- Unlocking the genetic diversity of the undomesticated rice relative Oryza longistaminata. Natural hybrids discovered in IRRI genebank can accelerate breeding.
- Evidence for mid-Holocene rice domestication in the Americas. Another rice domestication?
- Evaluation and strategies of tolerance to water stress in Paspalum germplasm. A species for every purpose.
- Evaluation of Cassava Germplasm Accessions for High Tuber Yield and Starch Content for Industrial Exploitations. Watch Me681 take over. At least in India.
- Does intercropping enhance yield stability in arable crop production? A meta-analysis. Yes.
- Collection, Evaluation and Utilization of Cotton Germplasm. Over a thousand accessions!
- Treasure in the vault: The guardianship of ‘heritage’ seeds, fruit and vegetables. “Treasure” is a loaded term.
- Will the same ex situ protocols give similar results for closely related species? Yep.
- Global Hotspots of Conflict Risk between Food Security and Biodiversity Conservation. Madagascar is particularly worrying.
- Genetic diversity assessment of a set of introduced mung bean accessions (Vigna radiata L.). Germplasm from USDA genebank could be useful in China.
- Database of European chestnut cultivars and definition of a core collection using simple sequence repeats. Not sure you can call it European when 96 of 118 accessions are from Spain, but anyway.
- Genome of wild olive and the evolution of oil biosynthesis. Two genes explain all that oil…
- Did Greek colonisation bring olive growing to the north? An integrated archaeobotanical investigation of the spread of Olea europaea in Greece from the 7th to the 1st millennium BC. …which would have been intensely interesting to early Bronze Age elites.
- The draft genome of tropical fruit durian (Durio zibethinus). “Transcriptomic analysis showed upregulation of sulfur-, ethylene-, and lipid-related pathways in durian fruits.” You don’t say. Let’s engineer them into olives. Paleopolyploidizations here too, as in olives.
Nibbles: Digital lettuce, Dutch seeds, Durian genome, Jackfruit 101, Ag origins, Palestinian watermelon, Pumpkin evolution, Wine trade
- Dutch lettuce collection to be sequenced.
- Ah yes, the Dutch are real seed visionaries.
- Durian next?
- Maybe jackfruit?
- We should never have given up being hunter-gatherers.
- But then we wouldn’t have watermelons. Or, later in the year, pumpkins.
- Or wine.
Brainfood: Antioxidant adzuki, Sorghum gaps, Natural rubber diversity, Non-flying geese
- Phytochemical distribution and antioxidant activities of Korean adzuki bean (Vigna angularis) landraces. A cluster of about 10% of 200 Korean landraces have higher antioxidant activity, and smaller seeds. Watch them take over the world.
- Sorghum germplasm from West and Central Africa maintained in the ICRISAT genebank: Status, gaps, and diversity. Lots of gaps, but Nigeria isn’t one of them.
- A century of guayule: Comprehensive genetic characterization of the US national guayule (Parthenium argentatum A. Gray) germplasm collection. The future of natural rubber is in Texas.
- Contribution of both positive selection and relaxation of selective constraints to degeneration of flyability during geese domestication. Wild geese chased no longer due to strong selection on mitochondrial respiratory chain genes.
Brainfood: Pennisetum genome, Dioscorea genome, CBS timeline, Global taro, Science storytelling, Fragmented populations, Beet diversity, Potato diversity, Norwegian chickens, Med holidays, ABS, Jatropha diversity, Better olive oil
- Pearl millet genome sequence provides a resource to improve agronomic traits in arid environments. Of course it does. Lots of genes for natural wax proteins may be part of the answer.
- Genome sequencing of the staple food crop white Guinea yam enables the development of a molecular marker for sex determination. Which should make breeding more efficient.
- Cassava brown streak disease: historical timeline, current knowledge and future prospects. Re-emergence drives intense scientific scrutiny, and maybe some solutions, including 25 best-bet clones from the region which show foliar symptoms but no tuber necrosis.
- Adapting clonally propagated crops to climatic changes: a global approach for taro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott). People need taro diversity.
- Opinion: Finding the plot in science storytelling in hopes of enhancing science communication. See all of the above.
- Call for a Paradigm Shift in the Genetic Management of Fragmented Populations. Mix it up!
- How scattered trees matter for biodiversity conservation in active pastures. By being diverse, and helping in forest recovery. Someone should mash up with the previous.
- Insights into the genetic relationships among plants of Beta section Beta using SNP markers. Fancy markers say same thing as less fancy markers.
- Levels of Intra-Specific AFLP diversity in Tuber-Bearing Potato Species with Different Breeding Systems and Ploidy Levels. One plant is enough for self-compatible species.
- Genetic diversity in five chicken lines from the Norwegian live poultry gene bank. Not much, globally speaking. But that’s not the whole point.
- Is It Still Necessary to Continue to Collect Crop Genetic Resources in the Mediterranean Area? A Case Study in Catalonia. Yes.
- Beyond access and benefit-sharing : lessons from the emergence and application of the principle of fair and equitable benefit-sharing in agrobiodiversity governance. It’s not yet working, maybe because it’s too complicated.
- Genetic Tracing of Jatropha curcas L. from Its Mesoamerican Origin to the World. Now we know where to go look for fixes to the low productivity problem of African and Asian material, which is all derived from a couple of accessions.
- Exploration of genetic resources to improve the functional quality of virgin olive oil. We need data on phenolic composition.
Nibbles: Millets galore, Human diversity & ag, Super farmers, Extinction is forever, Indian nutrition maps, Future Food competition, Banana viruses, Cassava in Brazil & Africa, Sugar book, Fairchild & Irma, Vegetable ROI, Embrapa beans, Certified coffee, Legal pot, Native American foods
- Today’s new genome is pearl millet. The most climate-smart of crops? Now, to process it more easily.
- Finger millet is not too bad either.
- Agriculture was good for human diversity, at least in Papua New Guinea. Elsewhere, maybe not so much.
- Julio Hancco Mamani grows 400 potato varieties up in the Andes (but how did it all start?). And Rahibai Soma Popere “15 varieties of rice, nine varieties of pigeon pea and sixty varieties of vegetables, besides many oil seeds” in Maharashtra.
- “West Bengal government encourages cultivation of extinct rice varieties.” Wait, what?
- Presumably not extinct like silphium.
- India’s first nutrition atlas will maybe tells us where more Rahibai Soma Poperes are most needed.
- Future Food includes seeds.
- Cleaning up bananas.
- Would love to have been on the “Brazilian Cassava Learning Journey.” Tanzania next?
- The bitter side of sugar.
- Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden damaged by Irma.
- Research on vegetables really pays off, vegetable researchers say.
- Brazilian bean catalog launched.
- Certifying coffee seeds.
- Pot next?
- Closely followed by Navajo tea.