- Patterns of nuclear and chloroplast genetic diversity and structure of manioc along major Brazilian Amazonian rivers. No structure related to river basins. Separate histories for sweet and bitter types, with the sweet domesticated and spreading first.
- Practical considerations for plant phylogenomics. Use the right tool for the job.
- The genetics of fruit flavour preferences. Here’s a “molecular roadmap to flavour improvement,” breeders. Now go crazy.
- Beyond Culinary Colonialism: Indigenous Food Sovereignty, Liberal Multiculturalism, and the Control of Gastronomic Capital. Multiculturalism is incompatible with food sovereignty.
- Predicting genotypes environmental range from genome‐environment associations. Fraction of aridity-associated alleles in wild beet could accurately predict adaptation to aridity in independent set of cultivated individuals.
- Diversity of drought tolerance in the genus Vigna. No word on genotypes. But wilds more tolerant of drought in Vigna too.
- Identification of Drought, Heat, and Combined Drought and Heat Tolerant Donors in Maize. Only 2 out of 300 inbreds are resistant to both drought and heat. No word on how teosinte does.
- Benefit sharing mechanisms for agricultural genetic diversity use and in-situ conservation. Show me the money.
- The Nagoya Protocol could backfire on the Global South. It’s not just about the money.
- Invasion of a legume ecosystem engineer in a cold biome alters plant biodiversity. Biosafety first.
- Interspecific germ cell transplantation: a new light in the conservation of valuable Balkan trout genetic resources? Maybe.
Brainfood: Czech genebank value, AnGR value, Korea rice core value, Cannabis value, Red rice diversity, Aquaculture trends, Mexican CWR, Rice male sterility, Evidence base, Siberian cheese
- Estimating the Value of Crop Diversity Conservation Services Provided by the Czech National Programme for Agrobiodiversity. Willingness-to-pay (WTP) amounts to country-wide benefits of $68 million.
- Animal genetic resources diversity and ecosystem services. Traditional breeds make a significant contribution to non-provisioning ecosystem services, but their keepers are often marginalized. Maybe somebody should calculate WTP?
- Genome-wide association study reveals candidate genes related to low temperature tolerance in rice (Oryza sativa) during germination. 100 genes on 2 chromosomes, based on data from the Korean core collection.
- The Role of Agriculture in Supplying Nutritional, Medicinal, and Recreational Cannabis Products. We need a Green Ganja Revolution, man.
- Diversity and population structure of red rice germplasm in Bangladesh. Red rices, actually.
- Comparative terrestrial feed and land use of an aquaculture-dominant world. Farming fish spares more land than farming livestock. And is better for you.
- A Crop Wild Relative Inventory for Mexico. 310 taxa, 30% endemic.
- Genetic analysis of male sterility obtained from a rice cultivar Lebed backcrossed with Taichung 65. You can get it here.
- The major barriers to evidence‐informed conservation policy and possible solutions. Convince the public, and the policy-makers will come.
- Using PacBio sequencing to investigate the bacterial microbiota of traditional Buryatian cottage cheese and comparison with Italian and Kazakhstan artisanal cheeses. Buryatia is a mountainous Russian republic in eastern Siberia, and they make really diverse cheese there, bacterially speaking.
Brainfood: Mesoamerican fruits, PES, Chinese vegetables, Controlled pollination, Pastoralist fodder, Taxonomy, African nightshades, Ag origins, Divortification
- Human diets drive range expansion of megafauna-dispersed fruit species. Megafauna dropped the ball (or the fruit), humans picked it up and ran with it.
- Experimental evidence on payments for forest commons conservation. Maybe we should have paid the megafauna.
- Vegetable genetic resources in China. 3 genebanks, 36,000 accessions, 120 species, about 1000 distributions per year (to research units).
- A cost-effective ground pollination system for hybridization in tall coconut palms. I have seen the future of coconut pollination.
