- Who needs resistant banana varieties when you have synthetic biology? And more.
- More trouble for wheat, and climate change is to blame. Maybe Vavilov can help there too?
- DIY penicillin.
- Saving the sacred cypress. Try saying that quickly.
- What have herbaria ever done for us? Apart from giving us endless joy, you mean?
- The Indian and other genebanks securing the future of food. But see also our earlier post on Dr Tyagi’s paper.
- Aboriginal community gets a genebank.
- We need better grass. No, not that kind of grass. Well, not only that kind of grass.
- A pean for African food cultures. And Pacific ones too.
Oil lamp at the end of the tunnel?
Not a short-term solution, clearly, but it might be worthwhile starting to screen the larger collections, surely.
That’s what we said almost a year ago when the bacterium Xylella started wreaking havoc in the olive groves of Puglia, the heel of Italy. Well, it’s not a large collections of olives that’s been screened, but there are glimmers of hope in the recent report of an ongoing study looking at the results of both artificial inoculation and natural infection. Here’s the guy in charge, Giuseppe Stancanelli, as quoted by the BBC:
“…some varieties have shown some tolerance. They grow in infected orchards but do not show strong symptoms, as seen in more susceptible varieties. They are still infected by the inoculation but this infection is much slower so it takes longer for the infection to spread, and the concentration of the bacterium in the plant is much lower. This shows the potential for different responses (to the pathogen) in different varieties.”
It’s early days yet, and only about 10 varieties were looked at, but Leccino, for example, sounds like it might be showing promise. That’s a very common and widespread cultivar, so olive cultivation in a large part of Italy may well survive ok should the disease spread. Well, until the next disease, that is.
Lethal yellowing spreads in West Africa
Readers may remember our recent post on the threat to the international coconut collection in Papua New Guinea that is being posed by a new disease. Now it looks like an old disease, lethal yellowing, is likewise making strides towards another important international coconut genebank, that in Cote d’Ivoire…
…quite apart from affecting the livelihoods of an increasing number of farmers who can hardly afford the hit. See the video by Rouland Bourdeix for more details.
Brainfood: Oxygen and seeds, Chicken inbreeding, Non-IPR seed laws, Biodiversity & farm management, Soil agrobiodiversity, Biodiversity & plant protection double, Genebank conservation value, Dichotomies
- Barley seed ageing: genetics behind the dry elevated pressure of oxygen ageing and moist controlled deterioration. There’s seed ageing and seed ageing, genetically speaking.
- Estimates of effective population size and inbreeding in South African indigenous chicken populations: implications for the conservation of unique genetic resources. “Conservation flocks” aren’t working.
- Seed laws, certification and standardization: outlawing informal seed systems in the Global South. The Man uses more than just IPR.
- Farmland biodiversity and agricultural management on 237 farms in 13 European and 2 African regions. The more agriculture, the less biodiversity…
- An Underground Revolution: Biodiversity and Soil Ecological Engineering for Agricultural Sustainability. …but you can do something about it…
- Warming and fertilization alter the dilution effect of host diversity on disease severity. …and this is why you should: plant diversity means better protection against pests and diseases.
- Multi-country evidence that crop diversification promotes ecological intensification of agriculture. No, really.
- Assessing the conservation value of ex situ seed bank collections of endangered wild plants. It’s not just the number of species.
- Biotechnology or organic? Extensive or intensive? Global or local? A critical review of potential pathways to resolve the global food crisis. “…no single pathway will work in every situation.”
Nibbles: Coffee taxonomy, Agarwood trade, Apios promotion, Dog species concept, Seed collecting, Kudzu control, ICARDA chickpeas, Ancient maize beer, Quinoa landscapes, History of domestication, Breeding mistakes, EU breeding value, Priming, Wild flower ecotypes, Vitellaria use
- Coffee botany resources.
- Uncovering the illegal agarwood trade.
- Developing the potato bean. First step: find a new name.
- Dog taxonomy explained.
- Project Baseline sets a, ahem, baseline, for studying plant diversity under climate change.
- Ok, random shout-out for my niece Francesca’s work on kudzu bug natural control. Because I can. And she’s fabulous.
- Blooming chickpeas!
- The inhabitants of Casas Grandes brewed maize beer in the 14th century. Well of course they did.
- Peruvian quinoa landscapes have a name: aynokas.
- Crop domestication 101.
- Where (commercial) breeders go wrong.
- Presumably none of above mistakes are made by EU plant breeding companies.
- Stimulating plant defences for faster response to pest and disease attack.
- Germany told to go for local meadow seeds.
- Use of shea butter trees goes way back.