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June 1, 2020June 1, 2020

Here come the nutrition data

Here’s a small taste of what you can do with the just-launched Food Systems Dashboard.

The graph shows the relationship between diversity of food supply (x-axis) and child/adolescent underweight (y-axis), with bubble size proportional to the incidence of anemia in women. The red outlier is India. Lots more variables to play with.

Is there a nicer way to share results than a screenshot though?

June 1, 2020June 17, 2020

Brainfood: CC & breeding, Maize data, Images, Seed activism, Fishy rice, BRI, Cherry genome, Llama diversity, Swiss chestnuts, Integrated livestock, Aichi targets, Forests, Rejolladas, Bitter gourd genome

Designing crops for adaptation to the drought and high‐temperature risks anticipated in future climates. High-temperature tolerance of seed-setting and transpiration efficiency are going to be needed.
2019 release of SNP allele frequency data for maize accessions in the CIMMYT Germplasm Bank maize collection. Maybe this will help?
ImageBreed: Open‐access plant breeding web–database for image‐based phenotyping. I’m sure this will help.
In or out? Organisational dynamics within European ‘peasant seed’ movements facing opening-up institutions and policies. In, I hope.
Rice field fisheries: Wild aquatic species diversity, food provision services and contribution to inland fisheries. Careful with intensification.
A draft genome of sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) reveals genome‐wide and local effects of domestication. Interesting parallels with peach.
Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Llamas (Lama glama) from the Camelid Germplasm Bank—Quimsachata. The populations of 2 breeds in the bank are diverse but not very different.
Reservoir of the European chestnut diversity in Switzerland. There’s a uniquely Swiss genetic group.
Commercial integrated crop-livestock systems achieve comparable crop yields to specialized production systems: A meta-analysis. Aim for soils of intermediate texture for the win-win though.
Best-practice biodiversity safeguards for Belt and Road Initiative’s financiers. Needs work.
Assessment of national-level progress towards elements of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. Not great. See above.
Meeting the food security challenge for nine billion people in 2050: What impact on forests? Impact need not be as great as it could be. See above.
Influential landscapes: Temporal trends in the agricultural use of rejolladas at Tahcabo, Yucatán, Mexico. Solution sinkholes have been used for horticulture for hundreds of years.
Long-read bitter gourd (Momordica charantia) genome and the genomic architecture of nonclassic domestication. Almost as much phenotypic differences between two regional genotypic groups among cultivated forms than between the wild and cultivated. More here.

May 29, 2020June 8, 2020

Nibbles: Lettuce breeding, SPC genebank, European genebanks, Messaging, New sorghum, Ancient DNA, Pastoralism review

A million bucks to save lettuce.
Genebank provides seeds shock.
The genebank of the future will provide data.
How to talk about genebanks (among other things).
A sorghum variety to keep an eye on.
The past, present and future of Cinchona.
Ancient genomics of people and dogs: compare and contrast.
Looking (up) to pastoralists for answers.

May 26, 2020

Nibbles: BSF, GNR2020, AI, IITA, Papa, Volcani, Yu, aDNA

The ITPGRFA’s Benefit Sharing Fund at work.
Remembering the Global Nutrition Report. Yes, I know it was only a few days ago.
Measuring poverty from space.
Interview with IITA’s genebank manager.
Humble-bragging the potato. In Spanish.
The Israeli genebank in the news.
Seed saving in China.
DNA from ancient Egyptian emmer.

May 20, 2020

Potato atlas returns to life

I have decided to relaunch the potato and sweetpotato atlas sites — completed while working with CIP, but now personal — in hope that with active collaboration, they can become more current and relevant.

That’s from the very brave Kelly Theisen, on the World Potato Atlas site. We’ll see how both develop, and do what we can to help. The country chapters from the original versions of both atlases, which date back to the 1980’s, are also on there.