- Scientific Selection – A Century of Increasing Crop Varietal Diversity in US Wheat. Whether you take into account the genetic relationship among varieties or not, breeding has been driving up wheat diversity in American fields. But anyone else think this is a bit of a straw man?
- Novel GBS-Based SNP Markers for Finger Millet and Their Use in Genetic Diversity Analyses. The Zimbabwean and Ethiopian landraces are different and should be crossed more to inject some diversity into improved varieties. You mean like they did for wheat in the US?
- On-Farm Diversity of Enset (Ensete ventricosum (Welw.) Cheesman) Landraces, Use, and the Associated Indigenous Knowledge in Adola Rede District, Guji Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia. No problem with diversity in enset, at least morphologically speaking.
- Food and Power in Early Medieval England: a lack of (isotopic) enrichment. Elite “Anglo-Saxon” males did not have a diet that was consistently higher in meat than anyone else at the time, so there. I wonder if any ever ate enset.
- Assessment of agrobiodiversity in the intensive agriculture: a case study of the Indo-Gangetic Plains of India. Could do with some more legumes.
- Community-based rangeland management in Namibia improves resource governance but not environmental and economic outcomes. Market incentives do not always work the way you think.
- The palm trees choose the places – Popular knowledge associated with the use and conservation of butiá (Butia spp.). No word on market incentives.
- Shoot tip cryotherapy for plant pathogen eradication. Especially good if combined with thermotherapy or chemotherapy. May even work on enset, for all I know.
- The phytoplasma associated with Bogia coconut syndrome in Papua New Guinea is a new phytoplasma in the group of the lethal yellowing syndromes (LYTS) of coconut and other palms. Yeah but will cryotherapy work?
- Implementation of species distribution models in Google Earth Engine. Shhh, or everyone will want to do it, and then where will we be.
- Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Moroccan Beni Ahsen: Is This Endangered Ovine Breed One of the Ancestors of Merino? Maybe? Partly? Does it matter?
Nibbles: Jordanian seeds, Indian tubers, Himalayan fungi, American bees
- Jordan’s genebank in the news.
- Tuber Man of Kerala’s genebank in the news.
- Pricy Himalayan mushroom in the news, should probably be in a genebank.
- Bee breeders in the news. Probably a first.
Brainfood: Green Revolution narratives, Soybean diversity, Wild barley diversity, Maize and bean breeding, Rice breeding, Apple pedigrees, Trees and diets, ICRISAT genebank, IITA genebank, GHUs, CGIAR policy, Diverse farming, De novo domestication
- Epic narratives of the Green Revolution in Brazil, China, and India. Symbols, heroes, heritage-making and we-will-do-it-even-better-next-time in the service of self-preservation and self-assertion. But, as we shall see below, not everything needs to be an epic success to be interesting, and useful.
- Using landscape genomics to infer genomic regions involved in environmental adaptation of soybean genebank accessions. Analysis of USDA collection shows that many haplotypes associated with high-latitude cold tolerance in China are still absent from modern American and European cultivars.
- Phenotypic evolution of the wild progenitor of cultivated barley (Hordeum vulgare L. subsp. spontaneum (K. Koch) Thell.) across bioclimatic regions in Jordan. Re-collecting after 23 years shows some loss of phenotypic diversity.
- Decades of Cultivar Development: A Reconciliation of Maize and Bean Breeding Projects and Their Impacts on Food, Nutrition Security, and Income of Smallholder Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Much done, much remains to be done.
- Genetic Trends Estimation in IRRIs Rice Drought Breeding Program and Identification of High Yielding Drought-Tolerant Lines. Progress, but not fast enough.
- A new method to reconstruct the direction of parent-offspring duo relationships using SNP array data and its demonstration on ancient and modern cultivars in the outcrossing species Malus × domestica. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell which variety is the parent and which the offspring.
- What are the links between tree-based farming and dietary quality for rural households? A review of emerging evidence in low- and middle-income countries. Meta-analysis shows that trees can help with diets, but it depends on a lot of things.
- Genebanks and market participation: evidence from groundnut farmers in Malawi. Improved peanut varieties derived from genebank accessions encourage market participation by farmers through expanding the area under cultivation, but not the amount sold.
- IITA’s genebank, cowpea diversity on farms, and farmers’ welfare in Nigeria. Improved varieties derived from genebank accessions don’t push out landrace diversity and are associated with higher yields and other benefits to farmers.
- The role of CGIAR Germplasm Health Units in averting endemic crop diseases: the example of rice blast in Bangladesh. The IRRI Germplasm Health Unit contributed about 2% to the benefits of the rice blast resistance breeding programme, but that’s a cost:benefit ratio of 112.
- Policy directions in public agricultural research: CGIAR’s public goods mandate and plant genetic resources. There has been too much focus on the “global” bit of “global public goods,” and opportunities have thus apparently been missed. The three papers above would like a word though.
- Landscape complexity and functional groups moderate the effect of diversified farming on biodiversity: A global meta-analysis. Diverse farming systems are better for both agricultural production and biodiversity.
- Breeding future crops to feed the world through de novo domestication. Ah yes, we will do it better this time.
