Information

January 13, 2021February 1, 2021

Alternative seed sources

Sometimes, seeds of old and interesting crop varieties are not solely (or even at all) available from genebanks. In the US, for example, there are a number of other options, as summarized below by our friend Marty Reisinger, especially aimed at amateur gardeners:

Plant Information Online: Operated by the University of Minnesota. Enables searches for specific cultivars.
Dave’s Garden: Search over 160,000 plants. Members can chat with other gardeners in their forums.
Master Gardeners. Each state has a Master Gardener organization. Follow the link for one near you.

I’m sure there are similar resources for other countries, and wouldn’t it be nice to bring them all together?

LATER: Here’s a resource for Canada. Via.

LATER STILL: See also this roundup in Modern Farmer.

January 12, 2021

Nibbles: Newsletter edition

Jeremy goes nuts in his latest newsletter. And more.
Sprouts from Brussels is the best name for a seeds newsletter I’ve ever seen.
The GenRes Bridge December 2020 newsletter summarizes progress on the development of the European Genetic Resources Strategy.

December 21, 2020November 27, 2020

Brainfood: Behaviour change, Banana evolution, Clonal conservation, Pea evolution, Fe fortification, Diet data, Cassava potential, Creole breeds, Water buffalo evolution, Bison and CWR

A systematic review of conservation efforts using non-monetary, non-regulatory incentives to promote voluntary behaviour change. Mix it up, and get personal.
Chromosome reciprocal translocations have accompanied subspecies evolution in bananas. Some subspecies of M. acuminata were more involved in cultivar development than others.
Challenges and Prospects for the Conservation of Crop Genetic Resources in Field Genebanks, in In Vitro Collections and/or in Liquid Nitrogen. Everything that can be, should be in cryo.
Population genetic structure and classification of cultivated and wild pea (Pisum sp.) based on morphological traits and SSR markers. The species are real, the subspecies maybe less so.
Iron Absorption from Iron-Biofortified Sweetpotato Is Higher Than Regular Sweetpotato in Malawian Women while Iron Absorption from Regular and Iron-Biofortified Potatoes Is High in Peruvian Women. More than just calories.
Survey data on income, food security, and dietary behavior among women and children from households of differing socio-economic status in urban and peri-urban areas of Nairobi, Kenya. Lots of data to play around with, including on dietary diversity. But not on biofortification, I don’t think.
“Rambo root” to the rescue: How a simple, low‐cost solution can lead to multiple sustainable development gains. Grow it on degraded land. After biofortifying it, natch.
Genetic Diversity and Structure of Iberoamerican Livestock Breeds. Creole breeds are hanging in there, especially in marginal areas. Maybe they could be fed on cassava?
Whole genome analysis of water buffalo and global cattle breeds highlights convergent signatures of domestication. The same mutations occurred independently and were then selected for in water buffalo and cattle.
Bison, anthropogenic fire, and the origins of agriculture in eastern North America. Bison favoured the growth of crop wild relatives in the prairies. No word on any attempt to domesticate the brutes, but the above should provide some guidance.
Archaeogenomics of a ~2,100-year-old Egyptian leaf provides a new timestamp on date palm domestication. Dates showed introgression from wild relatives way back. No evidence of bison involvement.

December 14, 2020November 25, 2020

Brainfood: COVID & seeds, Livestock integration, Farm diversity, Diet diversity, Genetic diversity, Cassava landraces, Wild coffee, Variety registration, Kava kastom, Neolithic Europe

Viewpoint: COVID-19 and seed security response now and beyond. Think before you spread seeds around.
Integrated crop-livestock system with system fertilization approach improves food production and resource-use efficiency in agricultural lands. Integrating livestock in soybean production is good for the amount of energy produced per unit of nutrient applied, if that’s what floats your boat.
Holistic agricultural diversity index as a measure of agricultural diversity: A cross-sectional study of smallholder farmers in Lilongwe district of Malawi. An interesting way of measuring overall farm diversity. But is there a link with dietary diversity?
Dietary diversity scores, nutrient intakes and biomarkers vitamin B12, folate and Hb in rural youth from the Pune Maternal Nutrition Study. Dietary diversity is linked to better micronutrient status. But is there a link with genetic diversity?
Evaluating surrogates of genetic diversity for conservation planning. There’s nothing quite as good as neutral markers, alas.
Phenotypic diversity assessment within a major ex situ collection of wild endemic coffees in Madagascar. Never mind the species or genetic diversity, look at the trait variability.
Understanding cassava varietal preferences through pairwise ranking of gari‐eba and fufu prepared by local farmer–processors. Landraces are sometimes better than improved varieties.
Do the importations of crop products affect the genetic diversity from landraces? A study case in garlic (Allium sativum L.). Apparently not, surprisingly enough.
Overcoming barriers to the registration of new varieties. DUS needs genomics. But what about registering landraces? Do we need a completely separate system for that?
Legal geographies of kava, kastom and indigenous knowledge: Next steps under the Nagoya Protocol. One approach implementing Nagoya at the community level. But is it scalable?
New evidence on the earliest domesticated animals and possible small-scale husbandry in Atlantic NW Europe. There was a long period of contact between local hunter-gatherers and incoming farmers, resulting in a transitional farmer-herder stage.

December 11, 2020December 11, 2020

Nibbles: Community seed bank, Seed system video, MGIS, Svalbard, Mainstreaming NUS

Indigenous communities can have genebanks too.
That would make them part of the informal seed system.
Meanwhile, in the formal sector, the banana international genebank’s information system gets a graphical upgrade.
And the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, as formal as they come, gets an exhibition centre.
Orphan crops are called orphan because they are in general better served by the informal than the formal seed system.