- 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.
Nibbles: Alert edition
- Book alert: Biodiversity, Food and Nutrition — A New Agenda for Sustainable Food Systems.
- Thread alert: Monumental analysis of crop yield trends in the USA.
- Woke alert: WorldVeg ticks a lot of boxes with its work on a peppers core collection.
- Policy alert: Why haven’t farmers’ varieties found a place in national and global seed markets?
Nibbles: Fennel, Cicer, OPV, Monoculture, Gene editing policy, Post 2020, Polman
- Oh no, fennel is in trouble now.
- Aussies using chickpea wild relatives.
- Seeds are the new toilet paper.
- Backing up potatoes.
- What has the Green Revolution ever done for us?
- Getting away from bipolarity in discussing gene editing.
- Paul Smith challenges biodiversity conservation NGOs.
- Ex CEO of Unilever challenges business to align with SDGs.
Brainfood: Bull, Durum, W2Px2, Urban hort, Maya ag, Nepal PGR, Bean GWAS, Pig landrace, DSI
- Reconstitution and modernization of lost Holstein male lineages using samples from a gene bank. Because all today’s bulls tracing back to exactly 2 born in the late 1880s is really not a very good thing.
- Comparative population genomic analyses of the reconstructed local breed “Nero di Parma” with other commercial and autochthonous Italian pig breeds. I like the idea of reconstructing a breed, but this one needs some more work or it will end up as the above.
- Durum wheat in the Mediterranean Rim: historical evolution and genetic resources. What have the Romans ever done for us? Well…
- Drinking biodiversity: a choice experiment on Franciacorta sparkling wines. Willingness to pay for biodiversity friendliness of high value products has its limits.
- Benefits of conserving agricultural genetic resources in Finland: Summary of the recent Finnish research and setting it in the international context. Still, there is some willingness to pay.
- The hidden potential of urban horticulture. Yes, even in Sheffield.
- Maize Politics and Maya Farmers’ Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Yucatán, 1450–1600. The sustainability of milpa depends on politics. ‘Twas ever thus.
- Genomics-assisted breeding for pigeonpea improvement. How do you know when you have enough genomics data?
- Agrobiodiversity and its Conservation in Nepal. 25,000 accessions around the world. But are they enough?
- Genetic Associations in Four Decades of Multi-environment Trials Reveal Agronomic Trait Evolution in Common Bean. 2 large genomic regions have been ruthlessly selected in relentless pursuit of the ideotype. Doesn’t sound like enough.
- Implications of biological information digitization: Access and benefit sharing of plant genetic resources. “The solution lies in an international institution stepping forward, with a bold vision and strong mandate, capable of resolution.” Good luck with that.
Nibbles: Purple, Emirati bees, MJ Bale, Solanum jamesii, Olive genebank, Victoria genebank, Kampot pepper
- Murex from Meninx.
- Breeding a better bee.
- Menswear retailer to dabble in sustainable livestock.
- There was a fourth sister.
- A world olive collection in Spain.
- “If we can assume the fire pattern is as bad as the stuff we see on TV, I reckon at this very moment there is a goodly sized handful of species that are technically extinct right now.” At least in the wild.
- Cambodia’s world-beating peppercorn makes a post-post-colonial comeback.