- Murex from Meninx.
- Breeding a better bee.
- Menswear retailer to dabble in sustainable livestock.
- There was a fourth sister.
- A world olive collection in Spain.
- “If we can assume the fire pattern is as bad as the stuff we see on TV, I reckon at this very moment there is a goodly sized handful of species that are technically extinct right now.” At least in the wild.
- Cambodia’s world-beating peppercorn makes a post-post-colonial comeback.
Nibbles: Ottoman food, Georgian cheese, Livestock data, Welsh oats, Spices, Global apples, Cape gooseberry, In vitro
- From börek to burricche.
- The mother of Georgian cheese. I’m sure they have their version of börek there too. If not, there’s always bread.
- Fancy StoryMap of global livestock production. No wonder there’s lots of cheese in Georgia.
- Bringing back rare Welsh oats. Well, someone has to…
- A short history of cinnamon. Does it go with börek?
- Beautiful apples. And some so ugly they are beautiful.
- Crowd-sourcing Physalis improvement. Very tempting.
- How to conserve in vitro and in cryo. Useful for the three things above, for example.
Nibbles: USDA maize genebank, Apple breeding, Seed conservation, Soil map, Scoring supermarkets, DNA barcoding, Stone Age Hypoxis, Hybrid wine, Lost crops, Boswellia, Leucokaso, Species mixtures
- Nice student video on the genebank and breeding programmes at Iowa State.
- Speaking of breeding programmes and videos, here’s Sean Myles on his work on apples in Canada.
- Seed conservation legend Richard Ellis on what climate change is doing to seed quality.
- An amazing new global soil properties map is open for business.
- Scoring supermarkets for the human suffering they represent.
- The future of DNA barcoding…is here.
- Cotton 101.
- Strong evidence of Middle Stone Age tuber cooking in southern Africa.
- French wine growers dip a cautious toe into the grapewine interspecific genepool.
- Yields of mixtures of now “lost” native American crops comparable to those of maize.
- The canonical yearly frankincense story in honour of Epiphany.
- Biblical white olive makes a comeback in Italy.
- Useful update of mixture studies.
Brainfood: Food system, Fish cryo, Bromeliad maps, Ag risk, Grass pollination, Gendered cassava, Sorghum salinity, Soybean subsetting, Reverse speciation, Legume data, Livestock diseases, Buckwheat diversity, Wild barley genome, Wild sorghums, Wheat gap
- Impacts of Global Food Systems on Biodiversity and Water: The Vision of Two Reports and Future Aims. It’s all connected, and not in a good way.
- On‐Site Capabilities of a Mobile Laboratory for Aquatic Germplasm Cryopreservation. Not so easy for plants, alas.
- Biogeography and conservation status of the pineapple family (Bromeliaceae). The Atlantic Forest, the northern Andes and Central America.
- A review of types of risks in agriculture: What we know and what we need to know. Very few studies look beyond production risk, largely ignoring four other types of risk, and the prevalence of multiple risks.
- Visual and olfactory floral cues related to ambophilous pollination systems in Poaceae. Insects can facilitate pollination in some grasses.
- Cassava Trait Preferences of Men and Women Farmers in Nigeria: Implications for Breeding. Women select on quality, men on agronomy.
- Phenotypic and physiological responses to salt exposure in Sorghum reveal diversity among domesticated landraces. Salinity tolerance was acquired early in domestication and then maintained or lost depending on prevalent soil conditions.
- Combining Focused Identification of Germplasm and Core Collection Strategies to Identify Genebank Accessions for Central European Soybean Breeding. Pre-core FIGS subset based on adaptation to high-latitude cold regions, followed by coring using genotype data: from >17,000 to 366 accessions.
- Adaptive introgression during environmental change can weaken reproductive isolation. Reverse speciation is upon us.
- The future of legume genetic data resources: Challenges, opportunities, and priorities. Centralize and standardise. Good luck with that.
- Application of Mixed Methods to Identify Small Ruminant Disease Priorities in Ethiopia. National disease controls programmes may be on the wrong track.
- Tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum Gaertn.) landraces cultivated by Yi people in Liangshan, China. 13 landraces, but not very well differentiated as to use.
- The draft genome of a wild barley genotype reveals its enrichment in genes related to biotic and abiotic stresses compared to cultivated barley. More genes, more alleles in known genes.
- The endemic ‘sugar canes’ of Madagascar (Poaceae, Saccharinae: Lasiorhachis) are close relatives of sorghum. Closer than some actual Sorghum spp.
- Large genetic yield potential and genetic yield gap estimated for wheat in Europe. Long way to go to match the potential, modelled yield of ideotypes.
Nibbles: Sacred forests, Morning glory, Organic cereals, Sorghum diversity, Phoenix studentship
- The church forests of Ethiopia.
- Monumental monographic study of Ipomoea.
- New project on breeding cereals for organic farming in Europe.
- Sorghum genetic resources in the USA.
- Fun studentship on date palm diversity.