- Archaeological expansions in tropical South America during the late Holocene: Assessing the role of demic diffusion. Some agricultural diffusion in lowland South America was the movement of ideas rather than people.
- The origins of Amazonian landscapes: Plant cultivation, domestication and the spread of food production in tropical South America. Where did the farming people and/or ideas move from? The sub-Andean montane forest of NW South America and the shrub savannahs and seasonal forests of SW Amazonia.
- Genetic Diversity, Nitrogen Fixation, and Water Use Efficiency in a Panel of Honduran Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) Landraces and Modern Genotypes. Landraces showed better N fixation, but lower yields, than modern varieties.
- Maize genotypes with deep root systems tolerate salt stress better than those with shallow root systems during early growth. Ok, but? There’s always a but.
- Challenges for Ex Situ Conservation of Wild Bananas: Seeds Collected in Papua New Guinea Have Variable Levels of Desiccation Tolerance. Avoid the basal end of the infructescence. Among other things.
- Detection of banana plants and their major diseases through aerial images and machine learning methods: A case study in DR Congo and Republic of Benin. Yeah but can you apply it to collecting the wild relatives?
- Genetic and genomic resources for finger millet improvement: opportunities for advancing climate-smart agriculture. No way this can be called neglected any longer. But is it still under-utilized?
- Genotyping-by-Sequencing to Unlock Genetic Diversity and Population Structure in White Yam (Dioscorea rotundata Poir.). More landrace variation within countries than among.
- BRIDGE – A Visual Analytics Web Tool for Barley Genebank Genomics. Do white yam next?
- Pedigree analysis of pre-breeding efforts in Trifolium spp. germplasm in New Zealand. Not a huge number of parents have been used, but reasonable diversity in most species.
- Pleistocene climate changes, and not agricultural spread, accounts for range expansion and admixture in the dominant grassland species Lolium perenne L. Lots more unused diversity out there. For now.
- IUCN Red List and the value of integrating genetics. Applying some genetic rules of thumb make some endangered species even more so.
- Variation in Seed Metabolites between Two Indica Rice Accessions Differing in Seed Longevity. Candidate biochemical indicators of impending seed death detected.
- Sustainability strategies by companies in the global coffee sector. They are close to non-existent.
- Camel Genetic Resources Conservation through Tourism: A Key Sociocultural Approach of Camelback Leisure Riding. Camel rides could be used for conservation, but they’ll have to deliver more than just conservation.
Nibbles: Apple museum, Colonialism museum, Mohawk seeds, India2Africa, DivSeek vid
- A cool apple museum in Wenatchee, Washington.
- Cool museum exhibit on German colonial exploitation of agricultural raw materials, in Hamburg.
- Mohawk culture and teaching embodied in seeds. And not in a museum.
- Indian legumes a hit in Ghana, via genebanks, not museums.
- Long video from IPK on using data to use genebanks. You mean like above?
Nibbles: Wheat Revolutions, Animal domestication, Sanbokan, Sea Island heirlooms, No regrets transformation, Peruvian smallholders, Seed systems book, Genebank vid, Business
- BBC Food Programme on wheat, with the authors of Amber Waves and The Man Who Tried to Feed the World.
- Tides of History podcast on livestock domestication with Prof. Greger Larson. He thinks “domestication” should be used as a descriptor of a state rather than a label for a process. He also thinks that animals became “domesticated” basically only once (except for pigs).
- A citrus fruit you never heard of is crucial to Japanese cuisine.
- Bringing back heirloom rice and other traditional crops in the Sea Islands. And more.
- Building back better: from 200 food systems recommendation to 41 no regrets actions. And why we need them NOW!
- A Peruvian peasant organization goes digital.
- Huge book on strengthening seed systems in South Asia.
- Nice CGN video on seed processing in genebanks.
- How can businesses value biodiversity? Here come the guidelines.
Nibbles: Lost apple, Ducks, Chilli breeding, Heritage breeds, Population and Quantitative Genetics, Madeira
- Finding the Colorado Orange apple.
- British duck breed goes wild in Thailand.
- Might consumers care about genetics?
- Well they do, right? At least if they’re into heirloom varieties and heritage breeds.
- If they do care, they should read this book.
- Is madeira your desert island wine?
Nibbles: Vavilov podcast, Pomological book, Wine press, Banana data
- Audio drama on Vavilov. You heard me.
- Proceedings from the First Annual Wild & Seedling Pomological Exhibition. First of many, I hope.
- A really old Phoenician wine press.
- Update on banana genebank data.