- Microbiologist makes Guardians of Microbial Diversity award. Agromicrobes awaited.
- Fabulous giant new superinteresting megablog scheduled to launch today.
NoRSS.Yet? - Who likes which yams (by which they mean Dioscorea) in Madagascar? Kew will have answers.
- Genetic diversity invades the zeitgeist, or something.
- Or would you prefer something a little more down to earth?
- Oldest ploughed fields in Czech lands.
- Crazy mixed up report on this weeks new genebank, in
OmanQatar. “Up to 10,000 genes”? Be still my beating heart. - Ich bin ein coco-de-mer-nut.
- Heat speeds up wheat aging. I know how it feels.
- A “Starbucks Of Tortillas”? Sounds worse than it is.
- Welcome news of fundamental work on a “minor” millet.
- IITA goes to jail.
- Genetically modifying cannabis to make it safe to eat. Such a bad idea. On so many levels.
Any crops, or crop wild relatives, in the eastern Andes?
Well, of course there are. I mean, there must be. But we can’t be sure, at least not as far as this paper in BMC ecology is concerned. The abstract of Plant and animal endemism in the eastern Andean slope: Challenges to conservation tells us that “The Andes-Amazon basin of Peru and Bolivia is one of the most data-poor, biologically rich, and rapidly changing areas of the world” and goes on to say that the scientists “mapped ecological systems, endemic species concentrations, and irreplaceable areas with respect to national level protected areas”. It concludes:
We found that many endemic species and ecological systems are lacking national-level protection; a third of endemic species have distributions completely outside of national protected areas. Protected areas cover only 20% of areas of high endemism and 20% of irreplaceable areas. Almost 40% of the 91 ecological systems are in serious need of protection (=< 2% of their ranges protected).
Are any of the plants they studied wild relatives of crops? How about actual crops? Anyone able to comment?
Nibbles: AnGR genomic resources, Agroforestry fund, US climate map, Cassava rules
- 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. 1 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.