- Marker-assisted breeding in grapes: like skimming through a book looking for key words.
- Vanilla genome: going from no-frills vehicle to luxury sportscar.
- CGN on what to do to ensure continued access to that book — or car.
- A topic which is all the rage right now in the ITPGRFA, on which this is a one-page primer.
- 14th century Māori grew taro as well as sweet potato.
- Great infographics on the fascinating region of Dhofar in southern Oman, in which I collected germplasm many years ago. Great opportunity to reminisce.
Brainfood: Pig diversity, Mutant peanut, Coffee sustainability, PVP, Agricultural conversion double, Citrus phytosanitary, Vanilla genome, Veggie evaluation, Indian TR4, Wtk1, Dietary diversity, Canola origins, Ecuadorian quinoa, Alfalfa evaluation, Underused yam
- Assessing Sus scrofa diversity among continental United States, and Pacific islands populations using molecular markers from a gene banks collection. The feral pigs of the Pacific may be a nuisance, but they represent an interesting genetic melange.
- Identification of a mutant from Arachis veigae with enhanced seed oleic and very long-chain fatty acid content. Gotta love crop wild relatives.
- Coffee Farmers’ Motivations to Comply with Sustainability Standards. Show them the money.
- The Globalisation of Plant Variety Protection: Are Developing Countries Still Policy Takers? Depends on how you look at it.
- Grass to grain: Probabilistic modeling of agricultural conversion in the North American Great Plains. It’s still happening.
- Spatial priorities for agricultural development in the Brazilian Cerrado: may economy and conservation coexist? See above.
- Phytosanitary management of Citrus germplasm in France. Better safe than sorry.
- Genomics-based diversity analysis of Vanilla species using a Vanilla planifolia draft genome and Genotyping-By-Sequencing. And just like that, there’s a new germplasm collection on the block. And it’s all genotyped.
- Sources of Resistance for Two-spotted Spider Mite (Tetranychus urticae) in Scarlet (Solanum aethiopicum L.) and Gboma (S. macrocarpon L.) Eggplant Germplasms. They have glandular trichomes.
- First detection of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense tropical race 4 (TR4) on Cavendish banana in India. Be afraid.
- Wheat tandem kinases provide insights on disease‐resistance gene flow and host–parasite co‐evolution. The allele for resistance was left behind during domestication.
- Systematic review of use and interpretation of dietary diversity indicators in nutrition-sensitive agriculture literature. Needs more standardization.
- Whole-genome resequencing reveals Brassica napus origin and genetic loci involved in its improvement. Hybrid of the ancestor of European turnip and the common ancestor of kohlrabi, cauliflower, broccoli, and Chinese kale.
- Molecular characterization of Ecuadorian quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) diversity: implications for conservation and breeding. 3 groups, but no geographic structure.
- Resilience, Stability, and Productivity of Alfalfa Cultivars in Rainfed Regions of North America. Difficult for a cultivar to be all three.
- Dioscorea dumetorum (Kunth) Pax, a neglected and underutilized yam species in Benin: folk classification and post-harvest conservation. Needs work before it’s too late.
Brainfood: African rice domestication, Ancient aliens, Durum landraces, Horticultural landraces, Breeding double, Pollinator research, Sacred forests, Traditional Hawaiian ag, Conserving tomatoes, Mapping impacts, Rewilding, Economic growth, Aquaculture impacts, Phenotyping colours
- The complex geography of domestication of the African rice Oryza glaberrima. Domesticated in multiple places, and the formerly putative ancestor population unlikely to be so.
- Prehistoric cereal foods of southeastern Europe: An archaeobotanical exploration. Including Panicum millet as far back as the Bronze Age, interestingly.
- Genetic diversity in Ethiopian Durum Wheat (Triticum turgidum var durum) inferred from phenotypic variations. Some landraces are better than some improved varieties, sometimes, somewhere.
- Editorial: Rediscovering Local Landraces: Shaping Horticulture for the Future. See above.
- Enhancing the rate of genetic gain in public-sector plant breeding programs: lessons from the breeder’s equation. What do they have to say about the genetic diversity term, I hear you ask? “For many species, the primary value of exotic genetic variation is the identification and deployment of rare alleles with large effects that can be introduced into elite breeding programs via a thoughtful implementation of marker-assisted selection…”
- The many‐faced Janus of plant breeding. It’s more than just genetics.
