- A global database of diversified farming effects on biodiversity and yield. Always good to have the data.
- Dietary agrobiodiversity for improved nutrition and health outcomes within a transitioning indigenous Solomon Island food system. Maybe we should have a database of diversified farming effects on health and nutrition too?
- Exploring ‘beyond-food’ opportunities for biocultural conservation in urban forest gardens. Always good to have more trees.
- Community seed network in an era of climate change: dynamics of maize diversity in Yucatán, Mexico. Always good to have landraces. And neighbours.
- Microbe-dependent heterosis in maize. Maize hybrids need microbes.
- Assessment of genetic diversity and population structure of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) field genebank: A step towards molecular-assisted germplasm conservation. 30% seems a lot for a core collection. But it’s good to have the data.
- Sources of resistance to Pseudocercospora fijiensis, the cause of black Sigatoka in banana. 11 resistant accessions out of 95 seems pretty good, on the other hand.
- GWAS unveils features between early- and late-flowering pearl millets. Based on a national-level core collection in Senegal. Presumably this will scale?
- Germplasm Collection, Genetic Resources, and Gene Pools in Alfalfa. Lots of work has been done. More work is needed on the wild relatives though.
- Assessment and modeling using machine learning of resistance to scald (Rhynchosporium commune) in two specific barley genetic resources subsets. Fancy maths helps to identify the barley genebank accessions you really need.
- Strategic malting barley improvement for craft brewers through consumer sensory evaluation of malt and beer. More fancy maths, this time applied to a hedonic data in the service of beer. Germplasm evaluation we can all get behind. No FIGS, alas.
- Large-scale whole-genome resequencing unravels the domestication history of Cannabis sativa. 4 genetic groups: primordial (located in China, not Central Asia, and going back 12,000 years), 2 medicinal, 1 fibre. Now for the hedonic evaluation.
- The Origins of the Apple in Central Asia. Probably domesticated to cope with the munchies.
- Genetic Divergence and Population Structure in Weedy and Cultivated Broomcorn Millets (Panicum miliaceum L.) Revealed by Specific-Locus Amplified Fragment Sequencing (SLAF-Seq). There are interesting genetic differences between wild and feral forms, and between eastern and central-western cultivated forms. The Silk Road trifecta.
- Global range expansion history of pepper (Capsicum spp.) revealed by over 10,000 genebank accessions. Spoke too soon. The Silk Road had a role in pepper movement too. Among other trade routes. Interesting, and unsurprising, that genes for pungency show distinct geographic patterns.
- Genomic evidence supports an independent history of Levantine and Eurasian grapevines. First domestication in the Caucasus, and then in the Levant, but not clear if from local sources. No word on hedonic evaluation.
- Genotyping-By-Sequencing diversity analysis of international Vanilla collections uncovers hidden diversity and enables plant improvement. Belize seems to be a real hotspot. The Silk Road not involved.
Brainfood: Food groups, Fruit & nutrition, Cereal micronutrients, Sorghum mini core, Aquaculture, Perennial sunflower, Hybrid potato, Phenotyping, Spanish Neolithic
- GAIN Discussion Paper 9: Food group diversity and nutrient adequacy. Eat a diverse diet…
- Can Underutilized Tropical Fruits Meet the Nutritional Requirements of Rural Indonesia? …which includes fruits, of course.
- The nutritional quality of cereals varies geospatially in Ethiopia and Malawi. And cereals, though it depends where they’re growing.
- Variation for Photoperiod and Temperature Sensitivity in the Global Mini Core Collection of Sorghum. Less than 10% are sensitive to neither. And yes, there’s another paper on the nutrient quality of the same subset. Though not on how that varies geographically.
- Habitat value of bivalve shellfish and seaweed aquaculture for fish and invertebrates: Pathways, synthesis and next steps. Eat more bivalves and seaweed too, it can be good for the environment too.
- Measurements of lethal and nonlethal inbreeding depression inform the de novo domestication of Silphium integrifolium. Always good to have a new oil crop, especially a perennial one, but careful what you cross to get it, and how.
- Genome design of hybrid potato. Re-inventing the potato as a seed-propagated crop could be good for nutrition, sure, why not.
- High Throughput can produce better decisions than high accuracy when phenotyping plant populations. As you make better and more nutritious crops, keep in mind it may be better to phenotype more plants in more environments than obsess about accuracy and precision. What does that mean for mini-cores?
- Insight into the introduction of domestic cattle and the process of Neolithization to the Spanish region Galicia by genetic evidence. But is any of this worth the hassle? After all, the early domesticated cattle of Galicia are similar to modern breeds…
Nibbles: Harvest time, Wheat evaluation, Olive diversity, Maize museum, MAKEathon, Community seed banks
- Why bulls and cereals go together.
- Finding out which old wheats go together with good bread.
- How in situ and ex situ conservation can come together for olives in Catalonia.