Brainfood: Aspen mapping, Biodiversity & ag, Mining forages, China forages, China groundnuts, Soil microbes, Agroecology messaging, Old wood, Ugandan sorghum, New wild sweetpotato, Tasty fruits
- Remote sensing of cytotype and its consequences for canopy damage in quaking aspen. You can tell diploid from triploid trees from space.
- Future global conflict risk hotspots between biodiversity conservation and food security: 10 countries and 7 Biodiversity Hotspots. Fancy maths tells us biodiversity and agriculture are most in conflict in DRC, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Togo, Zambia, Angola, Guinea, Nigeria, Laos, and Cambodia.
- Allele mining in diverse accessions of tropical grasses to improve forage quality and reduce environmental impact. A draft reference genome from a single species tells us about 7 potentially useful alleles among 104 clearly very well chosen accessions of Urochloa spp and Megathyrsus maximus.
- Research Status of Forage Seed Industry in China. I wonder how many of the above alleles can be found in the Chinese forage collection. Might be easier to eventually find out if the website supposedly serving up the national forage germplasm resource management system actually worked.
- Safe conservation and utilization of peanut germplasm resources in the Oil Crops Middle-term Genebank of China. We are even told about some individual interesting accessions, though not how to get hold of them.
- The impact of crop diversification, tillage and fertilization type on soil total microbial, fungal and bacterial abundance: A worldwide meta-analysis of agricultural sites. Meta-analysis tells us that use of organic fertilisers and reduced tillage are associated with more microbes, fungi and bacteria in the soil.
- Detecting the linkage between arable land use and poverty using machine learning methods at global perspective. Machines tells us that higher crop yields and more fertilisers are associated with lower poverty levels. Non-machines are shocked. No word on soil microbial abundance.
- The 10 Elements of Agroecology: enabling transitions towards sustainable agriculture and food systems through visual narratives. Well, these 10 are not only the elements of agroecology, so they could tell us about other messaging too.
- Regional Patterns of Late Medieval and Early Modern European Building Activity Revealed by Felling Dates. Tree rings in old buildings tells us more felling where and when grain prices were low and mining activity high. No machines involed.
- Genetic diversity analysis and characterization of Ugandan sorghum. A tropical genebank collection can tell us about temperate-adapted germplasm, if we know how to ask.
- Discovery and characterization of sweetpotato’s closest tetraploid relative. Meet Ipomoea aequatoriensis T. Wells & P. Muñoz sp. nov. from, well, Ecuador.
- Metabolomic selection for enhanced fruit flavor. Another machine tells us how to pick tasty tomatoes and blueberries from chemical profiles. No word on when it will be able to describe new species.
Brainfood: Japan support, American food choice, Wild potato x4, Phenotype change, Minor Vigna, Tilapia diversity, Ethiopian chicken diversity, Goat diversity, Tree seeds, Blockchain
- Three Decades of Safeguarding and Promoting Use of Agricultural Biodiversity: Changing Global Perspectives, Paradigm Shifts and Implications. The priorities of Bioversity and the Japanese government have changed over time, but miraculously stayed reasonably well aligned.
- A focused ethnographic study on the role of health and sustainability in food choice decisions. Americans pick food items mainly on the basis of price, health, taste, and convenience. Environmental impact, not so much, alas.
- Wild relatives of potato may bolster its adaptation to new niches under future climate scenarios. Some wild potato species have unique climate adaptations that we’re going to need.
- Cold Hardiness Variation in Solanum jamesii and Solanum kurtzianum Tubers. Case in point.
- Assessment of Wild Solanum Species for Resistance to Phytophthora infestans (Mont.) de Bary in the Toluca Valley, Mexico. And not just climate adaptation.
- Screening South American potato landraces and potato wild relatives for novel sources of late blight resistance. Case in point.
- The pace of modern life, revisited. A big database on how the phenotypes of wild species like the above are changing, and why.
- Insights into the genetic diversity of an underutilized Indian legume, Vigna stipulacea (Lam.) Kuntz., using morphological traits and microsatellite markers. 94 accessions, 12 with promise for different traits, in 7 genetic groups. Let the really efficient breeding commence.
- Whole genome resequencing data enables a targeted SNP panel for conservation and aquaculture of Oreochromis cichlid fishes. The breeding has already commenced between different tilapias, but don’t worry, we can now tell species apart.
- A framework for defining livestock ecotypes based on ecological modelling and exploring genomic environmental adaptation: the example of Ethiopian village chicken. 25 populations, but only 12 ecotypes, based on 6 climate variables. Basically the same methodology as the wild potato paper above but applied to genetic groupings. Who will apply it to tilapias now, or indeed that “minor” Vigna?
- VarGoats project: a dataset of 1159 whole-genome sequences to dissect Capra hircus global diversity. Distinct African, Asian and European genetic groups. Well I never.
- Are Tree Seed Systems for Forest Landscape Restoration Fit for Purpose? An Analysis of Four Asian Countries. Take a wild guess. The key is apparently focusing less on planting lots of trees and more on making sure the resulting forests are resilient.
- Smart, Commodified and Encoded: Blockchain Technology for Environmental Sustainability and Nature Conservation. Not quite ready to help grow those resilient forests.