Seed systems

August 28, 2025August 28, 2025

How to revive your landraces

How can we help get humble heirloom varieties of the humble potato back into cultivation? Well, fortunately, Potato News Today ¹ has a handy step-by-step guide, which I reproduce verbatim below:

Start with a story you can legally sell. In Europe/UK, use the conservation-variety route; in North America, lean on certified seed suppliers and Indigenous stewardship agreements.
Source clean, traceable stock. CIP and the U.S. Potato Genebank maintain indexed, disease-tested material; combine with reputable local seed houses.
Pilot with chefs and specialty retail. Early-season launches with menu credit and a farm feature move the needle.
Package the provenance. PDO/PGI examples like Jersey Royal and Papas Antiguas de Canarias show how origin, agronomy, and micro-harvest rituals create value.
Engineer storage for shape and use. Follow the curing/holding guidance above.
Ride the calendar. Tie launches and media to the International Day of Potato (30 May) or to local potato festivals.

Sounds pretty sensible, and applicable to other crops as well, I suspect, with a little tweak here and there.

The article also has a list of case studies. This doesn’t include any examples from Italy, but coincidentally a recent paper describes just such a thing. Which maybe points to something that is missing from the Potato News Today playbook, and that is having lots of interesting characterization and other data on your heirloom landraces handy to help get them ready for prime time.

August 19, 2025August 19, 2025

Nibbles: Impact assessment, Kenyan veggies, African veggie genebank, Madd fruit, Moroccan fruits, Date palm, DOGE at USDA

Modelling adoption of biofortified crops is no substitute for empirical field surveys. Kind of obvious, but I guess needed saying.
Kenyans may not need biofortified crops, though. Assuming they are actually eating their traditional vegetables.
There’s a whole genebank for Africa’s vegetables.
Saba senegalensis is also naturally biofortified.
The High Atlas Foundation is also on a fruit tree mission
Is the date palm the most important fruit tree in the world, though?
I wonder what will happen to USDA’s fruit tree collections.

August 12, 2025August 15, 2025

Nibbles: SOTW report, Food prices, Rex Bernardo, Odisha landraces, Cyprus community seedbank, Haiti seed producers, Trees for the Future, Iraq genebank, Sudan genebank, Climate-Conflict-Vulnerability Index, India SDG2,

FAO explains why crop diversity matters.
Well, for one thing, there’s food prices, that’s why.
Ah, yes, crop diversity: “You gotta have it. You gotta use it. You gotta talk about it.”
Odisha mainstreams landrace diversity in its seed system.
Meanwhile, the Farmers Union of Cyprus is stashing seeds away in Community Bank of Cypriot Traditional Seeds.
Looks a bit like the Groupements de Production Artisanale de Semences in Haiti. If you squint.
If only there were some guidelines for managing such community seed banks.
Iraqi Kurdistan gets in on the genebank act.
Iraq used to have a genebank, but what happened to it has just happened in Sudan.
Ah, to have a Climate—Conflict—Vulnerability Index so that such things could be predicted and steps taken.
And a monitoring system and some targets would be good too.

July 9, 2025

Nibbles: COUSIN project, Breeding chat, Aardaker, Alternative beans, Grain amaranth, Iraqi seeds, Genebanks in peril

The COUSIN project aims to conserve (trans situ, no less) and use crop wild relatives in Europe.
That “use” part can be tough.
But that doesn’t stop the fine people at Aardaia. At least where aardaker (Lathyrus tuberosus) is concerned.
From alternative potatoes in the Netherlands to alternative beans in Indonesia. All in the cause of diversification.
No need to find an alternative to amaranth in the American SW. Not with devoted chefs on the job.
The Iraqi Seed Collective is taking seeds from American genebanks to that country’s diaspora in the US, and eventually back to Iraq itself. Maybe chefs will help.
Good thing there are genebank backups, eh?

July 8, 2025July 8, 2025

Brainfood: EcoregionsTreeFinder, Microbe niches, Herbarium phenology, Green Status Index of Species Recovery, Feral pigs, Trade & biodiversity, African cereal self-sufficiency, Plant protection, Ugandan seed systems, Grasspea breeding, Indigenous knowledge

EcoregionsTreeFinder—A Global Dataset Documenting the Abundance of Observations of > 45,000 Tree Species in 828 Terrestrial Ecoregions. The right native tree for your ecoregion of choice. Which, given lots of the stuff below, is good to know. Oh, and BTW, there’s also the Agroforestry Species Switchboard.
Modelling the distribution of plant-associated microbes with species distribution models. Would be cool to mash up with the above one day.
The promise of digital herbarium specimens in large-scale phenology research. Something else you can use herbarium specimens for, if you’re careful.
A global indicator of species recovery. The Green Status Index of Species Recovery, no less. Herbaria surely involved again.
Valorization of feral pigs in the tropics, from the genetic characterization to the re- domestication. Wish there was a Green Status Index of Breed Recovery.
Global staple food trade exacerbates biodiversity loss: a network perspective. Soybeans are messing with the Green Status Index of Species Recovery of lots of species, I suspect.
Prospects for cereal self-sufficiency in sub-Saharan Africa. Prospects for self-sufficiency are not bad, but will require yield increases if the Green Status Index of Species Recovery is not going to take a hit.
Protecting crops with plant diversity: Agroecological promises, socioeconomic lock-in, and political levers. Agroforestry and diverse landscapes are best for pest control, but cultivar mixtures are worth a try too. Wonder what they will do for cereal self-sufficiency in Africa. I lot, I bet, if given a chance.
The dynamics of crop diversity and seed use in the context of recurrent climate shocks and poverty: Seasonal panel data evidence from rural Uganda. Farmers use crop diversity to cope with climate change, and wealthy farmers do it better. Pest control too, maybe?
Understanding Farmer Preferences to Guide Crop Improvement: The Case of Grasspea in Ethiopia. Breeders should provide jam today and jam tomorrow.
Crop diversity trends captured by Indigenous and local knowledge: introduction to the symposium. Indigenous and local knowledge can help you keep track of all of the above.