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March 30, 2015March 31, 2015

Listening to the fizmer

A couple of weeks ago we Nibbled an article by the writer Robert Macfarlane on his decade-long effort to rescue local words for features of the British landscape from oblivion. Macfarlane also has a piece on this obsession of his in the latest alumni magazine of the University of Cambridge — he’s Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature there, after all. This includes evocative photographs of some of the terms he’s collected. Worth a look (p. 35).

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March 30, 2015March 31, 2015

Brainfood: IBPGR collecting, Persimmon diversity, ABS, On farm economics, Wild Colombian potatoes, Indian rice cores, Tibetan chickens, Ligonberry antioxidants, Tanzanian veggie IK, Melon sugar genes, Moroccan lentil diversity, Grasspea diversity, Quinoa ABS

Plant genetic resources collections and associated information as a baseline resource for genetic diversity studies: an assessment of the IBPGR-supported collections. 35% of 200,000 accessions collected by IBPGR from 1975-95 still in a genebank somewhere.
Genetic diversity among germplasms of Diospyros kaki based on SSR markers. Chinese non-astringent types closer to Chinese astringent types than to Japanese non-astringent types.
Ex Post Use Restriction and Benefit-sharing Provisions for Access to Non-plant Genetic Materials for Public Research. Up-front payments can be ok.
On Farm Conservation of Crop Genetic Resource: Declining De Facto Diversity and Optimal Funding Strategy. Fancy maths tells us to identify the landraces most likely to go extinct, and the farmers who can conserve them most cheaply.
Current situation of wild Solanum spp. L. sect. Petota (Solanum, Solanaceae) in some Colombian regions. Not great.
Identification of a diverse mini-core panel of Indian rice germplasm based on genotyping using micro satellite markers. Mini-core of 98 accessions based on molecular data recovers 94% of alleles in geographically-selected core of 6912 accessions from Indian collection. No word on how good the 6912 are in the first place.
Genomic analyses reveal potential independent adaptation to high altitude in Tibetan chickens. Tibetan chickens fall into 2 groups, both with signs of selection in several genes involved in the calcium-signalling pathway implicated in adaptation to the hypoxia experienced at high altitudes.
Antioxidant properties of lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea L.) leaves within a set of wild clones and cultivars. The wilds are better for you.
Knowledge Sharing Strategies on Traditional vegetables for Supporting Food Security in Kilosa District, Tanzania. Farmers talk about vegetables. Well there’s a shocker.
Variability of candidate genes, genetic structure and association with sugar accumulation and climacteric behavior in a broad germplasm collection of melon (Cucumis melo L.). 175 melons from 50 countries fall into 7 groups, fitting well with morphology and taxonomy. Ripening genes associated with diversification.
Genetic diversity analysis of Moroccan lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) landraces using Simple Sequence Repeat and Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphisms reveals functional adaptation towards agro-environmental origins. Evidence of combination of functional and geographic groupings.
Genetic Diversity of Grasspea and Its Relative Species Revealed by SSR Markers. Asian landraces different to those from Africa/Europe. And all different from the wilds.
Quinoa and the exchange of genetic resources: improving the regulation system. Quinoa for Annex 1?

March 14, 2015March 15, 2015

Nibbles: Old pretzel, Wine podcast, Nordic podcast, Tea history, Pacific pests app, Eating bugs, Chicken history, African superfoods, Gender, Access to seeds, Sorghum beer, Making mead, Cumin, Bolivian school meals, MLN, Hidden hunger conference, CIP & IK, Potato Park, CIP’s Sawyer, Saving wheat, Resettlement, Sustainable cacao, Deforestation map, Language map

Again, sorry for slow blogging last week. Work, you know. Here we play catch-up.

While we were away, we reached 6000 Twitter followers! Thanks, everyone!
And Germans found a 250-year-old pretzel. Wait, you can get those at Kamps every day though. (Bonn inside joke.)
Oh, and Jeremy talked to a wine expert about how to become a wine expert.
But he has competition from the Nordic Food Lab now. What are you waiting for, subscribe to both!
Since we’re on podcasts, Laszlo Montgomery’s monumental ten-part blockbuster on the history of tea in China recently came to a close.
Talking of iTunes, ver. 2 of the Pacific Pest and Pathogens app is out.
Don’t want to get into the whole eating insects thing? Feed them to your chickens instead.
There’s even an infographic about that now.
But what will it do to the poor old chicken?
Cooking up some African superfoods. No insects (or chickens) were harmed in the making of this article.
Yeah but who will be doing the cooking?
And where to get the seeds? Maybe African Seed Access Index will help, though I somehow doubt it. At least for baobab.
Oh well, there’s always beer I guess. (Though even that you can’t take for granted these days.)
Or mead, at a pinch.
I bet the Sumerians put a pinch of cumin in their beer. And mead.
What about Latin America superfoods, though? Bolivians put them in their school meals, that’s what.
Maize was a Latin American superfood once. Having trouble in Africa now, though.
Wait, what, there was a 2nd International Congress on Hidden Hunger at the University of Hohenheim last week? And all I got was this t-shirt? Any superfoods on the menu there, I wonder?
CIP on how it deals with traditional knowledge.
For example at the Potato Park. Where I’ll be next week, incidentally. Stay tuned… But again, I rather fear that blogging will be on the light side next week.
CIP has come a long way since its first DG, Dr Richard L. Sawyer, who sadly just passed away.
Modelling the effects of climate change on wheat. Again. Can never have enough data. Anyway, wild relatives the answer?
Mongolian nomads settle down. And not in a good way.
There’s more to sustainable cacao than productivity. Fortunately, some people are on that. Meanwhile, at the other end of the poverty spectrum…
Don’t think I’ve ever seen a nerdy interactive map like Global Forest Watch go mainstream. Hope for us all. Mash it up with this next?

March 10, 2015March 7, 2015

International Year of Quinoa officially over

FAO has just published a very glossy volume, somewhat unnecessarily prosaically entitled “State of the art report on quinoa around the world in 2013.” I guess it signals the official end of the International Year of Quinoa. There are chapters on all the things you’d expect, including genetic resources, that one authored by some old friends. That’s where we got the figure. I expect this will be the last word on the subject for some time to come.

March 5, 2015March 5, 2015

Genetic Resources in Crop Breeding course in the offing

Screen Shot 2015-03-04 at 4.14.25 PM A course on genetic resources for plant breeding is being organized at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Alnarp, Sweden. The person responsible is Prof. Rodomiro Ortíz, who has a huge amount of experience in the field, with a wide variety of crops. It’ll be in August, and the deadline for applications is April 30.