Neglected species

May 21, 2020May 21, 2020

What makes taro an orphan crop?

Live at 2pm GMT today 21 May…

LATER: Spoiler alert. The answer to the question in the title has to do with:

inaccurate dogmas
multiplicity of names
negative social bias
lack of research
narrow ecological niche
archaeological invisibility
missing numbers

May 20, 2020August 18, 2020

Nibbles: 4H, Plague medicine, Maize origins, Rice spread, Seed saving

Plant Health, Animal Health, Human Health and Environmental Health. What’s not to like?
It used to be thought that tobacco and sugar could help with the above. Go figure.
La Cuna del Maíz Mexicano.
The same, but for rice in Asia.
Backyard seed saving, and science.

May 18, 2020May 18, 2020

Brainfood: Red Listing, Name checking, Diversification, New breeding, Seed data, Tea genome, Sampling strategies, Plum diversity, Fruit taste, Enset seeds, Maize & nutrition, Emilian grapes

Caution Needed When Predicting Species Threat Status for Conservation Prioritization on a Global Scale. Automated rapid preliminary assessments are all well and good, but…
WorldFlora: An R package for exact and fuzzy matching of plant names against the World Flora Online Taxonomic Backbone data. Automated rapid taxonomic name checking is all well and good, but…
Diverse approaches to crop diversification in agricultural research. A review. Too diverse.
Reinventing quantitative genetics for plant breeding: something old, something new, something borrowed, something BLUE. Retire additive variance.
Nikolaeva et al.’s reference book on seed dormancy and germination. A treasure trove of data comes to light.
The reference genome of tea plant and resequencing of 81 diverse accessions provide insights into genome evolution and adaptation of tea plants. Three groups, originating in SW China.
Taxonomic similarity does not predict necessary sample size for ex situ conservation: a comparison among five genera. The old rule-of-thumb of 50 individuals was not all that far off after all.
Genetic assessment of the pomological classification of plum Prunus domestica L. accessions sampled across Europe. 93 unique accessions out of 104 across 14 partners. Pretty good, no?
Genome‐wide association of volatiles reveals candidate loci for blueberry flavor. Can predict taste from genetics.
Germination ecology of wild and domesticated Ensete ventricosum: Evidence for maintenance of sexual reproductive capacity in a vegetatively propagated perennial crop. Seeds from domesticated material are not much different from the wild ones, except in germination niche.
Mining maize diversity and improving its nutritional aspects within agro‐food systems. Biofortification is only the beginning.
Genetic Characterization of Grapevine Varieties from Emilia-Romagna (Northern Italy) Discloses Unexplored Genetic Resources. About half (62) of the unique accessions (122) in a collection (178) are hardly known.

May 11, 2020April 29, 2020

Brainfood: Community seedbanks, Habitat conservation, Maize breeding, NWFP, Neolithic dairy, Straw, Double burden, Species protection, Salty rice, Barley landraces, Scicomm

Do community seed banks contribute to the social-ecological resilience of communities? A case-study from Western Guatemala. Yes, but they have to move with the times.
Reconciling global priorities for conserving biodiversity habitat. Only about 20% of high value habitat is protected.
Genome-wide selection and genetic improvement during modern maize breeding. Breeding in the US and China converged.
Non-wood forest products in Europe – A quantitative overview. Value of berries, mushrooms etc. amounts to almost three quarters of the value of the wood harvest, ten times the usually estimate.
Latitudinal gradient in dairy production with the introduction of farming in Atlantic Europe. Was there a taboo against fish?
Recent Advances in Dual Purpose Rice and Wheat Research: a synthesis. It was worth focusing on straw in breeding, and still is.
Mapping local patterns of childhood overweight and wasting in low- and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2017. Hotspots in Indonesia, Thailand, southeastern China, Botswana, Cameroon and central Nigeria. Surely dietary diversity could help in those places?
Is there a peaceful cohabitation between human and natural habitats? Assessing global patterns of species loss. Yes, there is, in very poor and very rich places. Would be interesting to mash up with the above.
Back to the Wild: On a Quest for Donors Toward Salinity Tolerant Rice. Need to move beyond rufipogon.
Insights into phylogeny, age and evolution of Allium (Amaryllidaceae) based on the whole plastome sequences. Monophyletic, amazingly, with 3 evolutionary lineages.
Barley Landraces: Ecological heritage for edaphic stress adaptations and sustainable production. Use landraces as recipients, rather than donors. Before it’s too late.
Ten simple rules for innovative dissemination of research. More in the breach, I suspect…

May 7, 2020

Nibbles: Alert edition

Book alert: Biodiversity, Food and Nutrition — A New Agenda for Sustainable Food Systems.
Thread alert: Monumental analysis of crop yield trends in the USA.
Woke alert: WorldVeg ticks a lot of boxes with its work on a peppers core collection.
Policy alert: Why haven’t farmers’ varieties found a place in national and global seed markets?