- Determinants of pastoral and agro-pastoral households’ participation in fodder production in Makueni and Kajiado Counties, Kenya. Household heads who are female, have access to extension services, or are members of social groups are more likely to go in for fodder production.
- Taxonomy based on science is necessary for global conservation. Incredible to me that needs to be said.
- Development of next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based SSRs in African nightshades: Tools for analyzing genetic diversity for conservation and breeding. Solanum scabrum and S. villosum separate nicely, and show much diversity.
- A natural adaptive syndrome as a model for the origins of cereal agriculture. Large seed, awns and monodominance.
- Development and Examination of Sweet Potato Flour Fortified with Indigenous Underutilized Seasonal Vegetables. Ticks all the boxes, lets call it divortification.
Brainfood: MSB value, Wild rice genomes, Media coverage, Ancient turkeys, Diverse covers, ABS & sequences, Red listing, Old crops, Wild pollinators, Rice breeding, Farm & dietary diversity, Forages positives, Kurdish sheep
- The conservation value of germplasm stored at the Millennium Seed Bank, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK. 10% of about 40,000 taxa, >8% of collections, are either extinct, rare or vulnerable at global and/or national level; 20% of taxa, representing 13% collections, are endemic at the country or territory scale. And the cost, though?
- Genomes of 13 domesticated and wild rice relatives highlight genetic conservation, turnover and innovation across the genus Oryza. Lots of things for breeders to play around with. Australians especially pleased.
- Our House Is Burning: Discrepancy in Climate Change vs. Biodiversity Coverage in the Media as Compared to Scientific Literature. Biodiversity conservation community really bad at getting the message out.
- Diversity of management strategies in Mesoamerican turkeys: archaeological, isotopic and genetic evidence. Separate domestications in Mesoamerica and SW USA; two types in former, one fed crops and the other, more flamboyant type, left to roam; neither eaten.
- Functional traits in cover crop mixtures: Biological nitrogen fixation and multifunctionality. Design mixtures with complementary plant traits for maximum on-farm benefit.
- Plant genetic resources for food and agriculture: opportunities and challenges emerging from the science and information technology revolution. The future is Norway.
- Quantifying progress toward a conservation assessment for all plants. A quarter done.
- The earliest occurrence of a newly described domesticate in Eastern North America: Adena/Hopewell communities and agricultural innovation. Erect knotweed used to be a crop, a mainstay of the Eastern Agricultural Complex. Now it’s a weed. Can the same be said of other plants? Well, maybe.
- Conserving honey bees does not help wildlife. Wild bees, that is.
- Breeding implications of drought stress under future climate for upland rice in Brazil. Wide adaptation of upland rice in Brazil is not going to cut it.
- Farm production diversity and dietary quality: linkages and measurement issues. Cash is often better than production diversity at predicting dietary diversity.
- Tropical forage legumes for environmental benefits: An overview. Ruminant livestock production need not be bad for the environment. Useful list of research needs to make sure.
- Complete mitogenomes from Kurdistani sheep: abundant centromeric nuclear copies representing diverse ancestors. There are lots of bits of mitochondrial DNA near the centromeres of all chromosomes bar the Y. Is that a problem for phylogenies?
Nibbles: Development egos, CGN, Fijian adaptation, Seedxit, Fancy coconuts, Seed dealers, Heritage rice, Rumsfeld & biodiversity, Grass-fed beef beef
- Development thinkers pithily skewered.
- CGN’s new brochure.
- Fijian farmers dealing with climate change with diverse, triple-layered systems, and small, phased, staggered planting. Or, common sense.
- Brexit will mean less choice of seeds for British farmers. Maybe.
- £3 for a coconut? Nuts.
- Dealing with seed dealers to speed up new rice variety delivery.
- How about the heirlooms, though? Maybe they can take care of themselves.
- The value of biodiversity is a known unknown.
- Forage quality is known, and decreasing.