Highlands of Central Peru: A Case Study of Smallholder Management across Farming Landscapes. Intensification and upward movement, while maintaining diversity.
Diversity of a Large Collection of Natural Populations of Mango (Mangifera indica Linn.) Revealed by Agro-Morphological and Quality Traits. Lowish diversity, but not so low as to fail to provide year-round production.
Intraspecific diversification of the crop wild relative Brassica cretica Lam. using demographic model selection. Diverse populations do not necessarily mean diverse adaptation.
Crop Origins and Phylo Food: A database and a phylogenetic tree to stimulate comparative analyses on the origins of food crops. When and where current crops were domesticated.
The climatic challenge: Which plants will people use in the next century? When and where future crops will be domesticated.
Earth system impacts of the European arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492. 56 million deaths.
Multidimensional characterization of global food supply from 1961 to 2013. Animal-source foods + sugar up in the East, down in the West. Everybody’s eating their vegetables.
Exploring solution spaces for nutrition-sensitive agriculture in Kenya and Vietnam. Could grown more, and different, vegetables.
Evaluation of early vigor traits in wild olive germplasm. Potential as dwarfing rootstocks.
Agronomic and biochemical evaluation of cassava clones with roots that have pink pulp. 2 of 9 from the Embrapa collection have potential.
Management Practices and Breeding History of Varieties Strongly Determine the Fine Genetic Structure of Crop Populations: A Case Study Based on European Wheat Populations. Landraces show more intra-sample diversity than modern varieties. Wait, there must be more to it than that…
High-resolution and bias-corrected CMIP5 projections for climate change impact assessments. 7 TB of data for your delectation, thanks to CGIAR.

January 28, 2020January 28, 2020

Nibbles: Risks & solutions edition

How nature-related risks matter to business.
Exhibit A: beer.
Exhibit B: wine and wine.
Looking at it the other way, some infographics to sum up the impact of food production on the environment.
And then there are nature-based solutions…
Sometimes companies do good just for the hell of it: e.g. ohia conservation in Hawaii.
And sometimes it just takes family.
“Despite the challenges of climate change and state fragility in parts of Africa, the continent has the potential to not only achieve food and nutrition security, but to leverage the food sector for its overall development.”
Some tips on how to communicate all the above.

January 27, 2020January 27, 2020

Brainfood: AnGR treble, Livestock aDNA, Wild cucurbit gaps, Indian crop diversity, Wild Argentinian spuds, Wild wheat, Tomato domestication, Enset systems, Duckweed collections, Peanut hybrids, Sweet potato leaves, Adaptation pathways, Golden Rice

Enhancing the functioning of farm animal gene banks in Europe: results of the IMAGE project. Lots going on, but avian species in particular need more work.
Conservation and Utilization of Livestock Genetic Diversity in the United States of America through Gene Banking. Over 1,000,000 samples from over 55,000 animals, representing 165 livestock and poultry breeds, collected over 60 years, more than 50% of rare breeds.
Cryoconservation of Animal Genetic Resources in Europe and Two African Countries: A Gap Analysis. Out of the 2949 breeds registered in DAD-IS, 16% have material in genebanks, but only 4% have enough to allow breed reconstitution.
Unlocking the origins and biology of domestic animals using ancient DNA and paleogenomics. How we got to the above.
Distributions, conservation status, and abiotic stress tolerance potential of wild cucurbits (Cucurbita L.). 13 out of 16 taxa need in situ and ex situ work.
Wild potato Genetic Reserves in Protected Areas: prospection notes from Los Cardones National Park, Salta, Argentina. Nice combination of in situ and ex situ.
Agricultural intensification was associated with crop diversification in India (1947-2014). But only at country level, and not by much. At district level, crop diversity went down in rice/wheat areas and up in the south and west as oilseeds and vegetables replaced millet and sorghum. Doesn’t strike me as positive overall, diversity-wise.
From population to production: 50 years of scientific literature on how to feed the world. Time for a bit of holism.
Unlocking the Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of a Wild Gene Source of Wheat, Aegilops biuncialis Vis., and Its Relationship With the Heading Time. 5 ecogeographic clusters, 4 related heading time groups.
Genomic Evidence for Complex Domestication History of the Cultivated Tomato in Latin America. Domestication of northerly migrating wildish material in Mexico rather than 2-step domestication in S America and then Mexico.
Enset‐based agricultural systems in Ethiopia: A systematic review of production trends, agronomy, processing and the wider food security applications of a neglected banana relative. Better data needed, for a start.
Worldwide Genetic Resources of Duckweed: Stock Collections. 36 species, no less. Need more?
Realizing hybrids between the cultivated peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) and its distantly related wild species using in situ embryo rescue technique. You need to apply growth substances to the pollinated flowers.
The remarkable morphological diversity of leaf shape in sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas): the influence of genetics, environment, and G×E. Genetics controls shape, environment size.
Adaptation and development pathways for different types of farmers. Watch your context, and don’t forget governance.
Golden Rice and technology adoption theory: A study of seed choice dynamics among rice growers in the Philippines. They forgot context. And governance. But let the author spell it out in a tweet thread.