- Biodiversity Towards Sustainable Food Systems: Four Arguments. For the record: food/nutrition security, climate change resilience, sustainable diets, resilience to zoonoses. I would have added something about culture.
- Biodiversity–productivity relationships are key to nature-based climate solutions. Greenhouse gas mitigation helps tree diversity helps productivity helps greenhouse gas mitigation.
- Genetic determinants of micronutrient traits in graminaceous crops to combat hidden hunger. Big crops can help little crops.
- Contributions of African Crops to American Culture and Beyond: The Slave Trade and Other Journeys of Resilient Peoples and Crops. Decolonizing American agriculture.
- Vulnerability of coffee (Coffea spp.) genetic resources in the United States. Americans have a cunning plan for an African crop.
- Historical genomics reveals the evolutionary mechanisms behind multiple outbreaks of the host-specific coffee wilt pathogen Fusarium xylarioides. Coffee Wilt Disease fungus got a boost from banana Panama Disease fungus. Got a plan for this?
- Improved Remote Sensing Methods to Detect Northern Wild Rice (Zizania palustris L.). They’re this close to putting in place an early warning system. Coffee next? But what about those micronutrients, eh?
- Wild coriander: an untapped genetic resource for future coriander breeding. Not only untapped, its very existence was in doubt. Detect this from space, Colin!
- Advanced genebank management of genetic resources of European wild apple, Malus sylvestris, using genome-wide SNP array data. The Dutch field collection can be managed as a single unit. Kind of a relief, probably. Coffee next?
- Contrasting Genetic Footprints among Saharan Olive Populations: Potential Causes and Conservation Implications. Looks like the wild Saharan olive cannot be managed as a single unit. Bet they can be monitored from space though.
- Growing maize landraces in industrialized countries: from the search for seeds to the emergence of new practices and values. Two contrasting approaches by farmers’ associations in France and Italy.
- Herded and hunted goat genomes from the dawn of domestication in the Zagros Mountains. Before goats were morphologically domesticated, they were managed and genetically domesticated. I wonder if coffee was the same.
- Europe’s First Gene Bank for Honey Bees. Really cold drone semen finds a home in Germany.
PestNet launches new website
PestNet is a network that helps people worldwide obtain rapid advice and information on crop protection, including the identification and management of plant pests. It started in 1999. Anyone with an interest in plant protection is welcome to join. PestNet is free and is moderated, ensuring that messages are confined to plant protection.
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You can become a PestNet member at no cost either via the online app or the Android mobile app. Once joined you can post pest diagnostic requests, seek advice on any other plant protection matter, respond to requests from other members, and access new articles relevant to plant protection via the apps. You can access both the online version of PestNet as well as the Mobile (Android) version via the drop down menu under “Resources”.
And now it’s got a brand new website, with some really interesting additional resources. One of these is a long but fascinating read from Grahame Jackson, the driving force behind PestNet, describing his role in the fight against Taro Leaf Blight in the Pacific. If you’re interested in how crop genetic diversity can be used to combat pests and diseases, you’ll love Grahame’s story.
Brainfood: Insurance, Maize roots, Grass strips, Banana nutrients, Fish nutrients, Wild potatoes, Apple genes, Wheat resistance, Killer tomatoes
- Biodiversity as insurance: from concept to measurement and application. It’s important to draw a distinction between the effect of biodiversity on mean and on variance of ecosystem properties.
- Reproductive resilience but not root architecture underpins yield improvement under drought in maize (Zea mays L.). Which presents an opportunity.
- Functional traits driving pollinator and predator responses to newly established grassland strips in agricultural landscapes. Biodiversity takes its time.
- Genetic diversity in fresh fruit pulp mineral profile of 100 Indian Musa accessions. Plenty of diversity, though different micronutrients are correlated, and 100 g contributes only 5-10% of daily mineral requirements.
- Declining diversity of wild-caught species puts dietary nutrient supplies at risk. Let them eat bananas. More nuance.
- A Metric for Species Representation in the US Potato Genebank. Sort of like a core collection, but across species.
- Pyramiding resistance genes and widening the genetic base of the apple (Malus × domestica Borkh.) crop. From 36 cultivars, via 110 cross combinations, to 7,876 offsprings, to 2,969 after screening, to 75 genotypes each with 2-3 of the 20 Rvi6 genes. Hard row to hoe.
- Resistance to diseases in samples of rare wheat species from the N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources. Very hard row to hoe. Septoria nodorum blotch seems to be particularly tricky.
- Alien introgression and morpho‑agronomic characterization of diploid progenies of Solanum lycopersicoides monosomic alien addition lines (MAALs) toward pre‑breeding applications in tomato (S. lycopersicum). I particularly like the bit where it bursts through John Hurt’s chest.
Nibbles: Apples, Millets, Miniatures, Transhumance, Ag origins, Seeds
Brainfood: Agroecology, Bioinformatics, Brazilian cassava, Cypriot wine, Swiss poppies, Pollinators, Groundnut breeding, Sorghum pangenome, Crop origins, Sparing vs sharing, Language diversity, Watermelon origins
- Crop origins explain variation in global agricultural relevance. What explains which crops are most important globally? For seeds, an origin in seasonally dry regions. For root, leaf and herbaceous fruit crops, an origin in the aseasonal tropics. But if you account for all that, basically age.
- Linguistic diversity and conservation opportunities at UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Africa. There’s a correlation between linguistic and biological diversity. Has anyone done crop diversity and languages?
- Sparing or sharing land? Views from agricultural scientists. If you look at synergies between nature and nurture (as it were), and beyond crop yield, you realize it’s the wrong question.
- Can agroecology improve food security and nutrition? A review. Yes, in 78% of 55 cases. But will it scale? And does it need to? Anyway, at least it’s looking beyond yield.
- Global effects of land-use intensity on local pollinator biodiversity. Intensification is bad for pollinator biodiversity for most land uses, but cropland intensification is only bad in the tropics. Can’t help thinking this needs to be mashed up with the above.
- Crop breeding for a changing climate: integrating phenomics and genomics with bioinformatics. In particular, integrating the phenomics and genomics of landraces and wild relatives at the extremes of habitable ranges. Well, there’s a lot more to it than that, but this is what stuck with me.
- Comprehensive genotyping of a Brazilian cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) germplasm bank: insights into diversification and domestication. 54% duplicates out of 3354 clones, the remaining 1536 arranged in 5 ecoregional ancestral groups.
- A chromosome-level genome of a Kordofan melon illuminates the origin of domesticated watermelons. Not from southern Africa after all. Nice bit of work.
- Preliminary investigation of potent thiols in Cypriot wines made from indigenous grape varieties Xynisteri, Maratheftiko and Giannoudhi. Cypriot grapes are more drought tolerant than varieties grown in Australia, but produce the tastes Aussie wine drinkers really like.
- A morphometric approach to track opium poppy domestication. Fancy math says Swiss Neolithic farmers were involved in the domestication of the opium poppy. Enough to drive one to drink.
- Registration of GA-BatSten1 and GA-MagSten1, two induced allotetraploids derived from peanut wild relatives with superior resistance to leaf spots, rust, and root-knot nematode. Sequencing paying off.
- Extensive variation within the pan-genome of cultivated and wild sorghum. Sorghum next?