- Identification and Control of Latent Bacteria in in vitro Cultures of Sweetpotato [Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam]. 10% of about 2400 in vitro plantlets had a total of about 20 types of bacteria, some of which might be beneficial for all we know, but all of which could be removed.
- Genome-wide genotyping elucidates the geographical diversification and dispersal of the polyploid and clonally propagated yam (Dioscorea alata L.). Asian and Pacific genepools, thence to India, then Africa, then the Caribbean.
- Multi-parent populations in crops: a toolbox integrating genomics and genetic mapping with breeding. Like MAGIC.
- Genetic and genomic resources, and breeding for accelerating improvement of small millets: current status and future interventions. Here’s all the promising material, now go crazy with the MAGIC.
- Plural valuation of nature for equity and sustainability: Insights from the Global South. The road to decolonizing conservation.
- Long-Term Storage and Longevity of Orthodox Seeds: A Systematic Review. Treat your seeds right.
- Changes in food access by mestizo communities associated with deforestation and agrobiodiversity loss in Ucayali, Peruvian Amazon. Less diversified diets, loss of forest cover and reduced agricultural biodiversity go together, somehow.
- Evaluation of Wild Potato Germplasm for Tuber Starch Content and Nitrogen Utilization Efficiency. Wild species are better on both counts.
- Conservation protocols for Ensete glaucum, a crop wild relative of banana, using plant tissue culture and cryopreservation techniques on seeds and zygotic embryos. 2 accessions thus conserved at NBPGR.
- Computational models to improve surveillance for cassava brown streak disease and minimize yield loss. Fancy maths shows that planting clean material helps a lot.
- Genome wide association analysis of a stemborer egg induced “call-for-help” defence trait in maize. “…egg-induced parasitoid attraction trait was more common in landraces than in improved inbred lines and hybrids.”
- Low Additive Genetic Variation in a Trait Under Selection in Domesticated Rice. That would be root growth under drought and Al stress conditions. Every accession has a different set of low frequency causal alleles.
Nibbles: Capacity building, Training materials, Disease app, Microbes, Suffolk Punch
- How to do capacity development for agricultural innovation.
- Doing capacity development for crop diversity conservation and use.
- Farmers need capacity development too.
- A Svalbard for bacteria.
- The Punch sexed up.
Nibbles: Oz wine atlas, Microbiome vault, Guerrilla breeding, Seed relief bibliography, Food archaeology, Seed producers, Marmalade
- The future of Australian wine in maps.
- A Svalbard for the human microbiome?
- Plant breeders on the edge of the mainstream.
- From FAO, a bibliography on seed systems and seed relief.
- Book review: The Archaeology of Food: Identity, Politics, and Ideology in the Prehistoric and Historic Past.
- Training seed producer groups can help their non-member neighbours too.
- There will be marmalade for tea. But, spoiler alert, it might not be what you think.
Brainfood: Food groups, Bumblebees, Wild lettuce, Bambara, Miscanthus, Wild macadamia, Sperm cryo, Fungi, Feed adoption, Bere evaluation, Lactose persistence
- Culinary Cultural Conservation and Cultural Keystone Food Groups: Concepts in Ethnobotany. Immigrants stick with viandas.
- Safeguarding the genetic integrity of native pollinators requires stronger regulations on commercial lines. About half of bumblebee specimens in SW Spain were F1 hybrids or BC1.
- Lactuca dregeana DC. (Asteraceae: Chicorieae) – A South African crop relative under threat from hybridization and climate change. That’s a hell of a disjunction.
- Exploration of Bambara Groundnut (Vigna subterranea (L.) Verdc, an Underutilized Crop, To Aid Global Food Security: Varietal Improvement, Genetic Diversity and Processing. It all starts with lots of data on 420 genebanks accessions at IITA.
- MGDB: A database for evaluating Miscanthus spp. to screen elite germplasm. Kind of amazing this crop is so far ahead of Bambara groundnut.
- Genetic Structure of Wild Germplasm of Macadamia: Species Assignment, Diversity and Phylogeographic Relationships. Genetics supports taxonomy.
- 3-D printed customizable vitrification devices for preservation of genetic resources of aquatic species. Good for species with miniscule testes.
- Threats to global food security from emerging fungal and oomycete crop pathogens. Need better fungicides, but less of them.
- Improving adoption of technologies and interventions for increasing supply of quality livestock feed in low- and middle-income countries. Look at socio-economic factors along the whole value chain, and come up with packages and solve multiple problems.
- Assessing the variation in manganese use efficiency traits in Scottish barley landrace Bere (Hordeum vulgare L.). Some heritage barleys had double the chlorophyll fluorescence readings in low Mn hydroponic than elite cultivar Scholar.
- Why and when was lactase persistence selected for? Insights from Central Asian herders and ancient DNA. Apparently not in Central Asia, because of fermentation; but then, why in Europe? Maybe they didn’t like the taste there?
Brainfood: Food Systems Dashboard, Woody perennials, Translocation, Seed storage, Forest management, Urban trees, Ancient beer, Beef cattle selection, Potato breeding, Seed physiology, Peanut origins, Wild coffees, Soil bugs
- The Food Systems Dashboard is a new tool to inform better food policy. 140 indicators from over 30 sources. Launching soon. Always good to have the data.
- Using Living Germplasm Collections to Characterize, Improve, and Conserve Woody Perennials. Nice review of the conservation of your favourite fruits in field genebanks (about 6% of the total number of crop accessions).
- Moving threatened plants: Story and practice. It sounds easy but it isn’t.
- Seed Germination after 30 Years Storage in Permafrost. Drying, drying, drying.
- Why Seed Physiology Is Important for Genebanking. Well, don’t you want to know why a seed lot is showing no or low germination after 30 years in permafrost? Or, alternatively, how long another one will continue to show good germination? Thought so.
- Habitat management alternatives for conservation forests in the temperate zone: Review, synthesis, and implications. 4 intervention alternatives: minimal, traditional, non-traditional and species-based. But we need long-term studies to really know what works best. Presumably longer than 30 years. This is an old paper, but it came up again because of this very thorough Twitter thread.
- High richness of exotic trees in tropical urban green spaces: Reproductive systems, fruiting and associated risks to native species. Go native. At least in Brazil. Someone should mash up with all the papers above.
- Mashes to Mashes, Crust to Crust. Presenting a novel microstructural marker for malting in the archaeological record. Look for cell wall breakdown in the grain’s aleurone layer.
- Powerful detection of polygenic selection and environmental adaptation in US beef cattle. Local adaptation is being eroded.
- Genomic-Led Potato Breeding for Increasing Genetic Gains: Achievements and Outlook. The future is true seed-propagated F1 diploid hybrids produced by crossing inbred diploid lines. Oh, plus gene editing here and there.
- Reply to: Evaluating two different models of peanut’s origin. Did the polyploidization event which gave rise to Arachis hypogaea occur ~450,000 years ago or <10,000 years ago? The authors who said the former double down.
- Lost and Found: Coffea stenophylla and C. affinis, the Forgotten Coffee Crop Species of West Africa. Let the interbreeding commence.
- The proportion of soil-borne pathogens increases with warming at the global scale. Be afraid.