Three articles on the benefits of diversity for your delectation this weekend. Evolutionary Applications has a paper suggesting that restoration of degraded landscapes is best done with “high quality and genetically diverse seed to maximize the adaptive potential of restoration efforts to current and future environmental change.” Meanwhile, in The Economist, how structurally complex and diverse betel nut plantations ((Ok, ok, “betel nut.”)) can be almost as good for bird diversity as the surrounding forest, and how it is better for a crop to be attacked by two pests rather than one.
UG99: no worries
There is no threat to India from the dreaded wheat steam rust Ug99. Moreover, if in future the disease happens to spread to India the country’s agricultural research system is fully geared up to tackle it.
This assurance came from Agriculture Minister, Shri Sharad Pawar as he inaugurated the International Conference on Wheat Stem Rust Ug99 — A Threat to Food Security, here today.
Nibbles: Seeds, Seeds, Semen, Seeds, Source, Souris, Sustainability
- Botswana’s main seed supplier pushes hybrid seeds.
- Ethiopia lists its genebank holdings.
- Scientific American on consequences of lack of livestock diversity.
- Creating tomorrow’s heirlooms, Bishop salutes amateur breeders.
- New Agriculturist on bananas et al.
- Climate change bad for fish too.
- Black rats bad for other rats too.
- Sustainable wine.
Spreading diseases one seed at a time
Robert asks whether the kind of experimentation, diversification and exchange that might be fostered by making it easier for people to swap seeds requires some sort of risk control. My simple answer is “I don’t know”. Fungi, bacteria and viruses can all hitch a ride on the outside of the seed, inside the seed coat, and in some cases within the tissues of the seed, and several can be a really bad problem. Many growers control the risk by treating seeds with fungicides and other chemicals. Organic growers have developed other kinds of treatments, including carefully controlled hot water baths. I think there are two problems.
First, will you introduce a new disease to your own plot? Quite possibly, and only you can decide whether that is worth the risk, and what steps you are willing to take to prevent it.
Secondly, will you introduce a new disease to your region or, as Robert puts it, “spread devastating plant diseases across the globe”? This, naturally, is much harder to answer. I’m inclined to believe that individuals swapping seeds pose no greater threat than industrial and government activities, but that is very much a gut feeling. Pests and diseases do slip past almost every control system, although seldom is it possible to pinpoint the specific occasion on which it happened.
Phytosanitary legislation aims to minimize the risks, but I have no idea whether there are exceptions for small quantities, as there are for some other seed laws. Perhaps a reader can enlighten us.
People may want to take precautions before sending or receiving swapped seeds, but I wouldn’t rely on that (or anything else) to protect the world from seed-borne diseases.
Nibbles: Wild food, Sisal, Cucurbits, Carnival, Rice blight
- Zimbabwean take to wild foods, and not in a good way.
- “It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see my sisal flooring.”
- Gourds+Halloween=Jawdropping Creativity.
- Tangled Bank 117.
- “Terror agent” listing for Xanthomanas oryzae blights US rice research.