- Progress toward the identification and stacking of crucial domestication traits in pennycress. Thank goodness it’s closely related to Arabidopsis.
- Sixty years of tracking conservation progress using the World Database on Protected Areas. Will increasingly expand to informally protected ares and link to other databases.
- Evaluating the impacts of protected areas on human well-being across the developing world. Pretty positive impacts for communities living near protected areas, with some tourism.
- Does oil palm agriculture help alleviate poverty? A multidimensional counterfactual assessment of oil palm development in Indonesia. Not in remote, mainly subsistence villages. So I guess that means the best outcomes come from oil palm plantations near protected areas?
- Perspective: What Does Stunting Really Mean? A Critical Review of the Evidence. Not as much as some think, but not nothing.
- Synchronized failure of global crop production. Lower production synchrony within crops, but higher among crops, meaning calorie production very vulnerable to climate change.
- Comparative analysis of perennial and annual Phaseolus seed nutrient concentrations. Ca, Cu, Fe, Mg, Mn, and P higher in wild annuals.
- Urine salts elucidate Early Neolithic animal management at Aşıklı Höyük, Turkey. May show the transition from hunting caprines to keeping them penned up about 10,000 years ago outside the Fertile Crescent.
- Cooked starchy food in hearths ca. 120 kya and 65 kya (MIS 5e and MIS 4) from Klasies River Cave, South Africa. Earliest evidence of parenchyma as food, apparently.
- Phenotypic variation of cassava root traits and their responses to drought. Phancy phenotyping.
- Conventional land‐use intensification reduces species richness and increases production: A global meta‐analysis. Especially in mid-intensity systems, but in low- and high-intensity systems you can get closer to win-wins.
- Projecting impacts of global climate and land‐use scenarios on plant biodiversity using compositional‐turnover modelling. All the intensification in the world is not going to help if climate change isn’t curbed.
- Whole genomes and transcriptomes reveal adaptation and domestication of pistachio. Salinity tolerance related to jasmonic acid synthesis pathway.
Nibbles: Grape breeding, Vanilla breeding, DSI policy, ITPGRFA, Maori taro, Dhofar memories
- Marker-assisted breeding in grapes: like skimming through a book looking for key words.
- Vanilla genome: going from no-frills vehicle to luxury sportscar.
- CGN on what to do to ensure continued access to that book — or car.
- A topic which is all the rage right now in the ITPGRFA, on which this is a one-page primer.
- 14th century Māori grew taro as well as sweet potato.
- Great infographics on the fascinating region of Dhofar in southern Oman, in which I collected germplasm many years ago. Great opportunity to reminisce.
Nibbles: Cherokee seeds, Genebanks shoutout, Seek, Breed watchlist, Pre-breeding vid, Brandon Schlautman
- Svalbard Vault inspires Cherokee Nation seed saving.
- Genebanks inspire CIMMYT Director General.
- New plant identification app inspires me to get out more.
- Rare Breed Survival Trust inspired by the resilience of some native livestock.
- See if this video doesn’t inspire you to do some pre-breeding.
- Inspiring interview with a breeder of perennial legumes.
Brainfood: Agrobiodiversity drivers, Wild bean adaptation, Berseem breeding, Millet mutants, IK conservation, NUS, Vertebrate threats, Ethiopian nutrition, Maize landraces, Maize phenotyping, Musa chemotypes, Ancient farmers, Vavilov’s steps, Bean diversity, Wild wheat
- Agricultural Biodiversity Maintenance in a Coastal Socio-Ecological System: the Pearl Lagoon Basin, Nicaragua. Roads are not always bad for agrobiodiversity.
- Signatures of Environmental Adaptation During Range Expansion of Wild Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris). Candidate genes for increased water use efficiency identified.
- Genetic Improvement of Berseem (Trifolium alexandrinum) in India: Current Status and Prospects. Including using wild relatives, which was surprising to me.
- Generation and characterization of a foxtail millet (Setaria italica) mutant library. Who needs landraces.
- Storing and sharing: A review of indigenous and local knowledge conservation initiatives. Ex situ predominates, and local custodians are often excluded. Where have I heard this before?
- Prospects of orphan crops in climate change. They’re great. But didn’t we already know this?
- Energy and nutrient production in Ethiopia, 2011-2015: Implications to supporting healthy diets and food systems. I guess maybe we didn’t know it. Production has increased, but at the expense of diversity, and nutrient deficits remain.
- Hotspots of human impact on threatened terrestrial vertebrates. 1200 species impacted by threats over >90% of their range. I wonder how many livestock wild relatives.
- Testcross performance of doubled haploid lines from European flint maize landraces is promising for broadening the genetic base of elite germplasm. “Idle genetic diversity from gene banks” gets busy.
- High-throughput method for ear phenotyping and kernel weight estimation in maize using ear digital imaging. Apply to above?
- Genetic analysis of Okra Yellow Vein Mosaic Virus disease resistance in wild relative of okra Abelmoschus angulosus Wall. ex Wight & Arn.Smacks of desperation.
- Metabolite profiling characterises chemotypes of Musa diploids and triploids at juvenile and pre-flowering growth stages. Unsurprisingly follows the genetics.
- Late Pleistocene human genome suggests a local origin for the first farmers of central Anatolia. Not much migration after all.
- Following Vavilov’s expeditions, Sardinia (Italy). Lots of changes in 90 years. There’s a shocker.
- Analyses of African common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) germplasm using a SNP fingerprinting platform: diversity, quality control and molecular breeding. Lots of naming inconsistencies among breeding materials. Another shocker.
- Potential of Aegilops sp. for Improvement of Grain Processing and Nutritional Quality in Wheat (Triticum aestivum). Not just Fe and Zn.
Breeding Africa’s next super-vegetables
Ready to take your company to the next level? Join the Africa Vegetable Breeding Consortium and discover how exposure to the latest research and closer contact with international breeders and scientists will change the way you do breeding and business.
The main benefit?
Consortium companies will be able to view a broad array of PYT [preliminary yield trials] entries in the field at least 12 months before the material is made public. Participants may have early access to screening protocols or other kinds of scientific information developed at WorldVeg, provided the sharing of such information does not conflict with existing WorldVeg agreements or policies.
Remember that WorldVeg sits on a huge reservoir of diversity, and has talented plant breeders that make the most of it.
LATER: Looking forward to seeing an African vegetable among these.
LATER STILL: Maybe we need a SeedTracker for vegetables?