- Nature has new Plants journal. With blog.
- More from the randomized trials backlash frontlines.
- World Bank sets up internal task force on climate smart agriculture. Oh good.
- No word on whether spiritual values on agenda.
- Hacking the school lunch.
- Indian flour mills winding down. Implications for crop diversity unknown.
- Big Australian writeup of CIMMYT genebank.
- Big CIP writeup of CIP genebank. And other collections, to be fair.
- It’s the regeneration, stupid.
- Gardens save plants.
- Sustainable diets defined to within an inch of their lives. Common factor is less animal products. But, as Susan McMillan of ILRI points out, for whom, and where?
- Traditional Maori use of weird fungus.
Brainfood: Biological control, Mycorrhizal diversity, Trees in landscapes, Not-so-green agriculture, EU restoration, Speciation, Let them eat fruit, Grasspea diversity, Chinese pigs and goats, Cattle diversity worldwide, Hazelnut in vitro
- Development of microbial consortia as a biocontrol agent for effective management of fungal diseases in Glycine max L. Bacteria gang up to fight soya fungal pathogens. Ain’t diversity grand.
- Species richness of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi: associations with grassland plant richness and biomass. More symbiotic fungi, more plant species and more biomass. Ain’t diversity grand.
- Trees in a deforested tropical landscape: species and trait diversity and potential ecosystem services. Even isolated exotics provide services, for all their lack of biodiversity conservation value.
- Green Light for Green Agricultural Policies? An Analysis at Regional and Global Scales. Model suggests that biodiversity targets for EU farmland lead to externalities paid for by others.
- Exploring restoration options for habitats, species and ecosystem services in the European Union. Target degraded habitats in cheap countries to meet most targets at lowest costs.
- How common is homoploid hybrid speciation? Not very. Thank heavens for the other kind.
- Explaining the ‘hungry farmer paradox’: Smallholders and fair trade cooperatives navigate seasonality and change in Nicaragua’s corn and coffee markets. Fair trade farmers still endure 3 hungry months, but having fruit trees helps.
- Drivers of plant biodiversity and ecosystem service production in home gardens across the Beijing Municipality of China. More edibles and fewer ornamentals with increasing distance from central Beijing. But probably still not enough to meet demand.
- Genetic polymorphism of fifteen microsatellite loci in Brazilian (blue-egg Caipira) chickens. Blue eggs?
- Indigenous chicken genetic resources in Kenya: their unique attributes and conservation options for improved use. And not a single blue egg in sight. Conservation through use.
- Lathyrus diversity: available resources with relevance to crop improvement – L. sativus and L. cicera as case studies. Genotyping and core collections needed.
- Genetic diversity and population structure of black Dahe pig based on DNA sequences analyses of mitochondrial and nuclear genes. Not much diversity in this Chinese pig. No word on their presence in Beijing homegardens.
- Associations between polymorphisms of the GFI1B gene and growth traits of indigenous Chinese goats. Polymorphic sites associated with growth traits. Let the molecular breeding begin. No word on whether same possible for pigs.
- Worldwide Patterns of Ancestry, Divergence, and Admixture in Domesticated Cattle. Cattle came into Europe in at least 2 waves, one from the Middle East, one from W Africa via Spain. The Asian breeds are something else again, and were involved in only the former of those waves.
- Effect of coconut water and growth regulator supplements on in vitro propagation of Corylus avellana L. One fruit helps conservation of another.
Nibbles: City farming, Yeast diversity, Fungal taxonomy, Ankole cattle, Fruit breeding, Goat improvement, Private hunger, Vietnam cacao, Sequencing life, Old vegetables, Cola politics, Lugar Center, Wither biofuels, Plant breeder award, Amateur potato breeding
- “Fifteen to twenty percent of the world’s food is produced through urban farming, involving an estimated 800 million people.”
- We shaped yeasts as much as they shaped us. Now to sort out their nomenclature, along with the rest of the benighted fungal kingdom.
- Cheese is just one way yeasts shaped us. What kind of cheese can you make from Ankole milk, I wonder.
- Sean Myles tells us how his lab “makes food better.”
- Tan Sonstegard of USDA tells us how ADAPTMap can make goats better. Skip to 2 mins in, if you want to avoid adorable footage of cute (human) kids. I love a nice bit of goat cheese.
