- Identifying the unique characteristics of the Chinese indigenous pig breeds in the Yangtze River Delta region for precise conservation. Genotyping shows which pig breeds are best.
- Diversity in tree and fruit traits of Strychnos spinosa Lam. along a climatic gradient in Benin: a step towards domestication. Phenotyping shows which fruit populations are best.
- Lactuca georgica, a new wild source of resistance to downy mildew: comparative study to other wild lettuce relatives. Phenotyping shows which lettuce species are best.
- Genetic diversity is enhanced in Wild × Cultivated hybrids of sugarbeet (Beta vulgaris L.) despite multiple selection cycles for cultivated traits. Genotyping shows cultivated x wild sugarbeet hybrids are best.
- Selective sorting of ancestral introgression in maize and teosinte along an elevational cline. Genotyping shows where cultivated x wild maize hybrids do best.
- Genomic analyses provide insights into peach local adaptation and responses to climate change. Genotyping shows which peach genes are best.
- Identification of Novel Sources of Resistance to Ascochyta Blight in a Collection of Wild Cicer Accessions. Genotyping and phenotyping shows which wild chickpea populations are best.
- Comprehensive Metabolite Profiling in Genetic Resources of Garlic (Allium sativum L.) Collected from Different Geographical Regions. Metabotyping shows which geographic regions are best for garlic.
- Fertile Crescent crop progenitors gained a competitive advantage from large seedlings. Seed phenotyping shows which grasses were best for domestication.
- Comparison of long-read methods for sequencing and assembly of a plant genome. Genotyping shows which genotyping is the best.
- A digital catalog of high‐density markers for banana germplasm collections. Genotyping shows which banana genebank accessions are best.
- “The Old Foods Are the New Foods!”: Erosion and Revitalization of Indigenous Food Systems in Northwestern North America. Who needs genotyping and phenotyping anyway?
Brainfood: On farm, Barahnaja, Vegetable landraces, Okra core, Carrot breeding, Soybean breeding, Afghan wheat, Phytochemistry, Cassava diversity, Dietary diversity double, Pollination trade
- On-Farm Crop Diversity for Advancing Food Security and Nutrition. Lots of solid context, plus fun and unusual boxes on fe’i bananas, African greens and Vietnam seed clubs.
- Mainstreaming Barahnaja cultivation for food and nutritional security in the Himalayan region. Could be another box in the above.
- Vegetable Landraces: The “Gene Banks” for Traditional Farmers and Future Breeding Programs. Unusual way to put it, but you can see what they mean.
- The World Vegetable Center Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) Core Collection as a Source for Flooding Stress Tolerance Traits for Breeding. It’s the longer vegetative phase that possibly helps with flooding tolerance.
- Strategies to Identify and Introgress Production and Quality Traits from Genetic Resources to Elite Carrot Cultivars. But maybe it’s not core collections that you need.
- Genomic dissection of widely planted soybean cultivars leads to a new breeding strategy of crops in the post-genomic era. Here’s another core collection, this time of popular cultivars rather than landraces, as a basis for a strategy called Potalaization which seems to amount to starting your breeding programme with a wide genetic base.
- Genetic Diversity and Population Structure Analysis of Triticum aestivum L. Landrace Panel from Afghanistan. You could select a core collections based on ecogeography. Mainly.
- Spatial and evolutionary predictability of phytochemical diversity. Interestingly, the same goes for phytochemical diversity in Swiss grasslands.
- DNA fingerprinting reveals varietal composition of Vietnamese cassava germplasm (Manihot esculenta Crantz) from farmers’ field and genebank collections. From 1570 clones to 31 unique genotypes. No need for a core collection then.
- Dietary diversity of rural Indonesian households declines over time with agricultural production diversity even as incomes rise. Indonesians need to go back to growing more vegetables. See some of the previous papers for examples. You’re welcome.
- The interplay between food market access and farm household dietary diversity in low and middle income countries: A systematic review of literature. Or their market access could be improved, though it’s unclear whether that would improve their diets.
- Virtual pollination trade uncovers global dependence on biodiversity of developing countries.
Many diets depend on other people’s pollinators, though.
Nibbles: Fungi at MSB, Seed companies declaration, Seed libraries, Alliance genebanks
- Seed in genebanks have fungi, and that could be a good thing.
- Seed sector mentions genebanks, and that’s a good thing.
- Seed libraries are great.
- You can take virtual tours of a couple of CGIAR genebanks, which can’t be bad.
Nibbles: PGRFA book, PGRFA use, PGRFA database
- New book on conserving crop diversity.
- New data on genetic gains in banana breeding.
- New European database for organic seeds. And more on organic ag in Europe.
Brainfood: DSI, SMTA, Geno-Phenotyping, Adoption ceiling, Vegetable seeds, Neutral diversity, Trait variation, Feed interventions, Polyploidy, Varietal selection, Sugarcane genomes, African supply chains, Farmers Rights, Agroforestry
- Bringing access and benefit sharing into the digital age. One thing needed: a Multi‐stakeholder Committee on the Governance of Digital Sequence Information. Well that was easy.
- A contract‐law analyses of the SMTA of the Plant Treaty: Can it work as a binding contract? Three things: the SMTA needs to be valid, binding and enforceable. Which it isn’t now, apparently.
- Recent Large-Scale Genotyping and Phenotyping of Plant Genetic Resources of Vegetatively Propagated Crops. Five things: standardized SSR loci, GBS-derived SNPs, SNP arrays, high-throughput phenotyping system, GWAS.
- “Breaking through the 40% adoption ceiling: Mind the seed system gaps.” A perspective on seed systems research for development in One CGIAR. Four things: capture the demand characteristics of farmers, identify effective seed delivery pathways, ensure seed health and stopping the spread of disease, effective policies and regulation. I guess this is where the Toolkit comes in.
- Africa’s evolving vegetable seed sector: status, policy options and lessons from Asia. Four things: technical capacity, regulations, extension, marketing. Well, yeah.
- The inflated significance of neutral genetic diversity in conservation genetics. Three things: functional genetic diversity, demographic history, and ecological relationships.
- Intraspecific trait variation in plants: a renewed focus on its role in ecological processes. Three things: report individual replicates and population means, investigate mechanisms that affect ITVs, studies that span sub-disciplines (see paper above).
- A scoping review of feed interventions and livelihoods of small-scale livestock keepers. Three things: consider absorptive capacity of livestock keepers and extensionists, focus on semi-commercial sector, consider resource requirements of feed options. It’s all in the podcast. Remarkable similarity with the vegetables thing above, eh?
- Induced Polyploidy: A Tool for Forage Species Improvement. Two things. Thanks, colchicine.
- Varietal selection in marginal agroecological niches and cultural landscapes: the case of rice in the Togo Hills. Three things: participation, low-input conditions, landraces.
- Three founding ancestral genomes involved in the origin of sugarcane. A, B and C.
- “Essential non‐essentials”: COVID‐19 policy missteps in Nigeria rooted in persistent myths about African food supply chains. Five things: imports are not central to food security, rural families buy a lot of food, small farmers access markets after all, small & medium enterprises are hidden but not missing, domestic distribution is important.
- What Should Farmers’ Rights Look Like? The Possible Substance of a Right. 64 things.
- The one hundred tree species prioritized for planting in the tropics and subtropics as indicated by database mining. Bingo!