- AI doesn’t recognize tropical agriculture very well.
- So presumably it can’t easily be used in assessing climate change impacts in agricultural heritage systems? FAO has some ideas on how to do it.
- Maybe rice heritage systems can be used to make cheese.
- I bet Andean blueberry (Vaccinium floribundum) goes great with rice cheese.
- But if not, heritage apples will probably do.
- The Hungarian genebank is hoping to inject heritage grains into non-heritage agricultural systems. AI and FAO unavailable for comment.
- Maybe AI can help with the mystery of this old seed collection at the Natural History Museum, London.
Brainfood: Rice breeding, Cowpea diversity, Sorghum pangenome, Faba bean genome, Banana wild relative, Cassava breeding, Seed laws, Microbiome double
- Linking genetic gains to food security outcomes: An assessment of IRRI’S rice breeding efforts in the Philippines and Indonesia. Plant breeding is a marathon, not a sprint.
- Scaling up orphan crop research: genebank genetics highlight geographic structure in cultivated cowpea from 10 617 global accessions. Fortunately, there are “opportunity crops” like cowpea, and their genebank collections are being sequenced to help breeders.
- A sorghum pangenome reference improves global crop trait discovery. A pangenome also helps with that marathon, like carb loading.
- Allelic variation at a single locus distinguishes spring and winter faba beans. Even a better reference genome can help.
- Going wild in banana breeding enables Fusarium-resistant hybrids with improved fruit quality. Wild relatives are like those drinks stations.
- Genetic diversity assessment of hydrogen cyanide, total carotenoid content, and dry matter content in biofortified cassava using trait-linked SNP markers. Even next-door breeding programmes can be very different, and thus help each other across the finish line.
- Cross-scale chronological analysis of Southeast Asia’s seed regulations and emerging challenges for seed commons. Seed regulations don’t always help breeders on their marathon.
- Impacts of climate extremes on plant pathogens, microbiomes and plant health. Breeders may need some help from the microbiome on that run.
- Dominance and natural suppression of bacterial plant pathogens across global soils. But the soil microbiome will have troubles of its own.
Nibbles: Agricultural expansion maps, Brassica diversity, Not against the grain, South African seedbanks, Safer peanuts, Diné seedbank
- Agriculture is bad for natural ecosystems. But great for maps, you have to admit.
- Greens are good for you. And this is a great roundup of the latest scholarship on brassica evolution, domestication and diversity. You’ll find most of the paper quoted in past Brainfoods.
- Grains are great. Especially with greens.
- Thank goodness for household seed banking. Especially in conjunction with the formal kind.
- All so we can breed a better peanut. And cut down more natural ecosystem?
- No, there’s community genebanks for that too…
Nibbles: Online seeds, Yam breeding, Rice genebanks, Indian commmunity seed banks, Sikkim banana, Cassava disease, ICARDA genebank, Tajikistan women
- The perils of dematerialization play out in India.
- Is YamHub dematerialization?
- Rice genebanks in Bangladesh and at IRRI are pretty solid.
- There’s a pretty solid platform for India’s community seed banks.
- I hope Nagaland’s wild bananas end up in genebanks.
- Cassava’s diversity is in multiple genebanks, and that’s a good thing, CBSD and all.
- ICARDA’s genebank back in the Syrian news, though in a good way for once.
- Tajikistan’s women farmers are bringing back crops with not a worry about dematerialization. Or genebanks, it seems.
Brainfood: Restoration edition
- Addressing critiques refines global estimates of reforestation potential for climate change mitigation. Better mapping shows there is less land available for reforestation than we thought, and there are limited opportunities for providing multiple benefits. Still, that’s an area the size of Mexico, and worth trying to get it right.
- Genomic approaches to accelerate American chestnut restoration. The American chestnut people seem to be getting it right.
- A native seed bank is restoring land in Canada’s north. Native people — and their genebanks — can help you get it right.
- Controlled Pollination and Reproductive Strategies in Coconut: A Framework for Farmer-Led Breeding, Seednut Production, and In Situ Conservation. Farmers can be helped to get it right.
- Dehulling the secret of the germination of crop wild relatives of Cenchrus, Digitaria, Echinochloa, Setaria and Urochloa. You need information on germination breaking to get it right. In the US Midwest, for example.
- How can Brazilian legislation on native seeds advance based on good practices of restoration in other countries? Not to mention the right policies.