- Can the private sector help combat hunger and malnutrition? Gee, I dunno, do tell me.
- Vietnamese chocolate comes of age. Someone mention the private sector?
- Gene jockeys take over world. World surrenders.
- What did the Elizabethans ever do for us? Well, they grew funky vegetables for one thing.
- Both Colas sign up to FAO guidelines that “protect the rights of poor and vulnerable people to land, livelihoods and food security.” But is it all marketing?
- The Lugar Center has a bunch of bibliographic resources for researchers.
- Biofuels? Bah, humbug.
- Jorge Dubcovsky, a professor of plant sciences at the University of California–Davis, snags another award.
- “Are you all converts to the cause of backyard potato breeding?” Do tell. And so we come full circle.
Brainfood: Prunus africana diversity, Collecting Prunus, African extension, Nepal genebank, Greek plant eBay, Pepper diversity, Pest spread, Grassland diversity, Cowpea fermentation, Pea diversity, Banana cryo, Biodiversity trends
- Genetic structuring of remnant forest patches in an endangered medicinal tree in North-western Ethiopia. You need to conserve a range of patches of Prunus africana, and probably not just in situ. Would have been perfect for last week’s Brainfood on the complementarity of ex situ and in situ.
- Using simulations to optimize genetic diversity in Prunus avium seed harvests. And if you were to collect seeds for ex situ conservation, this is how you could do it, or at least figure out how best to do it.
- Exploring the Role of Agricultural Extension in Promoting Biodiversity Conservation in Kwazulu-Natal Province, South Africa. Don’t look to extension for help though.
- Ex situ plant conservation initiative in developing country: Nepal as a case study. Wonder if the material in the Himalayan Seed Bank was collected in that way. Or with the help of extensionists for that matter.
- The Electronic Trade in Greek Endemic Plants: Biodiversity, Commercial and Legal Aspects. Or indeed the 10% of the endemic Greek flora that’s traded online. Yeah I know this was in the special Easter Brainfood, but I couldn’t resist the narrative.
- New sources of resistance to Phytophthora capsici in Capsicum spp. For Korea, that is. But they came from all over. As ever.
- Hosting major international events leads to pest redistributions. Watch out Brazil!
- Pyrenean meadows in Natura 2000 network: grass production and plant biodiversity conservation. Forbs are unjustly maligned. Probably starts with that silly name.
- Chemical Changes during Open and Controlled Fermentation of Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) Flour. Fermentation detoxifies and doesn’t affect nutritional content much. No word on whether it helps with all the farting. Evaluate that!
- Geographical Gradient of the eIF4E Alleles Conferring Resistance to Potyviruses in Pea (Pisum) Germplasm. Gargantuan study of 2,800 global accessions finds 4 resistance alleles, each with its own geographic structure. Much variation, but no resistance in the wild relatives. Bummer.
- Phenotypic and molecular studies for genetic stability assessment of cryopreserved banana meristems derived from field and in vitro explant sources. You can cryopreserve straight from field-grown sucker meristems, rather than having to go through tissue culture. Handy.
- Assemblage Time Series Reveal Biodiversity Change but Not Systematic Loss. Ecosystems are changing, but not yet becoming noticeably less diverse.
Nibbles: Hawaii research farms, Disneyland dates, Sumerian beer, Danish beer, Hipster foods, Wheat rust, Salmon farming, Quinoa pix, Asparagus cost, Llama evacuation, Japanese hemp, Awards
- “You can trace the genetic makeup of most corn grown in the U.S., and in many other places around the world, to Hawaii.” There’s a GMO angle, but that’s frankly the least interesting thing about this.
- Disneyland protects really old date palm. Sweet.
- “A Hymn to Ninkasi.” Sumerian beer 101.
- Bronze Age beer: not quite as old as Sumerian, but still…
- Hipsters told to stop worrying about beer, among other foody things.
- They should worry about wheat rust though.
- And salmon.
- And quinoa, of course. Pictorial taster for a forthcoming, restricted Harper’s feature.
- The true cost of Peruvian asparagus is also kinda worrying. Those poor hipsters.
- But Peru has other stuff to worry about, like active volcanoes and llamas.
- “In haiku poetry… key words describing the stages of cannabis cultivation denoted the season when the poem is set.” Oh, I’m researching that, and no mistake.
- Nominations sought for World Food Prize and Wangari Maathai Award.