Microbes

December 19, 2013

Nibbles: Ecosystem services, EU hearing, Competition, Stagnant yields, Abandoned croplands, Ferments

We’re almost out of here, until 6 January 2014. Till then …

Possibly the best current explanation of why ecosystem services are worth paying for. Stay with it.
Would you like to see Roberto Papa tell the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee what he thinks of the proposals on plant reproductive material? Thought so.
Young agricultural blogger? CTA wants to hear from you for the YoBloCo awards.
Nature’s on a roll lately: Crop yields are growing arithmetically, and you can stuff that in your anti-Malthusian stocking.
What, then, to do with Eastern Europe’s abandoned croplands?
Maybe we could ferment them.

December 5, 2013December 5, 2013

Nibbles: Homegardens, Ancient grains, Homeless hens, Data data data, New maize, ICRISAT ambassadors, Wine microbes, India, Soil Day

Emma Cooper blogs her ethnobotanical MSc dissertation on British homegardeners and their cool crops.
If she’d done her work in Sweden, she’d have written about Ragnar Pettersson and his “treasure of Ardre.”
The downside of backyard farming: homeless hens.
International e-Conference on Germplasm Data Interoperability: Genebank Database Hell gets an e-conference. What could possibly go wrong.
Apparently there’s a new way to search for agricultural bibliografic (sic) data.
CIMMYT gets its maize out there.
ICRISAT is not one to hide its light under a bushel either.
Aussies to survey their yeasts and bacteria to improve winemaking.
The problems of India: “It takes a particular brand of incompetence and neglect for decades of stellar growth to have no apparent impact on India’s sky-high levels of under-nutrition.” I bet Dreze and Sen didn’t include a food bubble. Hey, but that can be exported.
Oh and happy World Soil Day! Thanks to it, and Jim Croft, I now know Australia has a sort of soil genebank.

November 27, 2013November 27, 2013

Nibbles: Papaya relatives, Agrobiodiversity monitoring, Orange breeding, Corn mutant, Cashew processing, Pecan pie, Communications history, Wheat research video, Agroforestry, Breeding, AG research in USA, Philippines typhoon, Eating insects, Indian blog, Open data, Microbes & wine, European databases, Afro-Indian Millet Alliance

The closest relative of the papaya looks nothing like a papaya. But will it be monitored, along with the rest of agrobiodiversity?
We might have to look further afield than near relatives to save the orange. But closer to save corn.
Cashews are bad? Say it ain’t so. And as for pecans…
CGIAR comms guys (and it is all guys) reminisce about the good old days of agricultural research. And here’s an example, using wheat, of what they’re up to now. Nice shoutout for breeding and genebanks. Though of course it’s not just about the breeding.
Crop improvement is one of six ways of feeding the world. Just. CGIAR comms guys probably on it. Barbara Schaal certainly is.
IRRI maps rice areas affected by the recent typhoon. I did ask, and farmers there apparently mostly grow modern varieties. FAO provides more context.
More insectivorous hijinks.
Great new blog on chai wallahs.
Big, open ag data will save us all. That sound you hear is the zeitgeist catching up. And the CGIAR is on it.
You say terroir, I say microbes.
Report on a descent into Genebank Database Hell, European Chapter. Ah, but it’s open.
India reaches out to Africa, millets in hand.

November 11, 2013November 11, 2013

Brainfood: Mixtures and productivity, Pesticides and soil biota, Andean intensification, Turkish barley, Tomato size gene, Quinoa and environment, Banana improvement, Hybrid conservation, Allozymes

Changes in the Abundance of Grassland Species in Monocultures versus Mixtures and Their Relation to Biodiversity Effects. Monocultures are ok for productivity, but only initially.
Agricultural soils, pesticides and microbial diversity. mRNA and high-throughput sequencing show that pesticides affect nitrification rates and soil microbe community structure. Brave new world indeed.
Making Sense of Agrobiodiversity, Diet, and Intensification of Smallholder Family Farming in the Highland Andes of Ecuador. Want sustainable intensification? Look at the smaller enterprises.
Genetic variation of barley germplasm from Turkey assessed by chloroplast microsatellite markers. Little genetic similarity between wild relative and landraces in same geographic area.
A cytochrome P450 regulates a domestication trait in cultivated tomato. Single polymorphism controls fruit size.
Blossoming Treasures of Biodiversiy. 42. Quinoa – is the United Nations’ featured crop of 2013 bad for biodiversity? It can be.
From crossbreeding to biotechnology-facilitated improvement of banana and plantain. Quite some progress, despite few breeding programmes. Will it all go GE? Big temptation. I would have made more of the genebank collections, personally.
Perspectives on the conservation of wild hybrids. There’s more to it than science. Tell that to the banana breeders.
Revisiting protein heterozygosity in plants — nucleotide diversity in allozyme coding genes of conifer Pinus sylvestris. Those pre-DNA days weren’t a complete waste of time. That mean we can measure genetic erosion?

October 21, 2013October 2, 2013

Brainfood: Chinese wheat, Kenyan sorghum, Yugoslav maize, RSA homegardens, Oysters, Conservation decision making, CWR list, Soil biota, Arbuscular mychorriza, Land grabbing, Biofuels

Evaluation of Genetic Diversity of Sichuan Common Wheat Landraces in China by SSR Markers. “Our results suggested that Sichuan common wheat landraces is a useful genetic resource for genetic research and wheat improvement.” When is anything not?
Identification and evaluation of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (l.) moench) germplasm from Eastern Kenya. “These untapped resources could be useful in crop improvement programmes and in food security.” See what I mean?
Genetic assessment of maize landraces from former Yugoslavia. No, wait, don’t tell me… “The results revealed a significant genetic heterogeneity indicating that the analyzed landraces could be valuable sources of genetic variability.” There you go.
The Role of Home Gardens in Household Food Security in Eastern Cape: A Case Study of Three Villages in Nkonkobe Municipality. People who keep home gardens eat and sell the stuff they grow in their home gardens. And yet they need to be empowered. Oh, and naturally “[f]indings of this study will be useful to governmental and non-governmental bodies involved in promoting food security in the rural households.”
A modelling study of the role of marine protected areas in metapopulation genetic connectivity in Delaware Bay oysters. Gotta site your seed populations for restoration with care.
Conservation Genetic Resources for Effective Species Survival (ConGRESS): Bridging the divide between conservation research and practice. An online tool for making decisions about conservation, including based on genetic data, such as the kind above. May even be applicable to agricultural biodiversity.
A prioritized crop wild relative inventory to help underpin global food security. Well here’s one decision making tool that certainly is applicable to agrobiodiversity.
The impact of agricultural practices on soil biota: A regional study. It’s not good.
Sustainable agriculture: possible trajectories from mutualistic symbiosis and plant neodomestication. Gotta make use of those arbuscular mycorrhiza. Wonder if these guys have read the paper above though.
Rethinking Land Grab Ontology. “Responsible investments in land acquisition” or “responsibly destroying the world’s peasantry”? Not sure why nobody looks at the agricultural biodiversity implications of all this.
Extension of energy crops on surplus agricultural lands: A potentially viable option in developing countries while fossil fuel reserves are diminishing. Something to do on all that surplus land being sold off?