Policy

January 23, 2012January 23, 2012

EU seed law in turmoil?

Good reasons to take the weekend off include the fact that by not being too keen, one avoids certain errors. So I’m glad I didn’t see Patrick’s original post on an opinion delivered by an EU Advocate General in the matter of Association Kokopelli vs Graines Baumaux SAS. ¹ At least, not until after he had got things straighter. Here is Patrick’s view of the Advocate General’s views:

First of all the Advocate-General said it is not legal to interpret EU or French Seed Laws as meaning you cannot sell unlisted varieties. YOU ARE ALLOWED TO SELL UNLISTED VARIETIES.

Secondly, the provisions of EU Seed Law that refer to the DUS standard are NOT VALID.

Don’t get your hopes too high for a legal seed supply revolution in Europe. As Patrick explains, there’s a lot more that still needs to happen. But the possibility is that it just might happen, and then Europeans will be in the happy state enjoyed by the entire rest of world, able to buy, sell and grow whatsoever varieties they choose.

January 23, 2012April 24, 2014

Nibbles: Rice breeding, West African agriculture, Asian AnGR, Wheat breeding, Chinese semiotics, Neglected plant at NordGen, Fledermaus, PPB

Norwich boffins save the world. To get the real story, you need to deconstruct the piece using this.
“Results indicate that the greatest agriculture-led growth opportunities in West Africa reside in staple crops (cereals and roots and tubers) and livestock production.” Minor crops get the shaft again?
Project tackles conservation of Asian farm animal diversity. I’ve always wondered whether there might be a role for ecotourism. I’d pay to see weird cocks. And hens.
Pakistani boffins return home with skills to improve wheat P efficiency. And the resources? We shall see.
Chinese food and plant semiotics. Can’t wait for LanguageLog to get to grips with this.
NordGen characterizes a weirdly-named exotic Cinderella crop. Can you guess which?
And can you guess what the “best kept secret of agricultural success” might be? Clue: nothing to do with those East Anglian boffins of the first item.
Participatory plant breeding and gender analysis. They’re not giving much away at the source site.

January 23, 2012April 24, 2014

Brainfood: Ag vs biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Genomic association, Diversity and productivity in forests, Increasing diversity

Land, Food, and Biodiversity. Agriculture will expand, but that is bad for biodiversity. It probably must expand, actually, but this can be kept to a minimum by addressing land-use planning, governance and law enforcement, productivity, and market drivers. Oil palm as an example.
Time to change how we describe biodiversity. By finally tackling the digitization of phenome annotations, apparently. NiM ²
Genomic and metabolic prediction of complex heterotic traits in hybrid maize. Amazingly, genotype (SNP) can predict phenotype (biomass traits) pretty well. But in a population where a bunch of dents were crossed with a couple of testers. Will it work with a diverse genebank collection of landraces?
Forest productivity increases with evenness, species richness and trait variation: a global meta-analysis. In over 50 studies, polycultures come out about 24% better than monocultures, with evenness having more of an effect than richness. Much more commentary and context at ConservationBytes.com. Compare with that recent drylands diversity and ecosystem function paper.
All Is Not Loss: Plant Biodiversity in the Anthropocene. A model says there have been “gains in exotics caused by species invasions and the introduction of agricultural domesticates and ornamental exotic plants”. Oooh! Contrarian!

January 20, 2012January 20, 2012

Nibbles: Bananas, No Bananas, Climate change and agriculture, Biodiversity loss, Malnutrition and property, Breeding

The Archaeobotanist reviews the domestication and spread of bananas …
… and says that bananas weren’t important to the first farmers of Central Africa.
New York Times blog dissects the climate change and agriculture paper that’s making waves.
But biodiversity loss is a bigger threat than climate change. No mention of ag; do these guys ever talk to one another?
In India, children of women who farm their own land are less malnourished.
So what if 11 plant species “account for 93 percent of all that humans eat”? Rachel Laudan thinks that fine, and I agree.
The patent on one of the Roundup-Ready genes is about to expire. So?

January 16, 2012January 16, 2012

Brainfood: Conservation policy, Grasspea breeding, Modeling rice diseases, Maize roots, Literature on new oil crops, Native vs non-native trees in Indonesian city parks, Cherimoya maps, Darwin Core, Seed dispersal and conservation, Oxalis variation, Polyploidy and variation, Pollinators, Microsymbionts, Plant migration, Culture and agriculture

As ever, we have added most of these references to our public group on Mendeley, for ease of finding. “Most?” we hear you say. “What gives?” Well, Mendeley and some academic publishers still don’t play nicely. There’s nothing to stop you adding the paper in question by hand, if you’re so inclined, but we don’t really have the time. And if you do, please do it right.

Why are some biodiversity policies implemented and others ignored? Lessons from the uptake of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation by botanic gardens. Because there are no feedback mechanisms?
Genetic improvement of grass pea (Lathyrus sativus) in Ethiopia: an unfulfilled promise. Conventional breeding for low ODAP hasn’t worked, so forget about solving that problem through conventional breeding, and move on to other problems, or use genetic transformation.
Modeling and mapping potential epidemics of rice diseases globally. It is not particularly well done, but one is surprised to see it done at all. NiM ¹
Morphological and physiological characteristics of corn (Zea mays L.) roots from cultivars with different yield potentials. More roots means more yield. Among some modern varieties anyway. Under some conditions. NiM
Trends in literature on new oilseed crops and related species: Seeking evidence of increasing or waning interest. And finding it, alas. Sort of. NiM
The green colonial heritage: Woody plants in parks of Bandung, Indonesia. Native species used to be used more, and should be used more again. NiM
Mapping Genetic Diversity of Cherimoya (Annona cherimola Mill.): Application of Spatial Analysis for Conservation and Use of Plant Genetic Resources. Cool maps of microsat hotspots.
Darwin Core: An Evolving Community-Developed Biodiversity Data Standard. The way out of Genebank Database Hell? Well, maybe the match that will light the torch that will show the way out.
Seed dispersal in changing landscapes. Fragmentation, harvesting, invasions and climate change affect seed dispersal in ways that need to be understood by conservationists. NiM. And the BBC’s more verbose take on it.
Distribution models and a dated phylogeny for Chilean Oxalis species reveal occupation of new habitats by different lineages, not rapid adaptive radiation. Title says it all, really. It’s not that a single lineage exploded as new habitats became available. Old lineages were pre-adapted to the new habitats. ³
Extensive chromosomal variation in a recently formed natural allopolyploid species, Tragopogon miscellus (Asteraceae). Polyploidy leads to all hell breaking lose in the genome for generations.
Overplaying the role of honey bees as pollinators: A comment on Aebi and Neumann (2011). It’s the wild bees, hoverflies and other native pollinators, stupid! But still.
Arbuscular Mycorrhizas Reduce Nitrogen Loss via Leaching. 40 times less, no less.
Distributional migrations, expansions, and contractions of tropical plant species as revealed in dated herbarium records. Eppur si muovono. And more on the paper. And more on herbarium digitization in general. what can I tell you, I’ve got apophenia.
Ecological and socio-cultural factors influencing in situ conservation of crop diversity by traditional Andean households in Peru. There are influences; and why wouldn’t there be?