- 60 maize landraces come together in a cool display.
- Coming together for African yam bean, starting on 7 July.
- How national genebanks and community seed banks can come together.
Brainfood: Agroecology, Bioinformatics, Brazilian cassava, Cypriot wine, Swiss poppies, Pollinators, Groundnut breeding, Sorghum pangenome, Crop origins, Sparing vs sharing, Language diversity, Watermelon origins
- Crop origins explain variation in global agricultural relevance. What explains which crops are most important globally? For seeds, an origin in seasonally dry regions. For root, leaf and herbaceous fruit crops, an origin in the aseasonal tropics. But if you account for all that, basically age.
- Linguistic diversity and conservation opportunities at UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Africa. There’s a correlation between linguistic and biological diversity. Has anyone done crop diversity and languages?
- Sparing or sharing land? Views from agricultural scientists. If you look at synergies between nature and nurture (as it were), and beyond crop yield, you realize it’s the wrong question.
- Can agroecology improve food security and nutrition? A review. Yes, in 78% of 55 cases. But will it scale? And does it need to? Anyway, at least it’s looking beyond yield.
- Global effects of land-use intensity on local pollinator biodiversity. Intensification is bad for pollinator biodiversity for most land uses, but cropland intensification is only bad in the tropics. Can’t help thinking this needs to be mashed up with the above.
- Crop breeding for a changing climate: integrating phenomics and genomics with bioinformatics. In particular, integrating the phenomics and genomics of landraces and wild relatives at the extremes of habitable ranges. Well, there’s a lot more to it than that, but this is what stuck with me.
- Comprehensive genotyping of a Brazilian cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) germplasm bank: insights into diversification and domestication. 54% duplicates out of 3354 clones, the remaining 1536 arranged in 5 ecoregional ancestral groups.
- A chromosome-level genome of a Kordofan melon illuminates the origin of domesticated watermelons. Not from southern Africa after all. Nice bit of work.
- Preliminary investigation of potent thiols in Cypriot wines made from indigenous grape varieties Xynisteri, Maratheftiko and Giannoudhi. Cypriot grapes are more drought tolerant than varieties grown in Australia, but produce the tastes Aussie wine drinkers really like.
- A morphometric approach to track opium poppy domestication. Fancy math says Swiss Neolithic farmers were involved in the domestication of the opium poppy. Enough to drive one to drink.
- Registration of GA-BatSten1 and GA-MagSten1, two induced allotetraploids derived from peanut wild relatives with superior resistance to leaf spots, rust, and root-knot nematode. Sequencing paying off.
- Extensive variation within the pan-genome of cultivated and wild sorghum. Sorghum next?
Brainfood: Sorghum rescue, Barley mixtures, Agroecology, Tepary genome, DSI x 2, Cryo guac, Seed regulation, Recipe design, White clover diversity, IK wheat, High maize
- The recent evolutionary rescue of a staple crop depended on over half a century of global germplasm exchange. Sorghum in Haiti was saved from pest by breeders mixing up material from all over the place.
- Does crop genetic diversity support positive biodiversity effects under experimental drought? Not straightforwardly, at least for barley cultivar mixtures in pots.
- A Nutrition-Sensitive Agroecology Intervention in Rural Tanzania Increases Children’s Dietary Diversity and Household Food Security But Does Not Change Child Anthropometry: Results from a Cluster-Randomized Trial. Well at least it’s more straightforward than the above.
- The tepary bean genome provides insight into evolution and domestication under heat stress. Better heat adaptation than common bean, but less disease and pest resistance.
- The international political process around Digital Sequence Information under the Convention on Biological Diversity and the 2018–2020 intersessional period. Can’t take the above for granted.
- Practical consequences of digital sequence information (DSI) definitions and access and benefit‐sharing scenarios from a plant genebank’s perspective. Genebanks trying not to take the above for granted.
- Cryopreservation of Woody Crops: The Avocado Case. There’s been a breakthrough in shoot tip cryopreservation.
- Using Regulatory Flexibility to Address Market Informality in Seed Systems: A Global Study. Regulatory flexibility would certainly be a breakthrough for linking formal and informal seed systems. And, incidentally, not bad for DSI either.
- A recipe development process model designed to support a crop’s sensory qualities. When you want to make a recipe for a new ingredient (crop or heirloom variety), start with what makes the ingredient special, not with what might make the end-product special.
- Genetic diversity and population structure analysis in a large collection of white clover (Trifolium repens L.) germplasm worldwide. Native and introduced populations are genetically differentiated.
- Limited haplotype diversity underlies polygenic trait architecture across 70 years of wheat breeding. Crunch time for UK wheat breeders: continue shuffling within the existing diversity, or expand it?
- Molecular Parallelism Underlies Convergent Highland Adaptation of Maize Landraces. Adaptation to high altitude from the SW US to the Andes was due to wild genes from the Mexican highlands.