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June 30, 2016June 30, 2016

Plant conservation boffins discuss the Sustainable Development Goals

Things have been a little busy hereabouts, what with one thing and another, so we seem to have neglected to remind our readers of the Global Partnership for Plant Conservation’s conference on Plant Conservation and the Sustainable Development Goals at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Shame on us. Anyway, participants have been quite busy on Twitter, so you can get a flavour of what’s been going on. The focus was on the role of botanical gardens in the conservation of wild plants, but agricultural biodiversity does seem to have featured at least once.

Ms Sutherland-issues with collecting seeds on indigenous lands in Australia-where do the benefits accrue? #gppc2016 pic.twitter.com/jrRZG5YhhZ

— Anukriti Hittle (@anu_hittle) June 29, 2016

Maybe someone can tell us more on that.

June 30, 2016June 30, 2016

Nibbles: Wild pig, Indicators, Ethiopian agrobiodiversity, Traditional crops, Purple haze, Fraises des Bois, Chef prize, Breadfruit, Sorghum nutrition, Moringa, NWFP, Barcoding, Arnold Arboretum

Warty pig saved by genomics.
So apparently there’s a Biodiversity Barometer. Via the Biodiversity Indicator Partnership.
Traditional crops survive, but under threat, in Ethiopian highlands. And a whole issue of Farming Matters on why it’s important that they do survive.
More on that purple wheat heirloom variety coming back from the brink.
Going back to the original European strawberry. No, I’m not going to make any jokes about that.
There’s going to be a Nobel for chefs. If they can make use of breadfruit, they’ll deserve it.
Yes, sorghum rotis can taste good. And they’re good for you.
Big Moringa shill makes case for next superfood :)
Did I already say that FAO’s Nonwood Forest Products Newsletter seems to have been resurrected? Do subscribe.
On my work blog, I say genebanks could be a bit more like supermarkets.
Collecting trees.

June 13, 2016June 13, 2016

Brainfood: Agricultural heritage, Unique maize, B4N, Flax core evaluation, Oca conservation, Ag expansion, Rose wild relative, Quinoa evaluation, Nepal seed systems, Amazonian domestication, Analysing germplasm data

Agricultural Heritage Systems: A Bridge between Urban and Rural Development. “…agricultural heritage systems can take full advantage of abundant funds…” Really?
Multi cob-bearing popcorn (Puakzo) maize: a unique landrace of Mizoram, North East, India. Would be nice to know how unique globally.
Enabled or disabled: Is the environment right for using biodiversity to improve nutrition? Maybe, in some places.
Orbitide Composition of Flax Core Collection (FCC). In other news, Canada has a flax core collection.
Farmer Perspectives on OCA (Oxalis tuberosa; Oxalidaceae) Diversity Conservation: Values and Threats. It’s the cultural value, stupid. And weevils.
The expansion of modern agriculture and global biodiversity decline: an integrated assessment. Fancy maths shows that if you assume that unabated agricultural expansion is bad in a particular way, you can come up with a model which spares land at a modest cost to per capita consumption, given decent investment in research.
Nuclear genetic variation of Rosa odorata var. gigantea (Rosaceae): population structure and conservation implications. Wild relative of domesticated rose shows lots of diversity and two distinct populations either side of a fault zone in China.
Worldwide Evaluation of Quinoa: Preliminary Results from Post International Year of Quinoa FAO Projects in 9 Countries. 19 sites, 21 genotypes, a few winners. But the real story is how difficult it was to get hold of the material in the first place.
Shaping Seed Regulation in Nepal: The Role of Networks, Community and Informality. The formal needs to recognize the informal. And vice versa.
Crop domestication in the upper Madeira River basin. Nice, brief review of evidence of domestication for a number of crops along one branch of the Amazon.
Analysing genebank collections using “R”: Making trait information widely available to users. NordGen takes genebank data analysis to the masses. And about time too.

June 11, 2016

Plant Genetic Resources: Our challenges, our food, our future

As predicted a few days ago, here’s Dr Mike Jackson’s report on that 2 June meeting on plant genetic resources organized by doctoral students at the School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham.

When I was asked to contribute a paper I had to think hard and long about a suitable topic. I’ve always been passionate about the use of plant genetic diversity to increase food security. I decided therefore to talk about the value of genebank collections, how that value might be measured, and I provided examples of how germplasm had been used to increase the productivity of both potatoes and rice.

If you have your own examples, leave a comment on Mike’s blog.

June 7, 2016June 7, 2016

Mythbusters edition

No, mobile phones did not improve the economic welfare of fishermen in Kerala by allowing them to track market prices in different ports. And no, it has not been the antics of environmental activists to stall the adoption of Golden Rice by the world’s poor. Whatever next? The figure for worldwide crop genetic erosion is not 75%? Now, that would be something.