The livestock genetic resources conservation people are going to be hard at it both in Europe and India this year. Must be something in the air.
Selection of pulses for better nutrition
Hot on the heels of the UK’s call for “advances in nutrition and related sciences” to be put to work to improve the efficiency of animal production, comes a paper surveying the protein content and composition of “107 cultivars of important grain legume species”. The primary motivation seems to have been to improve feed quality for pigs, especially for the organic sector which is not supposed to feed supplementary amino acids to make up the shortfall. From the abstract, it seems that feed quality could indeed be enhanced by selecting specific varieties. And a more diverse diet, to supply the amino acids in which most pulses are low?
Nibbles: Dog, Beer, Human Planet, Entomophagy, Food Atlas, Pepper, Barley
- When dog was on the menu.
- Going far, and far back, for beer. And indeed yeast. Always worth the effort.
- BBC launches Human Planet, focusing on “man’s remarkable relationship with the natural world.” Which apparently doesn’t include agriculture.
- Mexicans eat many moth species, and not just the larvae.
- Amazing interactive food atlas for the US. wish I had a use for it, but someone surely does.
- Breeding a “better” Jalapeño pepper — to hold more cheese, natcho.
- Food as politics; the tsampa-eaters of the TAR. h/t GOOD.
Nibbles: Genebank, Rice, State of the World, Experiments, Lathyrus, Malaria and lactase persistence, Advice, CWR, Feed
- The Ethiopian Institute of Biodiversity has been up to something, but it is hard to be sure what.
- IRRI is also up to something — Green super rice — but again it is hard to be sure what. Not golden at any rate.
- CIAT picks its favourites from the State of the World 2011 report.
- More than anyone has any right to want to know about the history and future of agricultural experimentation, but fascinating nonetheless.
- The nutritive value and toxicity of grasspea and its relatives.
- Milk may or may not provide some protection from malaria.
- Nutrition advice, filtered for you. Jeremy sez “I like No. 6.”
- Irish launch crop wild relatives website.
- The feed quality of crop residues gets the treatment.
Of cattle and people. And barley
Dienekes, a blogger who specializes in molecular anthropology, has a quick note today on a paper on the molecular genetics of cattle in Europe. The main story is one of distinction between North and South.
Apparently, the expansion of the dairy breeds have created, or largely maintained, a sharp genetic contrast of northern and southern Europe, which divides both France and Germany. It may be hypothesised that the northern landscapes, with large flat meadows, are suitable for large-scale farming with specialised dairy cattle (Niederungsvieh, lowland cattle), whilst the mixed-purpose or beef cattle (Höhenvieh, highland cattle) are better suited to the smaller farms and hilly regions of the south. However, it is also remarkable that in both France and Germany the bovine genetic boundary coincides with historic linguistic and cultural boundaries. In France, the Frankish invasion in the north created the difference between the northern langue d’oïl and the southern langue d’oc. The German language is still divided into the southern Hochdeutsch and northern Niederdeutsch dialects, which also correlates with the distribution of the Catholic and Protestant religions. On a larger scale, it is tempting to speculate that the difference between two types of European cattle reflects, and has even reinforced, the traditional and still visible contrast of Roman and Germanic Europe.
It doesn’t seem that the strong latitudinal genetic differentiation in cattle is matched by one in human populations. Here the pattern is much more gradual and clinal. ((Maybe there’s more interbreeding among human populations than between cattle breeds?)) However, there may be a similar “sharp genetic contrast of northern and southern Europe” (or at least between the Mediterranean and the rest of Europe) for barley. ((Yeah, I know it’s an old paper, but it’s the only map of barley genetic diversity in Europe I could find online at short notice. No doubt our readers will send in better examples.))
I’d dearly love to have the time to find out whether other livestock and crops show a similar pattern.