Indigenous knowledge systems

August 26, 2013August 26, 2013

Brainfood: Touristic islands, Pearl millet diversity, Barley diversity, Maize diversity, Weird chickpea, Sweet potato diversity, Pawpaw diversity, Grewia domestication, Agrobiodiversity is the key, Sunflower relative dynamics

Sorry about the Brainfood hiatus lately. Back now, and with a vengeance.

Plant genetic resources in a touristic island: the case of Lefkada (Ionian Islands, Greece). Landraces and tourism can coexist.
Assessment of genetic diversity among pearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R Br.] cultivars using SSR markers. The cultivars coming out of a given breeding programme cluster together. No!
Population genetic structure in a social landscape: barley in a traditional Ethiopian agricultural system. Farmer management trumps even altitude.
Environmental and social factors account for Mexican maize richness and distribution: A data mining approach. Oh no it doesn’t.
Identification of an upright peduncle and podding genotype in chickpea germplasm conserved in the National Genebank. That’s one out of 18,873.
Molecular, morphological and agronomic characterization of the sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.) germplasm collection from Mozambique: Genotype selection for drought prone regions. 6 out of 28 local genotypes are drought tolerant. No word on whether they’re yellow fleshed too.
Genotyping a large collection of pepper (Capsicum spp.) with SSR loci brings new evidence for the wild origin of cultivated C. annuum and the structuring of genetic diversity by human selection of cultivar types. The taxonomy is ok. Human selection is reflected by genetic diversity. A quarter of the accessions can be chosen which contain 97% of the genetic diversity. In other news, France has a collection of 1,300 peppers.
Phenotypic and Genetic Diversity of Papaya. Wild papayas from South America are closer to an allied genus than to the cultigen.
Grewia flavescens: a potential horticultural crop? Well, maybe.
Agricultural biodiversity as a link between traditional food systems and contemporary development, social integrity and ecological health. You need sustainable small farms tied into global markets for high value food crops and ecosystem services. Marx rolls over in his grave.
Proximity to agriculture alters abundance and community composition of wild sunflower mutualists and antagonists. Wild relative populations nearer to cultigen have more pollinators but fewer seed and leaf munchers than those further away. Not entirely sure what that means for in situ conservation, but I’m sure it’s something.

August 23, 2013August 23, 2013

Nibbles: Atlantic potatoes, Andean feasting, Lupin biodiversity, Vegetable grafting, Agrobiodiversity survey, Seed lending library, Lathyrus factsheet, Wild horses, School feeding

Tracing Canary Island potatoes back to the Andes.
Lupin diversity, all in one handy place.
Bangladeshi women are grafting away.
Wanna take a survey of “lessons learned about ways and means to conserve and use genetic diversity to build resilience to climate change in food and agriculture systems“? Uhm.
Maybe they should survey this guy.
Kew takes on the grasspea.
I have my freedom but I don’t have much time…
FAO spots a win-win-win in school feeding programme linked to family farms.

August 12, 2013August 12, 2013

Nibbles: Indigenous people, Lentil day, Competition, Kibera kale, Afghan ag fan

Friday was International Day of the World’s Indigenous People. Let one post on Indigenous Peoples and the Diversity of Food represent them all. (But isn’t that coffee in the photo?)
And yesterday was 23 Thermidor, AKA Lentil Day, in the French Republican Calendar. In other news, “Every day of the French Republican Calendar was associated with a different plant, animal, agricultural tool, etc., both to replace the custom of saints’ days and to celebrate the agricultural and natural world.”
Today brings notice of a contest to “showcase projects from around the globe that have bridged gaps between agriculture, food security, and nutrition”. Details from Secure Nutrition.
Growing greens — even exotic kale — in Kibera, Nairobi, would surely be a worthy winner.
Not so sure about the photo story of Combat farming in Afghanistan, (via Metafilter) which seems to be oblivious to the number one cash crop in those parts.

August 5, 2013July 8, 2013

Brainfood: Coloured wheat, Very wild wheat, Yam bean, Turkish pigeons, Impact of margarine, Refugia, GM and choice, Indian sorghum, Cameroonian oil palm

The anthocyanin content of blue and purple coloured wheat cultivars and their hybrid generations. In other news, there are blue and purple wheat cultivars.
Phylogenetic relationships and Y genome origin in Elymus L. sensu lato (Triticeae; Poaceae) based on single-copy nuclear Acc1 and Pgk1 gene sequences. It’s a very diverse genus, probably polyphyletic, and has exchanged genes with Aegilops/Triticum in the past. And could again in the future, presumably.
Microsatellite Markers for the Yam Bean Pachyrhizus (Fabaceae). They work, both on the 3 (sic) cultivated species and 2 wild relatives.
The domestic livestock resources of Turkey: inventory of pigeon groups and breeds with notes on breeder organizations. 72 breeds? Really?
Land use impact assessment of margarine. Land occupation by the crops involved has a bigger impact on ecosystem services and biodiversity than the transformation process.
Bio-cultural refugia — Safeguarding diversity of practices for food security and biodiversity. Important for food security locally, but also because of the memories of how the “surprises of the past” were handled.
Farmer’s choice of seeds in four EU countries under different levels of GM crop adoption. More GM adoption = less choice. For maize in 4 European countries anyway.
Sorghum landraces patronized by tribal communities in Adilabad district, Andhra Pradesh. And now safe in NBPGR too.
Molecular characterization of oil palm Elaeis guineensis Jacq. materials from Cameroon. It’s all one big populations, and you don’t need that many accessions to represent the whole.

July 22, 2013July 1, 2013

Brainfood: Apples, Solanaceous breeding, AnGR valuation, Seed systems, IPR, Chestnut cryo, C4 exploitation, CC adaptation in China

Crop-to-wild gene flow and spatial genetic structure in the closest wild relatives of the cultivated apple. Some evidence of genetic differentiation within species, but not as much as you’d think. Probably because of the significant gene flow in all directions.
Biosynthesis of Antinutritional Alkaloids in Solanaceous Crops Is Mediated by Clustered Genes. Which means they can be fairly easily silenced.
Assessing the total economic value of threatened livestock breeds in Italy: Implications for conservation policy. It’s worth it, but farmers will need incentives.
Strengthening informal seed systems to enhance food security in Southeast Asia. Including through identifying potential commercial species and also the odd seed fair and bank.
Can Certain Intellectual Property Rights both Protect and Promote Unique Traditional Products and Cultural Heritage from Developing Countries for Economic Benefit? The Case of Georgia. Maybe.
In vitro conservation of chestnut (Castanea sativa) by slow growth. Ok, now what?
Getting the most out of natural variation in C4 photosynthesis. Through sequencing of a couple of key species and lots of RNA profiling.
Coping with climate-induced water stresses through time and space in the mountains of Southwest China. Including by changing crops, changing crop varieties and changing cropping patterns. But other ways as well.