Information

January 28, 2014November 2, 2017

Infographic on crop production, by family no less

A tweet from Dan Chitwood of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center really made my day today. He’s written a piece of code which shows production of different crops in 2011 (according to FAOStat) as a very cool infographic where the crops are differently sized circles arranged by botanical family. Here’s a screengrab, but go to the website, and click on a circle and see what happens. I so long to do this for genebank accession numbers…

January 27, 2014January 10, 2014

Brainfood: Domestication syndrome, Açaí cultivation, FIGS galore, Bean FIGS, Polish wheat, Rice groups, Chickpea QTLs, Cuban ag history, Agroforestry domestication, Conservation markets

Plant domestication versus crop evolution: a conceptual framework for cereals and grain legumes. Only traits showing clear dimorphism between wild and cultivated taxa are really part of Domestication Syndrome. If there’s a continuum, it happened afterwards.
Reconfiguring Agrobiodiversity in the Amazon Estuary: Market Integration, the Açaí Trade and Smallholders’ Management Practices in Amapá, Brazil. Açaí driving out other crops. Sometimes those underutilized crops should stay that way? Maybe not, as at the same time, homegardens are diversifying.
Mining germplasm banks for photosynthetic improvement — wheat, rice, potato, legumes and maize. You need maps.
Do faba bean (Vicia faba L.) accessions from environments with contrasting seasonal moisture availabilities differ in stomatal characteristics and related traits? Yes. Those maps again.
Can Polish wheat (Triticum polonicum L.) be an interesting gene source for breeding wheat cultivars with increased resistance to Fusarium head blight? What do you think?
Genetic diversity and classification of Oryza sativa with emphasis on Chinese rice germplasm. Six major groups, not five. We shall see.
Genetic dissection of drought tolerance in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.). It could all (or mostly) be down to one genomic region.
Historical changes in the process of agricultural development in Cuba. I suppose one could say that, in a way, it’s back to the future.
Developing more productive African agroforestry systems and improving food and nutritional security through tree domestication. Participation, post-production, private-public partnership.
Market-based mechanisms for biodiversity conservation: a review of existing schemes and an outline for a global mechanism. Need to have a standard unit of measurement, and a mechanism for ensuring a long-term perspective. Can agricultural biodiversity learn from this?

January 21, 2014January 23, 2014

Joining up the dots

Four blog posts from the CGIAR today. Related, as you’ll see, but not connected. Leaving us to join up the dots. Because that’s what we do. You’re welcome, CGIAR.

From ICRAF, to kick things off, a piece summarizing the editorial accompanying the special edition of the journal Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. The message is that the interaction between people and trees, in forests or agroforestry, is complicated and its study requires systemic approaches.
Funnily enough, over at CIFOR there’s an example of just such a study, looking at the relationship between forest cover and children’s nutrition. Which encountered just the sort of problem alluded to above: “We were unable to figure out from our data whether people living near forests are collecting more nutritious foods from the forest, if they are cultivating them on farms and in agro-forests, or a combination.” Awkward.
And so we come to the Landscapes for People, Food and Nature Initiative’s post on the use of mapping to look at ecosystem services. Including presumably the sort of ecosystem services the previous two pieces looked at.
Funny though how it doesn’t mention CIAT’s work on using GIS to look at the level of forest protection actually enjoyed by Colombian forests in that country’s protected are system.

LATER: Ok, ok, the third one is not really from the CGIAR. Read the comment for more.

January 20, 2014January 20, 2014

Brainfood: Tanzanian maize, ITK, Genebank value, Congolese bananas, Amaranth domestication, Ethiopian coffees, Dacryodes diversity, Apple diversity, Breeding pulses, Commons, Beet genetic structure, Restoring landscapes, Indian agrobiodiversity

Modern maize varieties going local in the semi-arid zone in Tanzania. OPVs from the 80s are creolizing still, and that’s a good thing.
Traditional Knowledge Systems, International Law and National Challenges: Marginalization or Emancipation? Well, it looks like it’s the former, but should be the latter. ‘Twas ever thus.
Valuing insurance services emerging from a gene bank: The case of the Greek Gene Bank. Benefits are greater than costs. Phew.
Banana genotype composition along the Uganda-Democratic Republic of Congo border: a gene pool mix for plantain and highland bananas. You can still find new stuff. And get funding to look for it, clearly.
Relationships between the Weedy Amaranthus hybridus (Amaranthaceae) and the Grain Amaranths. Multiple domestications? And why not.
Genetic Diversity Analysis of Some Ethiopian Specialty Coffee (Coffea arabica L.) Germplasm Accessions Based on Morphological Traits. As ever, useful variation was found. We await its arrival in our morning cup.
Genetic diversity of Dacryodes buettneri (Engl.) H.J. Lam (Burseraceae), a timber tree in Central Africa. There is some. It could be important, yada yada.
Malus sieversii: A Diverse Central Asian Apple Species in the USDA-ARS National Plant Germplasm System. The infra-specific taxa may not hold up.
Exploiting Genomic Resources for Efficient Conservation and Use of Chickpea, Groundnut, and Pigeonpea Collections for Crop Improvement. It’s so close, these guys can taste it. When will we?
Is genetic information a commons? Maybe it should be.
Genetic structure and gene flow in Beta vulgaris subspecies maritima along the Atlantic coast of France. The latitudinal cline that wasn’t.
Restoration of degraded agricultural terraces: Rebuilding landscape structure and process. Restoration is not enough, you need continuous management thereafter. Probably applies to the agricultural biodiversity too, when you think about it.
Agro-biodiversity in rice–wheat-based agroecosystems of eastern Uttar Pradesh, India: implications for conservation and sustainable management. Resource-poor farmers are better at agrobiodiversity conservation than rich ones. ‘Twas ever thus.

January 17, 2014January 17, 2014

Nibbles: British foods, NBPGR wheat, CIMMYT wheat, Innovation, Ghana cowpea, Nordic grog, Medicinal purposes, Heirloom chocolate, Grünewoche, Dog genomics, Berry go Round, Broad beans, Ag landscapes, Tea and CC

Google Map of British protected food names. Where’s fish and chips? Or the cream tea. Japan next?
Indian genebank in the record books for characterizing wheat.
And with no help from CIMMYT!
Getting those damn smallholders to innovate already.
Ghana gets a new cowpea to innovate with. Well, almost.
And there I was thinking smallholders had been innovating for thousands of years. Even in the frozen north. Winter may be coming, but we’ve got grog. Which you know is good for you.
As is chocolate, so go ahead and submit your heirloom cacao beans for evaluation. But don’t be tempted to cheat. We’ll know if you are.
Oh damn, it’s Green Week.
The story behind the methods used in a recent paper on dog diversity. Wonkish.
We seem to have slipped off the Berry Go Round treadmill, which means we missed some gorgeous photos of broad beans.
And another belated treat: UNESCO’s round up of World Heritage agricultural landscapes.
…one of which is not tea in China, but maybe it should be, before it’s too late.