- Genome-wide comparative diversity uncovers population structure, global distribution, and targets of selection in hexaploid oat. A worldwide survey reveals how oat diversity is structured, spread, and shaped by breeding, helping pinpoint untapped genetic resources for future improvement.
- Genomic diversity and the domestication history of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum). Its genome traces cotton’s journey from its wild origins in Mesoamerica while documenting the genetic narrowing that accompanied domestication.
- Genetic architecture of sugarcane traits in a polyploid genomics framework. New genomic tools finally begin to untangle the diversity of one of agriculture’s most genetically complex crops, exposing the basis of traits breeders have long selected largely in the dark.
- Projected warming will exceed the long-term thermal limits of rice cultivation. Rice has historically thrived within remarkably stable climatic boundaries. Those boundaries are now on course to be crossed across major growing regions, with profound implications for global food security. Diversity to the rescue?
- An inter-specific Amaranthus pangenome captures genetic variation potentially underlying key leafy vegetable traits in this underutilised crop. A rich reservoir of previously hidden diversity emerges from across multiple cultivated amaranths, offering breeders new options for improving a neglected but nutritious vegetable.
- Impact of gardening and nutrition support provided to women in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Even in one of the world’s most challenging humanitarian settings, greater interspecific crop diversity translated into better diets, improved food security, and enhanced wellbeing.
- Designing perennial crop-based agroforestry systems: specificities, challenges, and opportunities. Diversification does not stop at the field edge: how perennial crops can be combined with trees to deliver productive, resilient, and biodiversity-friendly farming systems.
- Towards Nature Positive supply chains: From biodiversity commitments to organisational action. What would it take to move biodiversity from corporate promises to business practice? Maybe the above examples can help turn aspiration into measurable action.
Gaps galore in collards collections
Quick follow-up to my post a few days ago on the recent study of the origin of the collard greens grown in the Moroccan oases of the Draa and Ziz valleys.
Ethnobotanists Bronwen Powell and Abderrahim Ouarghidi used historical texts, linguistics, and Indigenous knowledge in their investigation, but of course it’s also possible to use genetics to figure out where the plants may have came from. Especially as there are plenty of accessions labelled Brassica oleracea var. acephala in the genebanks that share their data on Genesys — just over 1500 in fact.
Alas, that might in practice turn out to be tricky, though, due to the somewhat — ahem — skewed geographic distribution of the accessions in question. The yellow circles in the map below show the approximate locations of those oases on the edge of the Sahara.
Still worth trying, in my view, but really more than anything this should be an encouragement to do some more collecting. Or get more genebanks on Genesys. Or identify more B. oleracea accessions to variety level. Or…
What else has been collected in the Draa and Ziz valleys or thereabouts? Surprisingly little, mainly wheat, barley, chickpea, faba bean and alfalfa. The general location of the valleys is now shown by white squares.
Incidentally, the. map below is where ChatGPT thinks collards are grown around he world. I really have no idea how accurate it is. I hope someone will tell us.
Brassica on the brink
How did collards get to remote oases on the edge of the Sahara? That’s what ethnobotanists Bronwen Powell and Abderrahim Ouarghidi have been looking into for like 20 years now, and it’s a fascinating story. Which you can read about in detail in their paper in Economic Botany. They also present an abbreviated form of the argument in The Conversation. Which got Nibbled some months back, though without giving anything away. But actually what I recommend you do is listen to Jeremy interview the intrepid duo in the latest episode of Eat This Podcast.
Out of sight, full of bite
Drawing on crop data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s Compendium of Forgotten Foods in Africa, CAFRI calculated Nutrient Density (ND) scores for a broad range of African foods, a measure of how much essential nutrition (vitamins, minerals, protein) each food delivers per calorie consumed.
Bottom line: eat your greens!
Nibbles: Peruvian agrotourism, RSA heirloom apple, Wild tea in China, Native American seeds, Indian chiles, Genebanks, Kenyan tree planting
- Agrobiodiversity inspires tourism in the Andes of Peru.
- South African fruit exporters does its (small) bit for heirloom apple conservation.
- Wild tea doing just fine in the Shunhuangshan National Nature Reserve in Hunan Province, China. Even when harvested by local communities. Looks great for tourism too.
- Native communities in Nebraska getting some support for saving and exchanging seeds.
- Women are in charge of chiles in Tamil Nadu.
- Popular Science does genebanks. At least one genebank has tourism potential, I’d say.
- Want to support forest landscape restoration through native tree planting in Kenya? Go to MyFarmTrees, and help keep Kenya a tourism hotspot.