- New guy in charge Peter Wenzl gives us his vision for the CIAT genebank.
- Agriculture and Irrigation Minister of Peru gives us his vision for the Peruvian genebank.
- CIMMYT’s annual report gives us a vision of conserving maize in Guatemala.
- Farmer Somashekhara gives us his vision for finger millet farming in India. And two makes a trend…
- Retired agriculture expert Malcolm Hazelman gives us his vision for Samoan gardens.
- A Tagorean vision of radical relocalization involving perennial edimentals.
- Lots of people give us their vision for saving the wild apple.
- IFPRI gives us their vision for the future of food in a changing world. With infographic goodness.
- Natalie Mueller et al. give us their vision for reviving the forgotten crops of the Eastern Agricultural Complex.
- A vision of a planet protected in situ, in multiple ways. Yes, even pigeons. And yes, even cities, though agrobiodiversity neglected as usual.
- A vision of permanent identifiers everywhere.
- DNA gives us a vision of domestication explained. Yes, even sugarcane.
Brainfood: Wild foods, Maize in Guatemala, Wild lentils, Sorghum gaps, Ethiopian erosion, Chikanda barcoding, Brazil nut systems, Wild carrots, Ancient wild potato use, Wild wheat grains
- The role of wild fruits and vegetables in delivering a balanced and healthy diet. Not great, until they’re domesticated.
- Maize Diversity, Market Access, and Poverty Reduction in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. Forget maize.
- Evaluation of Wild Lentil Species as Genetic Resources to Improve Drought Tolerance in Cultivated Lentil. Environment explained drought response in wild lentils better than molecular classification.
- Geographical distribution, diversity and gap analysis of East African sorghum collection conserved at the ICRISAT genebank. Both Sudans.
- Explaining the Ethiopian farmers’ perceptions on potential loss of traditional crop varieties: A principal components regression analysis. Poor farmers know more, and care more, about loss of traditional landraces.
- High-throughput sequencing of African chikanda cake highlights conservation challenges in orchids. Those are very biodiverse cakes, but not in a good way.
- Revisiting the ‘cornerstone of Amazonian conservation’: a socioecological assessment of Brazil nut exploitation. It’s actually in pretty good shape, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.
- Phylogenetic Prediction of Alternaria Leaf Blight Resistance in Wild and Cultivated Species of Carrots. Look for taller material in clade A.
- Starch granule evidence for the earliest potato use in North America. S. jamesii may have been used for 10,000 years in Utah.
- Genome-Wide Association Study of Grain Architecture in Wild Wheat Aegilops tauschii. Two genetic lineages, with big differences in grain width and weight.
Nibbles: Citrus conservation, Amazon civilizations, Agricultural adaptation, Farming First, Communicating impact, Church forests, Food Forever Initiative
- Conserving citrus in cryo.
- More rethinking of the early civilizations of the Amazon.
- Agriculture led to genetic changes in humans as much as in crops and livestock.
- Farming First goes all in on the SDGs. Oh, yeah, also I won the quiz. Ka-ching!
- Scientists, tell your stories for impact, including on policy.
- The sacred forests of Ethiopia, now there’s a story.
- The biggest story of them all: Food Forever!
Brainfood: Arracacha diversity, Mediterranean diet, Asian sheep & goats, Alpine flax, Breeding efficiency, Models, Domestication & seed size, Palm uses, CC & production, Insecticide & diversity
- Assessment of genetic relationships between cultivated arracacha (Arracacia xanthorrhiza Bancr.) and its wild close relatives in the area of domestication using microsatellite markers. Lots more variation in the wild, natch.
- Exploring Relationships between Biodiversity and Dietary Diversity in the Mediterranean Region: Preliminary Insights from a Literature Review. There has been an increase in dietary diversity, but of the wrong sort of diversity.
- Special issue Of Small Ruminant Research on “Genetic diversity of small ruminants in Asia”. From the Punjab Urial sheep to the goats of Myanmar.
- Genetic diversity of flax accessions originating in the Alpine region: a case study for an ex situ germplasm evaluation based on molecular marker. Past genebank conservation hasn’t been perfect.
- Enhancing genetic gain in the era of molecular breeding. It all starts with genetic variance. Hello, genebanks!
- Crops In Silico: Generating Virtual Crops Using an Integrative and Multi-scale Modeling Platform. Factor in gene editing and goodbye genebanks.
- Unconscious selection drove seed enlargement in vegetable crops. And not only vegetables, cereals too. But remember African rice?
- Palm economic and traditional uses, evolutionary history and the IUCN Red List. Globally, the more threatened palms are the less used.
- Impact of Climate Change, Weather Extremes, and Price Risk on Global Food Supply. The effect is not just on production, but also price.
- Identifying the landscape drivers of agricultural insecticide use leveraging evidence from 100,000 fields. In Kern County, California, crop diversity decreases insecticide us. But…
Brainfood: CWR prioritization, CWR data, Yam core redux, Traditional landscape value, African rice domestication, Digital conservation, First farmers, Revived breed, Mitigation targets, Zoonoses, Population, JEB on legumes
- Broadening the Base, Narrowing the Task: Prioritizing Crop Wild Relative Taxa for Conservation Action. Use socioeconomic value of crop, and potential usefulness and threat status of relative.
- Germinate 3: Development of a Common Platform to Support the Distribution of Experimental Data on Crop Wild Relatives. Useful in determining the second of the above.
- Re-defining the yam (Dioscorea spp.) core collection using morphological traits. Cleaning up the core.
- “Things are different now”: Farmer perceptions of cultural ecosystem services of traditional rice landscapes in Vietnam and the Philippines. 73 indicators for the contribution of landscapes to culture, aesthetics, and local knowledge.
- A single-nucleotide polymorphism causes smaller grain size and loss of seed shattering during African rice domestication. You want no shattering? You also get smaller seeds. Like it or edit it.
- Digital conservation: An introduction. Brave new world… Special issue of Ambio.
- The Genomic History Of Southeastern Europe. Souther Greek Neolithic farmers not same as other European Neolithic farmers.
- Genomics of a revived breed: Case study of the Belgian campine cattle. Racial impurities are confined to a few farms.
- Reducing emissions from agriculture to meet the 2 °C target. We’re doomed.
- Conservation of biodiversity as a strategy for improving human health and well-being. By keeping animals and their nasty diseases away from people, we’re not talking communing with Nature here.
- The interaction of human population, food production, and biodiversity protection. Minimise the interaction.
- Nature’s pulse power: legumes, food security and climate change. Special issue of Journal of Experimental Botany on legumes. Eat up your beans!