- There’s a world of coloured sheep out there, and a conference.
- Not to mention camels.
- Does this cute sheep qualify as coloured?
- You can’t copyright a cheese in Europe. Worth a Brexit joke? No.
- Like board games? You’ll LOVE this.
- Speaking of games, the only thing qat is good for is to use up your Q in Scrabble. Which is why you won’t find it in the new CATAN, despite the tempting near-homophony.
- Learn about the SDG 2.5 indicators from FAO.
- Oh, and since you’re there, take a gander at their new biodiversity website.
- Climate change affecting potato production in New Zealand.
- I think I may have overlooked this CTA Dossier on underutilized crops and nutrition, which is naughty of me.
- Coaxing “cafe marron” to have sex with itself.
Nibbles: CBD, NPGS, Greek celery, Rodomiro Ortiz interview, Amazonian fruits, In vitro, Maize archaeology, Asian seed companies, Victorian root
- Courtesy of Bioversity, useful summary of agricultural biodiversity events at the CBD COP, starting in a few days.
- The USDA National Plant Germplasm System, justified.
- The ancient symbolism of celery. Spoiler alert: death.
- A breeding professor calls for a major change in breeding. Spoiler alert: productivity is not enough.
- What’s the next açaí? And will it save the Amazon?
- Saving threatened species. Spoiler alert: seeds are not enough.
- 9000 years of maize history, decoded.
- The Access to Seeds Index 2019 report for South and Southeast Asia is out. Spoiler alert: I feel a guest post coming on.
- UK supermarket to stock salsify.
Brainfood: Climate resilient crops, Food system limits, Phenotyping double, Sweet sorghum, Melon history, Paying4data, Beercalypse, Village chickens, Breeding 4.0, European maize, Brachiaria ROI
- Are agricultural researchers working on the right crops to enable food and nutrition security under future climates? No. Well, kinda.
- Options for keeping the food system within environmental limits. You need to pursue several. Including those discussed above, presumably.
- Deep Learning for Plant Stress Phenotyping: Trends and Future Perspectives. 3D CNN architectures applied to hyperspectral imaging is the future, apparently.
- Dealing with multi‐source and multi‐scale information in plant phenomics: the ontology‐driven Phenotyping Hybrid Information System. You’re going to need a fancy system to keep track to the data from the above.
- Sweet Sorghum Originated through Selection of Dry, a Plant-specific NAC Transcription Factor Gene. Could be applied to other cereals?
- Repeated domestication of melon (Cucumis melo) in Africa and Asia and a new close relative from India. Once was not enough.
- Paying for Digital Information: Assessing Farmers Willingness to Pay for a Digital Agriculture and Nutrition Service in Ghana. Cheaper is better. There’s a shocker. Oh, and women are more careful with their money.
- Decreases in global beer supply due to extreme drought and heat. 32% decrease in consumption in Argentina, 193% increase in price in Ireland. But clearly the authors have never heard of sorghum beer.
- The role of local adaptation in sustainable production of village chickens. Location, location, location.
- On the Road to Breeding 4.0: Unraveling the Good, the Bad, and the Boring of Crop Quantitative Genomics. Beyond breeding on predicted phenotypes, it’s sort of breeding for predicted environments.
- Maize yields over Europe may increase in spite of climate change, with an appropriate use of the genetic variability of flowering time. You don’t even need Breeding 1.0, if you deploy existing diversity optimally.
- Got forages? Understanding potential returns on investment in Brachiaria spp. for dairy producers in Eastern Africa. Definitely worth a flutter.
Brainfood: Emmer & drought, European legumes, Sainfoin, Alpine nomads, American domestication, Cereal domestication, Tree plantations, Garlic breeding, African veggies, African staple breeding, Sugarcane genome
- Genetic contribution of emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccon Schrank) to heat tolerance of bread wheat. It’s considerable.
- Warm Season Grain Legume Landraces from the South of Europe for Germplasm Conservation and Genetic Improvement. Ok ex situ, in situ not so much.
- Onobrychis viciifolia; a comprehensive literature review of its history, etymology, taxonomy, genetics, agronomy and botany. The fall and rise of an orphan forage.
- Interstitial but Resilient: Nomadic Shepherds in Piedmont (Northwest Italy) Amidst Spatial and Social Marginalization. Truly a vale of tears.
- Parallel vs. Convergent Evolution in Domestication and Diversification of Crops in the Americas. Still can’t tell which is more prevalent.
- Whole-Genome Analysis of Candidate genes Associated with Seed Size and Weight in Sorghum bicolor Reveals Signatures of Artificial Selection and Insights into Parallel Domestication in Cereal Crops. 63 seed size genes selected during domestication in sorghum, a significant number of which in maize and rice also.
- A systematic review of the socio-economic impacts of large-scale tree plantations, worldwide. Not a good idea.
- Recent Advances in Sexual Propagation and Breeding of Garlic. Restoration of flowering ability has done wonders for diversity. With diversity poster goodness.
- Core collection of two important indigenous vegetables; Gboma eggplant (Solanum macrocarpon L.) and Jute mallow (Corchorus olitorius L.) in Africa: An important step for exploitation of existing germplasm and development of improved cultivars. Interesting, of course, but I wouldn’t call these core collections. But I won’t complain again if it gets the stuff used more.
- Measuring the impact of plant breeding on sub-Saharan African staple crops. High ROI for the usual suspects. How about the traditional veggies et al., though. Anyway, do readers want more on this paper? Let me know in the comments if you want a full post on the main findings.
- Allele-defined genome of the autopolyploid sugarcane Saccharum spontaneum L. A lot of the good stuff is in wild-cultivated rearranged chromosomes.
US strawberries set to invade UK
It looks like UC Davis is making a move after declaring victory in the Strawberry Wars.
The University of California has entered into a master agreement with Global Plant Genetics, Ltd., based in Norfolk, England, for the sublicensing of new strawberry varieties in selected countries within Europe, the Mediterranean and South America. The agreement governs the commercialization of new varieties from the UC Davis Public Strawberry Breeding Program located at the University of California, Davis.
I wonder how the other side is doing.