- You know you want to try black sapote.
- Podcast on how to save coffee. And it probably needs it.
- Once we’ve saved the cultivated species, maybe we should save it in the wild as well?
- If not, there are other species, other drugs, I guess. No, really.
- Indigenous fire management in Australia.
- Everything you need on lupins. You’re welcome.
- Is anyone collecting endophytes? Or microalgae for that matter?
- Marvellous interactive atlas of the botanical collecting of Richard Evans Schultes in the Amazon.
- Wine yeasts are way inbred. Which can’t be altogether good.
- Watermelons need flower diversity.
- One does feel for climate-stupid varieties.
Brainfood: African greens, Latin American pigs, Japanese fruits, Cassava selection, Sunflower breeding, Angolan vegetables, Californian backyard maize, Mesoamerican priorities, Genetic stocks
- Molecular Markers for Genetic Diversity Studies in African Leafy Vegetables. Not surprisingly, only 3% of 33 studies since 1998 are on Cleome, more than half on cowpea. And a quarter used RAPDs. Orphan crops, anyone? These one don’t even get a table summarizing and comparing findings across species.
- Conservation priorities of Iberoamerican pig breeds and their ancestors based on microsatellite information. Depending on how you crunch the genetic numbers, Iberoamerican pig breeds could conceivably best be looked after by conserving their ancestral Iberian pig breeds. But it’s not just about the genetics, is it?
- Native fruit tree genetic resources in Japan. Only a Castanea was domesticated in pre-modern times, and they’re all endangered in post-modern times.
- Perceptual selection and the unconscious selection of ‘volunteer’ seedlings in clonally propagated crops: an example with African cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) using ethnobotany and population genetics. It’s seedlings that look most like existing varieties that farmers try to keep.
- Changes in sunflower breeding over the last fifty years. From yield under optimal conditions to disease resistance, from oil quantity to quality. But international collaboration still needed.
- Angolan vegetable crops have unique genotypes of potential value for future breeding programmes. Unique material documented, and hopefully made available for use.
- Maize Germplasm Conservation in Southern California’s Urban Gardens: Introduced Diversity Beyond ex situ and in situ Management. Migrants bring along their crops.
- An assessment of the conservation status of Mesoamerican crop species and their wild relatives in light of climate change. Priority areas for on farm and in situ conservation don’t by and large coincide with protected areas.
- A Proposal Regarding Best Practices for Validating the Identity of Genetic Stocks and the Effects of Genetic Variants. Just do it.
Amaranth across the Rio Grande
A quick follow up to my very telegraphic postscript to a post a few days back. I was listening to an AgTalks session on “forgotten food crops” from IFAD, and I was quite surprised to hear from Mary M. Delano Frier, one of the excellent speakers, that when she started her work on amaranth in Mexico, she had to get material from the USDA genebank.
So I contacted David Brenner, who curates the amaranth collection at the Plant Introduction Station at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. This is what he said:
We send substantial amaranth germplasm to Mexico and we have large holdings of Mexican amaranths that we distribute worldwide. There is at least one other organization (Puente) in Mexico with a parallel mission to Mary Delano Frier’s. They are both solving issues of food sovereignty and poverty by restoring amaranth to poor villages. We have sent germplasm to both. There are also organizations in East Africa with a similar mission, although grain amaranths are newer in Africa. Mary Delano Frier attends some of the Amaranth Institute meetings where I have met her. Her brother John Delano Frier has published research on amaranth done in Mexico with our germplasm. Amaranth enthusiasts from these and other perspectives get to together at the Amaranth Institute meetings which are built on contacts I get from distributing germplasm. The Amaranth Institute folks are very encouraging to me as a curator. I think these days amaranth projects in Mexico can start up with germplasm from older project and from the INIFAP genebank under Dr. Espitia, which is investing in amaranth. There are also skilled agronomists to advise growers in Mexico.
A great example of international collaboration. No walls or other impediments to exchange of germplasm between the US and Mexico.
NIbbles: ABS, CWR editorial, Wheat nutrients, Pepper history, Gene flow, Seed consolidation
- How can communities benefit from the commercialization of indigenous products?
- How can be best conserve crop wild relatives?
- How can breeders breed better pasta wheat?
- How did Europe end up using the wrong pepper?
- How can we monitor the escape of cultivated genes into the wild?
- How will seed industry consolidation affect diversity?
For royalty or for all?
You still have time to arrange to listen to the AgTalks session on “forgotten food crops,” from which I’ve borrowed the title of this post.
AgTalks presents the latest thinking, trends and research on policies and innovation in small-scale farming. This session, titled “For royalty or for all? Amaranth, teff, millet and cassava,” is intended to raise awareness about forgotten food crops that were once central to people’s diet centuries ago. These lost crops have huge nutritional value and economic potential, just waiting to be rediscovered.
The webcast is just waiting to be discovered on the IFAD website. It starts in about half an hour…
LATER: And thanks to the organizers (IFAD) for taking my question over Twitter. Fascinating to hear from Mary M. Delano Frier that when she started her work in Mexico using amaranth to improve kids’ nutrition in schools, she had to get material from the USA genebank. That’s now changed, apparently.