- Big new project on farm animal genomics. Gene-jockeys lick lips.
- Big new push to raise money for the Moringa Fund. Agroforesters lick lips.
- Big new hardiness zone map unleashed by USDA on unsuspecting world. American GIS people and gardeners lick lips.
- Bill Gates mentions cassava. CIAT licks lips.
Nibbles: Canis then and now, Training roundup, Soybean genome, Top 10 viruses, PNG drought, Food archaeology, Sturgeon Bay, Moringa
- Dogs were first domesticated animal. But the love affair is cooling off, at least for some breeds.
- Building capacity for animal genetic resources use, and for conservation and sustainable use under the ITPGRFA. And tree domestication. Is someone keeping track?
- BGI continues to take over DNA world.
- And the Worst Plant Virus Oscar goes to…
- How PNG farmers cope with drought. From what is developing into a really useful blog.
- I wish I had time to read 200 pages on ancient Athenian food. But maybe you do?
- Learn about the USDA potato collection, including lots of wild relatives.
- The tree that thinks it’s a supermarket: Moringa in the limelight again.
Starving Striga of essential micronutrients
Interesting, and temporally confusing, news item from Wageningen University. Dated 12 January, it tells us that on 11 January Muhammad Jamil will be defending his doctoral research on the very pretty but also very devastating parasitic weed Striga. ((Maybe I just don’t understand the timing of such things as defences and awards in the Dutch system.)) And fascinating research it is too.
Striga seeds germinate in response to strigolactones, which are secreted by the host plant’s roots, and which effectively tell the parasite that there is a host nearby. Strigolactones are made from carotenes, which are the precursors of vitamin A, an essential micronutrient for people. Jamil’s research shows that the less carotene a plant produces, the less likely it is to be parasitised by Striga. Jamil also demonstrated considerable differences among rice varieties in the amount of strigalactones they produce under identical conditions.
Which raises lots of lovely questions. Will crops bred for higher levels of carotene — say to improve human nutrition — be more susceptible to Striga parasitism? Is the solution to breed those self-same crops to block the production of strigalactones? Could this be a job for life for high-tech plant breeders? And what’s wrong with the push-pull approach to controlling Striga? Does it, for example, not work on rice?
I do hope Muhammad is now Dr Jamil.
Brainfood: Conservation policy, Grasspea breeding, Modeling rice diseases, Maize roots, Literature on new oil crops, Native vs non-native trees in Indonesian city parks, Cherimoya maps, Darwin Core, Seed dispersal and conservation, Oxalis variation, Polyploidy and variation, Pollinators, Microsymbionts, Plant migration, Culture and agriculture
As ever, we have added most of these references to our public group on Mendeley, for ease of finding. “Most?” we hear you say. “What gives?” Well, Mendeley and some academic publishers still don’t play nicely. There’s nothing to stop you adding the paper in question by hand, if you’re so inclined, but we don’t really have the time. And if you do, please do it right.
- Why are some biodiversity policies implemented and others ignored? Lessons from the uptake of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation by botanic gardens. Because there are no feedback mechanisms?
- Genetic improvement of grass pea (Lathyrus sativus) in Ethiopia: an unfulfilled promise. Conventional breeding for low ODAP hasn’t worked, so forget about solving that problem through conventional breeding, and move on to other problems, or use genetic transformation.
- Modeling and mapping potential epidemics of rice diseases globally. It is not particularly well done, but one is surprised to see it done at all. NiM ((Not in Mendeley.))
- Morphological and physiological characteristics of corn (Zea mays L.) roots from cultivars with different yield potentials. More roots means more yield. Among some modern varieties anyway. Under some conditions. NiM
- Trends in literature on new oilseed crops and related species: Seeking evidence of increasing or waning interest. And finding it, alas. Sort of. NiM
- The green colonial heritage: Woody plants in parks of Bandung, Indonesia. Native species used to be used more, and should be used more again. NiM
- Mapping Genetic Diversity of Cherimoya (Annona cherimola Mill.): Application of Spatial Analysis for Conservation and Use of Plant Genetic Resources. Cool maps of microsat hotspots.
- Darwin Core: An Evolving Community-Developed Biodiversity Data Standard. The way out of Genebank Database Hell? Well, maybe the match that will light the torch that will show the way out.
- Seed dispersal in changing landscapes. Fragmentation, harvesting, invasions and climate change affect seed dispersal in ways that need to be understood by conservationists. NiM. And the BBC’s more verbose take on it.
- Distribution models and a dated phylogeny for Chilean Oxalis species reveal occupation of new habitats by different lineages, not rapid adaptive radiation. Title says it all, really. It’s not that a single lineage exploded as new habitats became available. Old lineages were pre-adapted to the new habitats. ((Finding the actual paper online could be really, really hard.))
- Extensive chromosomal variation in a recently formed natural allopolyploid species, Tragopogon miscellus (Asteraceae). Polyploidy leads to all hell breaking lose in the genome for generations.
- Overplaying the role of honey bees as pollinators: A comment on Aebi and Neumann (2011). It’s the wild bees, hoverflies and other native pollinators, stupid! But still.
- Arbuscular Mycorrhizas Reduce Nitrogen Loss via Leaching. 40 times less, no less.
- Distributional migrations, expansions, and contractions of tropical plant species as revealed in dated herbarium records. Eppur si muovono. And more on the paper. And more on herbarium digitization in general. what can I tell you, I’ve got apophenia.
- Ecological and socio-cultural factors influencing in situ conservation of crop diversity by traditional Andean households in Peru. There are influences; and why wouldn’t there be?
Nibbles: Brazil, Canada, Book, Lebanese food, Threatened dispersal, Jeanne Baret, Avinoam Danin
- In Mato Grosso, deforestation rates fell as agricultural production rose. I know.
- “Imagine Ontario without … a maple leaf.” It’s easy, if you try.
- Got a case study in Community Based Adaptation (to climate change)? A book author wants to hear from you. h/t CAPRi.
- And here are some case studies on local foods and nutrition, from Lebanon.
- BBC reports on an Indian study: Plants at risk from seed dispersal threats. No mention of seed systems, formal or informal, that support agricultural plants.
- First woman to circumnavigate the world was a botanizing French herbalist.
- Veteran Israeli botanist interviewed, mentions crops wild relatives without actually calling them that.