- Let’s say we wanted to transition to a more local and low-input production system in Europe. What seeds would we need and where would we get them from? The Greens/EFA in the European Parliament have some ideas.
- IITA is pushing the yam bean in Nigeria. Europe next?
- More on that new Australian wild tomato from a couple of years back. With audio goodness.
- The largest ever einkorn variety comparison trial makes the German news. Well, makes a press release anyway. Yam bean next?
- Another continent, another ancient grain: sorghum in the US. Yam bean next?
- The Ethiopia Grass project aims to improve livestock production, food crop yields AND soil quality. The trifecta!
- Nice infographics displaying dodgy data on the most common ingredients in different cuisines. Yam bean and einkorn nowhere to be seen.
- Cool community-created online catalogue of British apples. Looking forward to the yam bean one.
- It was drought that did for the Hittites, not lack of yam beans. Sea Peoples unavailable for comment.
- It was Yersinia pestis from Issyk-Kul that nearly did for Europe in the Middle Ages. Yes, you can study the genetic diversity of ancient deadly bugs and well as that of crops like yam bean and einkorn.
Celebrating beans, by sharing beans
With World Pulses Day coming up on 10 February, there is probably no better time to sign up for the INCREASE Project’s citizen science experiment, Share the Bean.
You can register your participation until 28 February. What will you do? I’ll tell you what you’ll do:
- receive a packet with a few different bean varieties to grow in your garden, terrace or balcony
- plant and grow these seeds following the specific instructions provided by the project
- nurture your beans, and collect and record information about them using a handy app
- suggest, and receive, tips and best practices, also via the app
- harvest the seeds and offer them for exchange, and cook and taste them too if you like
- send your assessments and recipes for inclusion in “Thousands of traditional and innovative recipes to cook beans,” to be published on the project website
Nibbles: Fonio commercialization, Naked barley, Food books, Ag decarbonization, Nepal NUS, Millets & women, Crop diversity video, Maize god, Cherokee genebank, CWR, Japan genebank
- A Nigerian company is pushing fonio as the next global super-food. What could possibly go wrong?
- Personally, I think naked barley has a better chance.
- Humanities scholars recommend their favourite new books on food systems. I bet there will soon be one on fonio.
- Food and agriculture analyst at the Breakthrough Institute pens whole essay on how there should be public investment in moving agriculture from productivity gains to decarbonization without mentioning fonio.
- Well Nepal has orphan crops of its own and doesn’t give a fig for your fonio.
- Blogpost highlights the role of women in the cultivation and conservation of millets in Tamil Nadu.
- ISSD Africa video on the advantages of growing a diversity of crops, especially under climate change. Fonio, anyone?
- What does maize have to do with turtles? Gather round, children…
- The Cherokee Nation’s genebank is open for business. Maize available. No turtles.
- Long article on collecting, conserving and using crop wild relatives, including by Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank. Could fonio do with some diversity from its wild relatives? I suspect it’s not a huge priority, but maybe it will become one.
- It’s unclear how much diversity of orphan crops is in Japan’s high-tech genebank, but I bet it’s quite a bit. Fonio, I’m not so sure though. Maybe someone will tell me.
Brainfood: Breeding edition
- Climate change may outpace current wheat breeding yield improvements in North America. Breeders need to try harder, at least for spring wheat.
- Large-scale genotyping and phenotyping of a worldwide winter wheat genebank for its use in pre-breeding. But winter wheat could do with some help too, and genebanks are there for you, breeders.
- Exotic alleles contribute to heat tolerance in wheat under field conditions. Maybe wild relatives are the answer?
- Agronomic assessment of two populations of intermediate wheatgrass—Kernza® (Thinopyrum intermedium) in temperate South America. Even really, really wild, and perennial, relatives.
- Sustained productivity and agronomic potential of perennial rice. Maybe perennial wheat breeders can learn from perennial rice breeders.
- CGIAR Barley Breeding Toolbox: A diversity panel to facilitate breeding and genomic research in the developing world. Good to see barley is not being left behind. Perennial barley next, anyone?
- Developing drought-smart, ready-to-grow future crops. It’s not like breeders have no idea about what to do and how to do it…
- Molecular evidence for adaptive evolution of drought tolerance in wild cereals. …and there’s diversity out there in the wild relatives to play with. Even without getting into the weird perennial stuff.
- Impact of CGIAR maize germplasm in Sub-Saharan Africa. So let’s be optimistic, there are success stories. Although, cripes, I’d like to see perennial maize.
- Genomic prediction for the Germplasm Enhancement of Maize project. Which is not to say there’s no room for improvement too.
- Maize plants and the brace roots that support them. Yeah, like for example how many of these fancy CGIAR and GEM maize varieties have brace roots?
- Retrospective study in US commercial sorghum breeding: I. Genetic gain in relation to relative maturity. US breeders have been really successful for sorghum too, though maybe not successful enough.
- Evaluation of a Subset of Ethiopia Sorghum Collection Germplasm from the National Genetic Resources Program of the United States Department of Agriculture for Anthracnose Resistance. And that success may be spilling over to Ethiopia. Well I’d like to think so anyway, or the whole conceit of this Brainfood will go up in smoke.
- Genomics-based assembly of a sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench core collection in the Uganda national genebank as a genetic resource for sustainable sorghum breeding. And maybe Uganda too? Yes, I’m doubling down.
- GridScore: a tool for accurate, cross-platform phenotypic data collection and visualization. All these breeders need to store and manage their data, of course, and here’s a way to do that.
- The Impact of N.I. Vavilov on the Conservation and Use of Plant Genetic Resources in Scandinavia: A Review. Arguably all of the above is the result of the sort of international collaboration that Vavilov exemplified, perhaps even pioneered?
Nibbles: CIAT, AGG, Volcani, Restoration, Food diversity, Deforestation, Berries, Diverse systems
- I’ve been told I need to be more explicit in my Nibbling. So here’s a CCTV video on the Future Seeds genebank in Colombia. You know the one.
- The Australian Grains Genebank (AGG) in Horsham is announcing a new online seed catalogue. The genebank is also on Genesys.
- According to this article, the Israel Plant Gene Bank of the Volcani Center Agricultural Research Organization near Tel Aviv has some pretty cool wheats. I wonder if any of them are also in the AGG. The Volcani genebank is not on Genesys, alas. But some of its material is.
- The Director of Science of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and others say that we need lots more genebanks if we are to do all the ecosystem restoration that needs to be done around the world.
- Short & sweet blog post on the importance of food diversity from the policy officer at the Soil Association. Genebanks not mentioned though, alas.
- Vox has an article on a new European law aimed at preventing the sale of some agricultural commodities grown on recently cleared forest land. I guess the next step would be restoring those ecosystems. If only there were more genebanks…
- Some hero mapped the distribution of all the berries of North America, and made cool videos of the results.
- Report from Wageningen AU on “The need to enhance crop, livestock andaquatic genetic diversity in food systems.” Lots and lots on genebanks.
- So, what did you think? Do you prefer telegraphic, impressionistic Nibbles, or these lengthier, more explicit versions? Let me know in the comments.