- The need for coordinated transdisciplinary research infrastructures for pollinator conservation and crop pollination resilience. Mine historical data and mobilize the citizenry.
- Human disturbance impacts the integrity of sacred church forests, Ethiopia. Even the small forests are important.
- The potential of indigenous agricultural food production under climate change in Hawaiʻi. They could have fed today’s population, and could still do so.
- Managing plant genetic resources using low and ultra-low temperature storage: a case study of tomato. Nothing is perfect.
- A spatial framework for ex-ante impact assessment of agricultural technologies. I do love a map, but I have to wonder if you can have too much of a good thing.
- Why we should let rewilding be wild and biodiverse. Well, why not?
- Increasing impacts of land use on biodiversity and carbon sequestration driven by population and economic growth. The 2008 financial crisis was good for biodiversity.
- Rapid growth in greenhouse gas emissions from the adoption of industrial-scale aquaculture. Crab ponds are worse than paddy fields for greenhouse gas emissions.
- ColourQuant: a high-throughput technique to extract and quantify colour phenotypes from plant images. Remind me to tell you my story about characterizing the colours of a taro collection in Vanuatu.
- Phenotypic analysis of leaf colours from the USDA, ARS sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas) germplasm collection. Never mind, this story is better.
Brainfood: Goat genotyping, Chinese goats, Ag & nutrition, Biodiversity & yields, Gendering interventions, Fe biofortification effects, Apple in vitro, Chestnut diversity, Seed collecting, Wild potato evaluation, Veggie kits, Soil biodiversity, Sea urchins, Poinsettia
- AdaptMap: exploring goat diversity and adaptation. Strong geographic structuring.
- Insights into the genetic diversity of indigenous goats and their conservation priorities. “…if one breed could survive in changing conditions all the time, the straightforward approach is to increase its utilization and attraction for production via mining breed germplasm characteristic.” If…
- Leveraging agriculture for nutrition in South Asia: What do we know, and what have we learned? To do its part for nutrition, agriculture needs to play nice with other sectors. Here comes the evidence base.
- A global synthesis reveals biodiversity-mediated benefits for crop production. Service-providing organisms really do provide services.
- Intensifying Inequality? Gendered Trends in Commercializing and Diversifying Smallholder Farming Systems in East Africa. Commercialization good for men, diversification good for women. Maybe do both? And more on commercialization.
- Iron biofortification interventions to improve iron status and functional outcomes. Cognitive performance improved, but no effect on iron deficiency or anaemia. So complicated.
- In vitro tissue culture of apple and other Malus species: recent advances and applications. Lots of tinkering still needed.
- Mediterranean and Northern Iberian gene pools of wild Castanea sativa Mill. are two differentiated ecotypes originated under natural divergent selection. One xeric, the other mesophytic. Satisfyingly uncomplicated.
- Guidelines for seed collection of Araucaria angustifolia (Bertol.) Kuntze: A genetic, demographic and geographic approach. Watch out for fragmentation.
- Screening of wild potato genetic resources for combined resistance to late blight on tubers and pale potato cyst nematodes. 5% of about 1000 very resistant. Another 1000 to go.
- Connecting genebanks to farmers in East Africa through the distribution of vegetable seed kits. Distributing 42,000 seed kits with 183,000 vegetable seed samples in 5 years generates lots of questions.
- Role and management of soil biodiversity for food security and nutrition; where do we stand? We stand uncertain is where we stand.
- Genetic Approaches to Improve Common Bean Nutritional Quality: Current Knowledge and Future Perspectives. Not as nutritious as it could be.
- Trophic Cascade in Seaweed Beds in Sanriku Coast Hit by the Huge Tsunami on 11 March 2011: Sea Urchin Fishery as a Satoumi Activity Serving for Increase in Marine Productivity and Biodiversity. Human-intervention-encourages-biodiversity shock. In other news, Japan has a sea urchin fishery.
- Molecular evidence for repeated recruitment of wild Christmas poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima) into traditional horticulture in Mexico. Fancy genotyping shows plants in gardens were transplanted from the wild. Why not just ask the gardeners though?
Nibbles: Red weevil, Mexican heirlooms, Double coffee, Heirloom pig, Biosaline genebank
- The date palm has a red weevil problem, but FAO is on it.
- Refried beans.
- Sarada Krishnan on her life in coffee. If there’s good news for the crop, it’s partly because of her.
- Mangalitsa in Rome. Jeremy reports.
- ICBA joins the international genebank club. FAO is on it.