- Gene bank of sources of spring wheat resistance to leaf-stem diseases. Crop wild relatives to the rescue.
- Evolutionary History of Wild Barley (Hordeum vulgare subsp. spontaneum) Analyzed Using Multilocus Sequence Data and Paleodistribution Modeling. Recently collected material gives different results to genebank accessions, suggesting geneflow during ex situ maintenance?
- Barley genetic variation: implications for crop improvement. “Contemporary plant breeders now benefit from publicly available user-friendly databases providing genotypic and phenotypic information on large numbers of barley accessions.” Barley Genebank Database Heaven? Should talk to the guys above?
- Detection of genetic integrity of conserved maize (Zea mays L.) germplasm in genebanks using SNP markers. Oh crap, that problem with ex situ barley maintenance is an issue with maize as well.
- Incidence of Seed-Borne Mycoflora in Wheat and Rice Germplasm. Oh, I give up, genebanks are doomed.
- Ethnophytopathology: Rice Fields Free of Diseases, from the Culture of Producers in a Nuquí, Chocó-Colombia´s Community. Careful placement of fields in the landscape ensures they don’t get diseases. Who needs genebanks and breeders?
- Farm production diversity is associated with greater household dietary diversity in Malawi: Findings from nationally representative data. Yeah, but settle down, it’s kinda complicated.
- Landscape fragmentation and pollinator movement within agricultural environments: a modelling framework for exploring foraging and movement ecology. Don’t know how your set-asides and whatnots are going to affect pollinators? Well, now there’s a spatially explicit model for that. Which could perhaps be applied to…
- Complex effects of fragmentation on remnant woodland plant communities of a rapidly urbanizing biodiversity hotspot. Would be so interesting to know if there were any socioconomically useful plants (including crop wild relatives) among these remnants.
- Gender, Seeds and Biodiversity. Whether in Pennsylvania or Peru, it’s women that save seeds. (This is from an old book, which has presumably just been digitized, hence its appearance in my RSS feed.)
- Land Use Dynamics, Climate Change, and Food Security in Vietnam: A Global-to-local Modeling Approach. Agriculture is at risk. Better collect all that germplasm. Right? Right?
- Responses of plants, earthworms, spiders and bees to geographic location, agricultural management and surrounding landscape in European arable fields. Mineral N and pesticides not good for agricultural biodiversity. Too bad you can’t really conserve earthworms ex situ.
- Identification and evaluation of major quality characters of introduced sweet potato germplasm resources. 4 accessions out of 32 from CIP were likely to prove very useful, for different reasons. I’d say that was pretty good.
- Conservation and use of genetic resources of underutilized crops in the Americas – A continental analysis. Some underused crops are more underused than others, but policies don’t help any of them much.
- And this week’s theme, I’ve just realized, somewhat belatedly, is the complementarity of ex situ and in situ conservation. No, really, go back and check. And it was purely by chance too.
Nibbles: Diverse diets, Ancient diets, Urban veggies, Medicinal phylogenetics, Double blind cowpeas, Adaptation hope, Livestock emissions, Climate change data, Afghani poppies, Aussie ag & breeders, Chinese agrobiodiversity, Weird cherry
- Meaty presentation on how biodiversity in the food system delivers a diverse diet. Could hardly fail to, really, could it.
- What’s a diverse diet ever done for me, asks ancient farmer.
- Vegetables an important part of diverse diets, of course. Especially in urban areas.
- Interesting EU project on the phylogenetics of medicinal plants. Any vegetables in there?
- Improved cowpeas only improved when farmers know they are improved. Wow.
- Some glimmers of hope on adaptation? Maybe.
- Not all livestock bad for climate change. And room for improvement on those that are.
- Yeah, but who cares, global warming is just a giant natural fluctuation, no? No.
- Legalize it, already! Poppy cultivation as a climate change adaptation measure?
- Australian agriculture unprepared for climate change? With all these fancy breeders and access to the world’s genebanks?
- Meanwhile, in China, the focus is on food sovereignty.
- And in Japan on its spaced out cherry tree.
Nibbles: GMO debate, IPCC report, SPC ag strategy, Teff, Biofortification conference, Urban protected areas, Costa Rican ecosystems
- Our Nature Comment genebank paper used to both denigrate and promote GMOs. Must be doing something right.
- Same thing likely to happen with Fifth Assessment Report?
- SPC’s Land Resources Division new strategic plan. Good to see an important role for the Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees.
- The future of teff. Two sides to every story. But does it feature in your breakfast?
- Biofortification conference off the ground.
- Urban protected areas: I wonder how many crop wild relatives are involved.
- Costa Rican ecosystems in trouble: I wonder how many crop wild relatives are involved.
Nibbles: Texan blackeyed peas, Pest distributions, Better eucalypts, City gardens, Allopolyploidy, Chilean agroforestry, Sahel agroforestry
- Texas A&M builds better
mousetrapcowpea. - Huge survey of the distribution of crop pests.
- Spanish tree breeders assisting in the despoliation of the Ethiopian plateau. Totally unfair, I know, there’s plenty of reasons why improving eucalyptus production in Ethiopia is a good idea. But I just wish similar effort had gone into local trees.
- They increased the biodiversity of city gardens and nobody noticed. Wonder if it would have been the same in allotments. Meanwhile, however…
- It takes 4-5 million years for allopolyploids to become different enough for their hybrids to be sterile.
- Save the Espinal!
- More water wouldn’t help sorghum in the Sahel. Yes, you guessed it, the World Congress on Agroforestry is still going on.
Nibbles: Quinoa, Millet, Prize, Agroforestry, Herdwick sheep, Plant breeding, Potato breeding book, Taro varieties, Hot chocolate, Spices
- Oh no! Super-writer Bittman condemns yet more Bolivian farmers to destitution with yummy quinoa recipes.
- Can Geoff Tansey help the poor millet farmers of the Deccan Plateau to avoid that fate?
- Maybe he should enter that millet “initative” for The Equator Prize.
- We’re deafened by the buzz in advance of the World Congress on Agroforestry.
- For example, better nutrition associated with trees in urban environments and rural tree cover.
- Today’s genome of passing interest: Herdwick sheep. They’re primitive, y’know.
- Realfood.org – a name to strike apparently undeserved fear into the hearts of the cynical – offers an encomium to conventional modern plant breeding.
- Which is apparently a lost art, at least as regards potatoes.
- But not taro, if latest news from Pacific is to be believed. Ignore the title, BTW.
- How they made hot chocolate in the olden days, the really olden days.
- Another stunner from the Botanist in the Kitchen: Spices and phylogeny.