- Greek organic farm resists.
- Communities getting into seed banking all over.
- Saving zapalote chico.
- Would you like chiltepines with that?
- No zapalote chico in South Africa, but lots of other maize.
- Conserving agricultural biodiversity in China.
- Including in Hainan.
- At the same time, China restricts foreign access to human genome data.
- Sexually plastic Australian wild tomato named at long last.
- Breeding flavour crops.
- And figuring out how much it will cost.
- Interesting project on human-chicken interactions.
- Veggie breeder wins World Food Prize.
- New coffee table book on cattle in Africa.
- Flagship agroforestry database gets new version. Anyone wanna test it for us?
- Minor cereals in Europe are anything but minor.
- And lots are conserved in Europe’s increasingly scrutinized genebanks.
- Meanwhile, a major cereals keeps getting the attention it also needs.
- “The candidate markers could be used by any rice genebank to potentially identify varieties with seeds that are particularly short- or long-lived in storage. Viability monitoring intervals could then be customized by variety.” And wheat?
Brainfood: Green Revolution, Pear diversity, Spider plant, Mexican maize erosion, Wheat yield, Salty carrots, Salinity tolerance, Diversification, Ancient farmers, Genebank training, Grapevine diversity, Dietary diversity, Wild chickpeas, Hulless barley
- From Green Revolution to Green Evolution: A Critique of the Political Myth of Averted Famine. Did not avert famine, but it was still important.
- Comparative transcriptomic analysis provides insight into the domestication and improvement of pear (P. pyrifolia) fruit. Much diversity was lost during domestication, but some was gained during improvement, though in different parts of the genome.
- Association between vitamin content, plant morphology and geographical origin in a worldwide collection of the orphan crop Gynandropsis gynandra (Cleomaceae). It’s the E and S African stuff you want.
- The abandonment of maize landraces over the last 50 years in Morelos, Mexico: a tracing study using a multi-level perspective. Don’t blame the youth.
- Elucidating the genetic basis of biomass accumulation and radiation use efficiency in spring wheat and its role in yield potential. Landraces and synthetics can be used to increase yield potential.
- Variation for Salinity Tolerance During Seed Germination in Diverse Carrot [Daucus carota (L.)] Germplasm. 4 cultivated accessions from Turkey out of 273 were best, and the wilds were no good, for a change.
- Salt stress under the scalpel – dissecting the genetics of salt tolerance. Need to break it down into its component parts. See above for an example, I guess.
- Ecological-economic trade-offs of Diversified Farming Systems – A review. Need to take the long view.
- Late Pleistocene human genome suggests a local origin for the first farmers of central Anatolia. Until the next one comes along.
- Training in Plant Genetic Resources Management: A Way Forward. I hope so.
- Whole-genome resequencing of 472 Vitis accessions for grapevine diversity and demographic history analyses. “The network of the domesticated grapevine cultivars is an indication of a highly complicated breeding history of European domesticated grapevines that started thousands of years ago.”
- The Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women of Reproductive Age (MDD-W) Indicator Is Related to Household Food Insecurity and Farm Production Diversity: Evidence from Rural Mali. Women from food insecure households less likely to reach MDD-W.
- Novel sources of resistance to root-lesion nematode (Pratylenchus thornei) in a new collection of wild Cicer species (C. reticulatum and C. echinospermum) to improve resistance in cultivated chickpea C. arietinum. Goon news for hummus.
- Determining factors for the diversity of hulless barley agroecosystem in the Himalaya region — A case study from Northwest Yunnan, China. Religion helps.
Nibbles: A2S2019, ICRISAT seeds, High protein rice, American grapes, Religion & diet, Australian NUS
- Access to Seeds comes out with 2019 edition. Not much change, alas. LATER: Ok, I stand corrected. And spanked.
- Maybe this ICRISAT online seed tool will help with that access.
- How many people will have access to this high protein rice?
- Indigenous American grape species: more than just rootstocks.
- The religion of diets.
- Bush tucker is a religion for some.
Brainfood: Stressful crops, Quinoa, Ganja genome, Medicinal vetch, CWR in PAs, CWR in Zambian farms, African viral chickens, Naked barley, Farmer trials, Cotton genomes, Tuscan toms, Land sharing, Nigerian goats, Walnut diversity, Bean breeders, Sweet rice
- Developing naturally stress-resistant crops for a sustainable agriculture. Can’t help thinking there will be a trade-off.
- Quinoa Abiotic Stress Responses: A Review. Case in point?
- A physical and genetic map of Cannabis sativa identifies extensive rearrangement at the 2 THC/CBD acid synthase locus. At last, the prospect of better weed.
