- World Vegetable Center Eggplant Collection: Origin, Composition, Seed Dissemination and Utilization in Breeding. 3,200 accessions from 90 countries, covering all 3 cultivated species, but not enough wild relatives.
- An integrated framework to identify wildlife populations under threat from climate change. Need to know about landscape connectivity, and genomic data would be useful too.
- Research impact: a narrative review. There are lots of methods, and the indirect ones are sometimes the best.
- Orthodox seeds and resurrection plants: two of a kind? Resurrection plants have reactivated the ancient seed drought tolerance program in vegetative tissues.
- Effect of genetic European taurine ancestry on milk yield of Ankole-Holstein crossbred dairy cattle in mixed smallholders system of Burundi highlands. European ancestry good for milk yield.
- First insights into the biochemical and molecular response to cold stress in Cicer microphyllum, a crop wild relative of chickpea (Cicer arietinum). High altitude Himalayan species found to have frost tolerance.
- Banana Collecting Mission in the Autonomous Region Of Bougainville (AROB), Papua New Guinea. 13 days, 61 accessions. Hard work.
- Morphological Characterisation of Selected African Accessions of Bambara Groundnut (Vigna subterranea (L.) Verdc.). 3 out of 300 out of 1973 have high yield potential. Hard work.
- A large-scale viability assessment of the potato cryobank at the International Potato Center (CIP). They’re getting better at it. Hard work.
- Deep Seeded Problems: A Look At Seed Bank Regulations. The USA should engage internationally on crop diversity conservation. Hard work.
- Australian Pastures Genebank – Temperate Species Regeneration. Hard work.
- Medium-term seed storage of 50 genera of forage legumes and evidence-based genebank monitoring intervals. Hard seeds are hard work.
- Agricultural Land Use Intensity and Determinants in Different Agroecological Regions in Central Nepal Himalaya. Location, location, location.
- Maize Diversity and Climate Change. To investigate the local adaptation of landraces, which you need for adaptation to climate change, you need the synergy that comes from genomics and phenomics in coordinated fashion.
Nibbles: Community seed bank, Weird chocolate, Rice breeding, “Super” plants, Quinoa, Bush tucker
- Mr Chetri’s genebank.
- Ruby chocolate. You heard me.
- The next Green Revolution won’t be like the first one. Phew.
- Ideas that will change the world include “super plants” like enset. Right.
- But not, surprisingly, quinoa.
- Or bush tucker.
WorldVeg in strategy reboot
The World Vegetable Center has a new logo and strategy. Great too see the genebank front and center. More later, after I’ve had a chance to digest it all. Including this paper on their eggplant collection, coincidentally just out.
Oh and I might as well also give a shoutout to SOLCUC2017, the XIV Solanaceae and III Cucurbitaceae Genomics Joint Conference in Valencia, Spain.
The tweeting has already started.
Solanum incanum – the wonder plant!!! #solcuc2017 Pietro Gramazio pic.twitter.com/tgdzYbhM0v
— Sandra Knapp (@SandyKnapp) September 4, 2017
Brainfood: Sustainability index, Beet wild relative, Participatory goats, Sarma, Wild wheat & drought, Ahipa conservation, Saving genebanks, Chinese cattle, Bolivia & CC, Seed systems, Cereal residues
- Sustainability assessment of agricultural systems: The validity of expert opinion and robustness of a multi-criteria analysis. Experts know their stuff.
- Genetic diversity of Patellifolia patellaris from the Iberian Peninsula, a crop wild relative of cultivated beets. 271 individuals, 10 sites, maybe 3 genetic groupings?
- Production system and participatory identification of breeding objective traits for indigenous goat breeds of Uganda. Resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses are the priority.
- Plant diversity for sarma in Turkey: nature, garden and traditional cuisine in the modernity. 73, including 3 endemics.
- Identification of ecogeographical gaps in the Spanish Aegilops collections with potential tolerance to drought and salinity. Evaluation avant la lettre.
- Trends and drivers of on-farm conservation of the root legume ahipa (Pachyrhizus ahipa) in Bolivia over the period 1994/96–2012. Price is too low.
- The Vulnerability of Plant Genetic Resources Conserved Ex Situ. The problem: “…genebanks around the world are generally under stress, largely from inadequate public investment, weakened political support, and insufficient stakeholder engagement.” The solution: privatization, commodification, consolidation, prioritization, communication.
- Species composition and environmental adaptation of indigenous Chinese cattle. Taurine-indicine cline N-S, with traces of banteng, gayal and yak.
- Climate change and crop diversity: farmers’ perceptions and adaptation on the Bolivian Altiplano. Maintaining multiple varieties still done, despite not seen as climate adaptation.
- A Risk Assessment Framework for Seed Degeneration: Informing an Integrated Seed Health Strategy for Vegetatively Propagated Crops. Actually not seed, but rather what to do about pathogen build-up in vegetative planting material. Turns out farmers can be quite good at producing clean material if they can choose healthy plants.
- New criteria for the molecular identification of cereal grains associated with archaeological artefacts. Alkylresorcinols, basically.
Nibbles: Seed saving, Craft saving, Talking sweet potatoes, Breeding eggplants, Cat domestication, Cary on Svalbard, US apple book, US strawberries, Forages newsletter, Banana double
- 94% is the new 75%. Here’s some of the survivors.
- But how many crafts have we lost?
- Win a prize for communicating about sweet potatoes.
- Pre-breeding eggplants using their wild relatives.
- Two waves of cat domestication.
- Svalbard double.
- 350 buck’s worth of apple history.
- 10 cent’s worth of strawberry history.
- Latest newsletter from those nice forages genetic resources conservation folks.
- Bananas good and bad news.