- It’s been a while since we linked to CATIE’s genebank.
- Boffins take next step in spoiling wine for us all.
- The olive is another thing the Romans have done for us.
- The international germplasm collections are at the root of the CGIAR’s breeding programs.
- Marketing mate.
- Let them eat breadfruit.
- The amble is down to a single medieval mutation.
Nibbles: Better diets trifecta, Arhar, Beer double
- Getting away from the single nutrient approach to healthy diets. Also in Bangladesh.
- But which diet is best for the Earth too?
- Pigeonpea being used as a political jibe in India. But it is good for you? And there are some cool new varieties out there.
- Better beer through better hops and better yeast. Does it go with pigeonpea, though?
Brainfood: African land use, Sorghum double, NUS trifecta, Grape hybrids, Sunflower genome, Fungi, Tree dispersal
- Africa’s Land System Trajectories 1980–2005. Biomass harvest increase has mainly come from expansion, save in the north and south.
- Status, genetic diversity and gaps in sorghum germplasm from South Asia conserved at ICRISAT genebank. Still a lot of work to do.
- Indirect estimates reveal the potential of transgene flow in the crop–wild–weed Sorghum bicolor complex in its centre of origin, Ethiopia. Could be relevant if transgenic sorghum were ever to be developed, and deployed in Ethiopia.
- Are Neglected Plants the Food for the Future? The latest hope is the SDGs.
- Potential of Kersting’s groundnut [Macrotyloma geocarpum (Harms) Maréchal & Baudet] and prospects for its promotion. Not enough mutations, apparently. Hope that won’t be an issue for the SDGs.
- Back to the Future – Tapping into Ancient Grains for Food Diversity. They need to pay their way. Enough mutations, though, I guess.
- Genomic ancestry estimation quantifies use of wild species in grape breeding. 11-76% cultivated ancestry across 60-odd hybrids, one third 50%. More back-crosses to cultivated needed.
- Genome scans reveal candidate domestication and improvement genes in cultivated sunflower, as well as post-domestication introgression with wild relatives. Wild introgressions cover 10% of cultivated genome, and there is some in every modern cultivar tested.
- MycoDB, a global database of plant response to mycorrhizal fungi. Monumental.
- Contrasting effects of defaunation on aboveground carbon storage across the global tropics. Loss of dispersal animals bad for C sequestration, but only in African, American and South Asian forests.
Brainfood: Rice & drought, Diet & biodiversity, Iranian fermentation
- Genetic and root phenotype diversity in Sri Lankan rice landraces may be related to drought resistance. Fancy genotyping and phenotyping picks out landrace whose name in Sinhalese means “drought rice.”
- The relationship between agricultural biodiversity, dietary diversity, household food security, and stunting of children in rural Kenya. Increasing dietary diversity could increase household food security.
- Biodiversity and origin of the microbial populations isolated from Masske, a traditional Iranian dairy product made from fermented Ewe’s milk. Streptococcus thermophilus doesn’t sound like a safe thing to be drinking, but I still want to try it.
- Well, what can I tell ya, that’s all that caught my eye last week. Send me your favourite paper that I missed, and I’ll summarize it in a sentence by next Monday.
Nibbles: Botanical gardens, Glass flowers, Remarkable trees, Rhubarb history, Expensive pumpkin, Back to the future, Quinoa glut, Citrus greening biocontrol
- All of BGCI’s ex situ surveys on one cool page. Have they re-modelled their website?
- Harvard’s glass flowers are totally cool.
- The world’s coolest trees.
- Rhubarb is cooler than you think.
- I’m not sure paying over a thousand pounds for a pumpkin seed is all that cool.
- Conventional breeding is cooler than genetic engineering. Cool quote of the week: “I tell my students they should drop acid before they go to the field, and just look at the plants and let them tell you what they are doing.”
- Is the coolness over for quinoa? Jeremy unavailable for comment.
- Cool Pakistani bug may help with citrus greening in the US. But don’t stop looking for resistance, y’all.