- OryzaGenome: Genome Diversity Database of Wild Oryza Species. Well, only 2 species thus far, but it’s a start.
- Evaluation of East Asian landrace wheat revealed by high molecular weight glutenin and maturity period. The Chinese accessions are different to the Japanese-Korean, and 3 of the former have both good gluten composition and early maturity, making them attractive to Korean breeders.
- Sequence-based Analysis of the Vitis vinifera L. cv Cabernet Sauvignon Grape Must Mycobiome in Three South African Vineyards Employing Distinct Agronomic Systems. Even microbes contribute to terroir.
- Genetic Diversity, Population Structure, and Association Mapping of 10 Agronomic Traits in Sesame. Some markers will be really useful in breeding.
- The fairs of agrobiodiversity in the context of participatory plant breeding — Local Agricultural Innovation Program in Cuba. Meaning and impact. Diversity will find a way.
- Biobanking genetic resources: Challenges and implementation at the USDA National Animal Germplasm Program. Everything that’s not cattle and swine is a problem.
- Geography and end use drive the diversification of worldwide winter rye populations. There may have been multiple domestications, and improvement has not led to decrease in diversity.
Genebank data everywhere
Those who follow such things will no doubt be as excited as we are about the fact that USDA’s National Plant Germplasm System has just switched over from its old workhorse documentation system, GRIN, to the young pretender, GRIN-Global. ((Though CIMMYT actually beat them to it.)) You can access all the passport, characterization and evaluation data USDA has on its 574,764 accessions from the GRIN-Global website. What the user sees on the public interface when searching for and ordering germplasm, though, is only a small part of the picture. All USDA genebank staff around the country are also using the Curator Tool to manage their collections and fulfil order requests. It’s been a massive undertaking. And the software is actually available to all. So if you’re a genebank curator and would like to experiment with the same documentation system that the mighty NPGS uses, check it out.
As it happens, we’ve also just come across a case of a user downloading some GRIN data and serving it up on its own. The good folks at Widespread Malus have extracted all the Malus sieversii data and stuck them in an Excel spreadsheet, to make things even easier for wild apple enthusiasts. Nice idea.
Nibbles: Tree conservation, Seed fairs, Baobab powder, Simran’s book, Cheesy prince, Companies & CC, Organic breeding
- Crowdfunding the Zero Tree Extinctions project.
- Seed fairs for climate change adaptation in Zimbabwe.
- Make mine a baobab smoothie.
- Another great review of Simran Sethi’s new book Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love.
- Blessed are the cheesemakers.
- Big Food taking fright?
- Breeding the organic breeders of the future.
Nibbles: Ancient faba, Ampelography double, S. African cattle, CIMMYT in Ethiopia, Seed pix, Heirloom pix, Trifolium genome
- Faba beans came before cereals in Galilee.
- Wine is not quite so old in Georgia, but still pretty old. But will they be able to genotype it?
- South Africa is a cattle melting pot.
- Getting improved wheat out there in Ethiopia.
- These seeds are definitely ready for their close-ups.
- Speaking of close-ups: Amy Goldman has a new book out.
- First forage clover genome. More and more difficult to think of firsts.
A newsletter to conjure with
Well, I thought we had our finger on the agricultural biodiversity pulse, but this is a new one on us:
Agrobiodiversity@knowledged is a joint Hivos and Oxfam Novib Knowledge Programme initiated in 2011. This three-year Knowledge Programme aims to break through the barriers that limit the scaling up, institutional embedding and horizontal extension of practices that build on agricultural biodiversity for improved livelihoods and resilient food systems. At the heart of the programme is a global knowledge and experience community of organizations working on agricultural biodiversity with millions of farmers worldwide, where evidence and insights are generated, shared and tested. The knowledge programme aims to synthesize knowledge from a local to a global scale, conduct research on approaches and analytical frameworks that provide new perspectives on agricultural biodiversity and its role in resilient socio-ecological food systems, and improve horizontal and vertical knowledge flows towards positive change and transformation.
There’s a useful-looking newsletter too, though I’m blowed if I can work out how to subscribe to it.