- Climate-resilient crops: Lessons from xerophytes. Breeding for Na+ exclusion to improve salinity tolerance in crops has compromised their drought tolerance, but both tolerances are down to more gene copies in key families when comparing species.
- Innovation and Technological Mismatch: Experimental Evidence from Improved Crop Seeds. Breeders should strive to give farmers what they want, even if it means releasing multiple locally adapted varieties rather than a single blockbuster.
- Stressors and Resilience within the Cassava Value Chain in Nigeria: Preferred Cassava Variety Traits and Response Strategies of Men and Women to Inform Breeding. Man and women want different things from cassava breeders.
- Intra-household discrete choice experiment for trait preferences: a new method. If only there was a new way to measure that…
- Genome editing to re-domesticate and accelerate use of barley crop wild relatives. No word on whether men and women would edit different genes.
- Understanding Genome Structure Facilitates the Use of Wild Lentil Germplasm for Breeding: A Case Study with Shattering Loci. I suspect neither men nor women would tolerate shattering lentils.
- Repeat turnover meets stable chromosomes: repetitive DNA sequences mark speciation and gene pool boundaries in sugar beet and wild beets. But you can’t use wild species in breeding if you can’t cross them with the crop, and in beet that’s down to the repeatome. So maybe this would make a better case for domestication through gene editing than barley or lentils?
- Development of trait-specific genetic stocks derived from wild Cicer species as novel sources of resistance to important diseases for chickpea improvement. Would be really cool to domesticate one of the really resistant tertiary genepool species.
- Developing Genetic Resources Within the Chenopodium Genus to Advance Quinoa Breeding and the de novo Domestication of C. berlandieri. Not that you need gene editing for domesticating crop wild relatives.
- Genomic traces of Japanese malting barley breeding in two modern high-quality cultivars, ‘Sukai Golden’ and ‘Sachiho Golden’. Old-fashioned breeding has been pretty successful, so who needs CWR, gene editing and discrete choice experiments? (Last bit added purely for clicks, I’m desperate.)
- Consistent effects of independent domestication events on the plant microbiota. I hope all those gene-editing de novo domesticators are considering the novo microbiomes.
Nibbles: CAAS genebank, VACS, Opportunity crops, Ross-Ibarra, Canary sweetpotatoes, Land Institute crowdsourcing, BBC seed podcast
- The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences genebank fills some gaps.
- I wonder if any of those new accessions are “opportunity crops.”
- Because they are sorely needed, for example in Africa.
- Which is not to say working on staples like maize isn’t cool. Just ask Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra.
- Working on sweet potato can also be, well, sweet. Case in point: gorgeous book on the varieties of the Canaries.
- There’s an opportunity to help the Land Institute with its research on perennial crops.
- And yes, seeds are indeed alive. Just ask CAAS.
Nibbles: Genebanks double, Rice landraces, Millet demo, Taro system, EU Seed Law, Food crisis
- Why seedbanks matter.
- But are they hyperlocal?
- Why local rice varieties matter in Bangladesh.
- Why millet matters for climate resilience.
- Why taro matters in Hawaii.
- Why EU seed laws matter.
- Why diversification of food systems matters. Among other things.
Nibbles: Public breeding, Millet Man, Strampelli museum, Ghana community seedbanks, genebank trifecta, CWR, Illegal Canadian potatoes, Açaí GI, Mayocoba bean, Spartan Actinidia, Bitters
- Public sector plant breeders are disappearing.
- The Millet Man of India is still there though. And why he’s important.
- A museum to public sector breeder Nazareno Strampelli appears in Italy.
- Another couple of community genebanks appear in Ghana.
- We can never have too many discussions on the importance of genebanks, so here’s another one. Not much on the community sort, though. Here’s another example: Ireland. Even the Arab States of Asia want one!
- And a deep dive on crop wild relatives in genebanks to round things off.
- A community saves illegal potatoes in Canada. Yeah, I know, there’s a lot to unpack there.
- Maybe that humble illegal potato needs a geographic indication, like that superfood, açaí.
- The Mayocoba bean as a superfood is a bit of a stretch, but there’s plenty of other pulses out there making waves.
- The Michigan State kiwi could probably do with a geographic indication too, come to think of it. Cold-hardy and smooth-skinned? Super!
- Ok, this is probably the last Nibbles before Christmas, so let’s celebrate with a drink: with bitters of course.
Roots and tubers to the rescue
The latest Seed Systems newsletter from the Alliance of Bioversity & CIAT has an interesting roundup of examples of the role of root and tuber crops in crisis situations:
- Uganda: Refugee, host communities find relief and stability in orange-fleshed sweet potato
- Mozambique: Reaching humanitarian and neglected places with the nutritious and resilient sweetpotato: The case of the Cyclone Idai in Manica and Sofala Provinces, Mozambique
- Madagascar: Anti-malnutrition initiative targeting drought-affected populations exceeds expectations in 18 months
- Cameroon: Relief group travels hundreds of kilometers to feed school children in Cameroon, braving roadblocks to grow orange-fleshed sweet potato in conflict-affected areas
- Haiti: Improving the sweet potato seed system in a challenging humanitarian environment
- Ethiopia: Discovering hope: Potato and sweetpotato technology transforming lives in drought and conflict-affected Ethiopia
- DRC: IITA and CIP provide Eastern DRC relief efforts with RTB planting materials
- Philippines: Crop resistance and household resilience – The case of cassava and sweetpotato during super-typhoon Ompong in the Philippines
- Ecuador: Efforts of researchers and other stakeholders to manage an unfolding epidemic: Lessons from potato purple top in Ecuador
I think we may have included some of these in recent Nibbles and Brainfoods, but it’s nice to have them all together.