- In vitro anthelmintic effect of Vicia pannonica var. purpurascens on trichostrongylosis in sheep. From Turkish folk medicine to the big time?
- Should plant breeders be denied of genetic resources from protected areas? Not if you put it that way. Maybe they should be valued? There’s a way to do that…
- Estimating in situ conservation costs of Zambian crop wild relatives under alternative conservation goals. Put it out to tender.
- The genetic diversity of local african chickens: A potential for selection of chickens resistant to viral infections. No word on their monetary value, though.
- Agro-morphological diversity of Nepalese naked barley landraces. Lots of diversity, little used as yet by breeders.
- Generating Farm-Validated Variety Recommendations for Climate Adaptation. One word: tricot.
- Reference genome sequences of two cultivated allotetraploid cottons, Gossypium hirsutum and Gossypium barbadense. 13 QTLs for better fibre quality.
- Ancient Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) Varieties of Tuscany Have High Contents of Bioactive Compounds. Better than commercial varieties, apparently.
- Biodiversity and yield under different land-use types in orchard/vineyard landscapes: A meta-analysis. Land sharing works.
- Small Ruminants as a Source of Financial Security Among Women in Rural Southwest Nigeria. Better with education, extension and cooperation.
- Analysis of genetic diversity and structure in a worldwide walnut (Juglans regia L.) germplasm using SSR markers. W Europe/N America vs E Europe/Asia.
- David Bond and Jean Picard: Two pivotal breeders of faba bean in the 20th century. Bond and Picard?
- Status and factors influencing on-farm conservation of Kam Sweet Rice (Oryza sativa L.) genetic resources in southeast Guizhou Province, China. In the end of women and the old.
Brainfood: ART, Rice diversity double, ABS, Spanish beans, Crop protection, Almond sex, Biotourism, Alpine meadows, Wheat treble, Baobab products, Wild Brassica, Cappello del prete pumpkin, Strawberry fields forever, Cassava seed networks, Indonesian chickens got talent
- Andean roots and tubers crops as sources of functional foods. Tasty too.
- Development of species diagnostic SNP markers for quality control genotyping in four rice (Oryza L.) species. About 3% misclassification in the AfricaRice genebank.
- Analysis of population structure and genetic diversity reveals gene flow and geographic patterns in cultivated rice (O. sativa and O. glaberrima) in West Africa. Natural NERICA. Hopefully this was done after the above.
- Conserving Genetic Resources, Access and Benefit-Sharing, Intellectual Property and Climate Change. It’s complicated. Too complicated.
- The Spanish Core Collection of Common Beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.): An Important Source of Variability for Breeding Chemical Composition. The white ones may be better nutritionally. Opportunities to breed for better nutrition AND taste.
- The Future of Sustainable Crop Protection Relies on Increased Diversity of Cropping Systems and Landscapes. The efficacy of chemistry is decreasing.
- Cross-incompatibility in the cultivated almond (Prunus dulcis): Updating, revision and correction. As most cultivars self-incompatible, you need this information if you want to do any conservation and breeding, let alone actually produce almonds.
- Global relationships between biodiversity and nature-based tourism in protected areas. The ideal protected area for tourism is very biodiverse, old, large, near a city and on top of a mountain. Same for agritourism?
- Biodiversity-based payments on Swiss alpine pastures. You get more money if you graze smaller, more diverse herds.
- Identification of new sources of resistance to wheat stem rust in Aegilops spp. in the tertiary genepool of wheat. 60% of 1400 very wild accessions with no genomes in common with cultivated wheat showed low infection.
- Mapping of QTL associated with seed longevity in durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.). How long before we tailor seed testing and regeneration intervals to accession genotype?
- Breeding durum wheat for agroforestry: what to look for? Isn’t nature wonderful?
- Consumer Preferences for Baobab Products and Implication for Conservation and Improvement Policies of Forest Food Resources in Niger (West Africa). You could charge a little more and use the money for conservation.
- Adaptive significance of functional germination traits in crop wild relatives of Brassica. Could tap wild species for more consistent germination under future rainfed conditions.
- Morphological characterisation of Cucurbita maxima Duchesne (Cucurbitaceae) landraces from the Po Valley (Northern Italy). Who needs DNA?
- Domestication of Temperate and Coastal Hybrids with Distinct Ancestral Gene Selection in Octoploid Strawberry. The Californian, costal-adapted material is richer in alleles from the N. American parent and is quite distinct from the E. American and European material.
- Raising the Stakes: Cassava Seed Networks at Multiple Scales in Cambodia and Vietnam. Self-saved seed dominates, but not completely, with traders important especially in high-intensity cultivation areas.
- Knowledge and perception of pelung keepers’s toward chicken contests in West Java, Indonesia. In other news, Indonesia has singing contests for chickens.