- High-level agricultural scientists thinks high agricultural science will feed the world. Oh, and smart policies.
- This new rice would qualify, I suspect.
- Participatory varietal selection manual revised to take women into account. Someone mention high science?
- No such manual needed in India, it seems.
- The banana-is-doomed story sure has legs. Or hands.
- What did the Inkas ever do for us?
- Is agriculture diverse enough? That is the question.
- Yerba mate gets sequenced. Because it can be.
- Following an Indian cucumber down the value chain.
- Thank your lucky stars for this weedy-looking tomato wild relative.
- “We’re interested in the color, shape and sizes of the vegetables from 400 years ago, compared to modern cultivars of the same vegetables: the deep sutures on cantaloupe in Italian art of the Renaissance or the lack of pigmentation in pictures of watermelon compared to today.”
- Quite a bit of agrobiodiversity featured in Day of Archaeology. Nice idea.
Nibbles: Nutrition successes, Fruit grafting, Bee hero, VERY early ag, Humans bad shock, Biodiversity video
- Do you have a nutrition success story? Asking for IFPRI.
- What, another “Tree of 40 Fruit”?
- Bee expert Prof. Dave Goulson is a BBC conservation hero.
- Pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherers did some sort of semi-cultivation of some plants, in one place, at one time, maybe.
- Anthropogenic environmental change affecting pollinators and crop zinc levels shock.
- Video on biodiversity loss mentions crop diversity shock.
Nibbles: Oz vineyard apocalypse, California vineyards redux, Ethiopian genebank, Maya collapse revisionism, SunBlack tomato, Nutritious staples, Citrus endowment, Sheep pix
- In Australia, they’re ripping up vineyards.
- Whereas in California, they’re going to breed 10,000 new grape varieties and make a new wine. Go figure.
- Interview with the director of the Ethiopian national genebank, Dr Gemedo Dalle.
- Deforestation et al. not responsible for Maya collapse after all. Jared Diamond unavailable for comment.
- Black tomato a hit in Italy. Looks crap on pizza though.
- The case for biofortification.
- University of Florida sets up endowment to protect its research groves in face of citrus greening.
- Googlesheepview. Nuff said.
Brainfood: Grassland diversity, Potato diversity, English CWR, Genetic rescue, Saffron diversity, Lac, Cereal domestication, Turkish pea, Pathogen genomes, Rose fragrance, African cheese
- Worldwide evidence of a unimodal relationship between productivity and plant species richness. Grassland richness maximal at intermediate productivity levels.
- Cytoplasmic genome types of European potatoes and their effects on complex agronomic traits. Interesting relationships between cytoplasmic type on one hand and tuber starch content and resistance to late blight on other.
- Enhancing the Conservation of Crop Wild Relatives in England. 148 priority species, half of them not in ex situ at all. But there’s no excuse for that now.
- Genetic rescue to the rescue. Meaning an increase in population fitness, especially of rare species, owing to new alleles. Genomics will help by choosing the new alleles better, and monitoring the results.
- Diversity and relationships of Crocus sativus and its relatives analysed by IRAPs. No variation in the allotriploid cultigen, lots in the closely related species. Let the resynthesis begin.
- Economic analysis of Kusmi lac production on Zizyphus mauritiana (Lamb.) under different fertilizer treatments. That would be the scarlet resin secreted by some insects. NPK needed. No word on genetic differences.
- Parallel Domestication of the Heading Date 1 Gene in Cereals. Same QTL in sorghum, foxtail millet and rice, but different alterations of it. Multiple domestication for sorghum, single for foxtail millet.
- DNA based iPBS-retrotransposon markers for investigating the population structure of pea (Pisum sativum) germplasm from Turkey. No geographic structure for the landraces.
- The two-speed genomes of filamentous pathogens: waltz with plants. Fungi and oomycetes quite different genetically, but both have regions of genome which change rapidly to make them good pathogens. Bastards.
- The flowering of a new scent pathway in rose. Can we have our nice-smelling roses back now, please?
- AFLP assessment of the genetic diversity of Calotropis procera (Apocynaceae) in the West Africa region (Benin). Not just a weed, used in cheese-making, of all things.
Nibbles: Grass, Rust, Maize, Yoghurt
- Grass diversity. Photos of inflorescences. Well, what were you expecting?
- Diseases from centres of diversity are deadlier. At least, sometimes.
- Maize domestication: all it took was one little bitty mutation.
- NPR does yoghurt. Or yogurt, actually.