- Patterns of Cereal Yield Growth across China from 1980 to 2010 and Their Implications for Food Production and Food Security. There has been yield stagnation over about 50% of total area of rice and maize, 15% of wheat.
- Genomic signatures of North American soybean improvement inform diversity enrichment strategies and clarify the impact of hybridization. 579 soybean varieties released 1940-2009 fall into 3 maturity groups, the overall diversity of which is not too different from the diversity of the ancestor landraces.
- Low-Coverage, Whole-Genome Sequencing of Artocarpus camansi (Moraceae) for Phylogenetic Marker Development and Gene Discovery. There’s been a whole genome duplication in Artocarpus.
- ColectoR, a Digital Field Notebook for Voucher Specimen Collection for Smartphones. So many of these things around.
- Potential ecosystem services of urban agriculture: a review. Important at local scale, not so much at global scale.
- Nineteenth century French rose (Rosa sp.) germplasm shows a shift over time from a European to an Asian genetic background. Ah, the lure of the exotic; 19 genetic groups, not corresponding to horticultural groups.
- Cryopreservation of in vitro shoot tips of strawberry by the vitrification method — establishment of a duplicate collection of Fragaria germplasm. The German national collection, including wild relatives, is a bit safer.
- Has land use pushed terrestrial biodiversity beyond the planetary boundary? A global assessment. Looks like it. Cross-reference with crop wild relatives?
- Traditional Banana Diversity in Oceania: An Endangered Heritage. Out of New Guinea…
- The contribution of international vegetable breeding to private seed companies in India. Vegetable breeding by AVRDC still has a role as R&D shifts to the private sector, but it’s different to what it was.
- Whole-genome sequencing of native sheep provides insights into rapid adaptations to extreme environments. Genomes of 77 Chinese breeds from extreme environments reveal genes likely to be useful in extreme environments.
Nibbles: Fundament edition
- Badass sheep genomes sequenced.
- FAO assesses drylands.
- Sun shines on enkir again.
- Beans good for anemia. Keep you regular too.
- Jacksy‘s the next breadfruit.
- De-extinction is no back door to conservation.
Nibbles: African fruits, Old apple, Ancient barley, GRAIN study, Desertification, Biodiversity loss
- ICRAF helps us understand little-understood African fruit trees.
- The apple is pretty well understood, but this one important, 200-year-old tree is dying. Tissue culture to the rescue.
- I see your 200-year-old-tree and I raise you 6000-year-old barley.
- GRAIN takes aim at FTAs.
- Desertification may not be a thing.
- Biodiversity loss is, though, right?
Brainfood: Ghana cassava, Paspalum hybrids, Wild safflower, Genotyping for phenotyping
- Tracking crop varieties using genotyping-by-sequencing markers: a case study using cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz). A third of cassavas found on Ghanaian farms are released varieties, though you’d never know it from just looking at the names.
- Interspecific hybrids between Paspalum plicatulum and P. oteroi: a key tool for forage breeding. P. oteroi is promising, but asexual. But there’s a way around that…
- Phylogenetic position of two endemic Carthamus species in Algeria and their potential as sources of genes for water use efficiency improvement of safflower. They’re actually in a different genus, but could still be useful.
- Genomic Prediction of Gene Bank Wheat Landraces. “…for the two populations of landraces included in this study [Mexican & Iranian], genomic predictions were generally of a magnitude that could be very useful for predicting the value of other accessions in the gene bank and that could be useful in breeding.”
Nibbles: Maize domestication, Seaweed as food, Holy plants, Pre-Columbian Amazon, Pulses, Myanmar rice, Ghana cassava, Chocolate festivities, Tobacco biofuel, Evidence base, Brazilian agrobiodiversity
- Maize domestication video from CONABIO.
- Why has a seaweed never been domesticated?
- Any seaweeds mentioned in the Bible?
- Series of talks on ancient Amazonia.
- Africa needs pulses.
- Myanmar needs salinity tolerant rice.
- 30% of Ghanaian cassavas are improved varieties, but you wouldn’t know it from their names.
- Wait, what, we missed World Chocolate Day?
- Tobacco for airplanes, no warning label required.
- Latest list of conservation interventions that work tackles forests.
- Brazil lists nutritious native species.