- Patterns of Cereal Yield Growth across China from 1980 to 2010 and Their Implications for Food Production and Food Security. There has been yield stagnation over about 50% of total area of rice and maize, 15% of wheat.
- Genomic signatures of North American soybean improvement inform diversity enrichment strategies and clarify the impact of hybridization. 579 soybean varieties released 1940-2009 fall into 3 maturity groups, the overall diversity of which is not too different from the diversity of the ancestor landraces.
- Low-Coverage, Whole-Genome Sequencing of Artocarpus camansi (Moraceae) for Phylogenetic Marker Development and Gene Discovery. There’s been a whole genome duplication in Artocarpus.
- ColectoR, a Digital Field Notebook for Voucher Specimen Collection for Smartphones. So many of these things around.
- Potential ecosystem services of urban agriculture: a review. Important at local scale, not so much at global scale.
- Nineteenth century French rose (Rosa sp.) germplasm shows a shift over time from a European to an Asian genetic background. Ah, the lure of the exotic; 19 genetic groups, not corresponding to horticultural groups.
- Cryopreservation of in vitro shoot tips of strawberry by the vitrification method — establishment of a duplicate collection of Fragaria germplasm. The German national collection, including wild relatives, is a bit safer.
- Has land use pushed terrestrial biodiversity beyond the planetary boundary? A global assessment. Looks like it. Cross-reference with crop wild relatives?
- Traditional Banana Diversity in Oceania: An Endangered Heritage. Out of New Guinea…
- The contribution of international vegetable breeding to private seed companies in India. Vegetable breeding by AVRDC still has a role as R&D shifts to the private sector, but it’s different to what it was.
- Whole-genome sequencing of native sheep provides insights into rapid adaptations to extreme environments. Genomes of 77 Chinese breeds from extreme environments reveal genes likely to be useful in extreme environments.
Nibbles: Maize domestication, Seaweed as food, Holy plants, Pre-Columbian Amazon, Pulses, Myanmar rice, Ghana cassava, Chocolate festivities, Tobacco biofuel, Evidence base, Brazilian agrobiodiversity
- Maize domestication video from CONABIO.
- Why has a seaweed never been domesticated?
- Any seaweeds mentioned in the Bible?
- Series of talks on ancient Amazonia.
- Africa needs pulses.
- Myanmar needs salinity tolerant rice.
- 30% of Ghanaian cassavas are improved varieties, but you wouldn’t know it from their names.
- Wait, what, we missed World Chocolate Day?
- Tobacco for airplanes, no warning label required.
- Latest list of conservation interventions that work tackles forests.
- Brazil lists nutritious native species.
Nibbles: Heirloom rice, Kava traditions, State turnip, Japanese paper, Potato Day, Madagascar invasion
- There’s Carolina Gold in them thar hills. Latest in a long list…
- Kava in the Pacific, island by island.
- A really ugly heirloom turnip is Vermont’s state vegetable. In other news, there are state vegetables.
- This video will make you want to make your own paper, I guarantee it.
- Oh come on, we missed Peru’s National Potato Day?
- Crop remains confirm Malagasy origins. But was Carolina Gold among them? Here’s the paper.
Brainfood: Italian chickens, Maca genome, Ordonomics, AnGR, Stuffed potato, Biological control, Wild pea, Rice landraces
- Genetic variability of two Italian indigenous chicken breeds inferred from microsatellite marker analysis. Two Piedmontese breeds are closer to British breeds than other Italian or continental chickens. And poorly managed to boot.
- Genome of plant maca (Lepidium meyenii) illuminates genomic basis for high altitude adaptation in the central Andes. It’s the whole genome duplications, stupid.
- Rationalizing the GMO Debate: The Ordonomic Approach to Addressing Agricultural Myths. Yeah that’ll work.
- Factors and determinants of animal genetic resources management activities across the world. Capacity, says fancy maths.
- Accumulation of Genetic Diversity in the US Potato Genebank. The collection may need to double.
- Structure, function and management of semi-natural habitats for conservation biological control: A review of European studies. There is plenty of information on natural enemies in natural habitats (though not in woodlands, surprisingly), but not much on whether they make it to adjacent fields and actually have an effect on pests.
- Prospects of the use of wild relatives for pea breeding. More work needed. Starting with translating this thing from the Russian.
- Genetic Diversity Analysis Reveals Importance of Green Revolution Gene (Sd1 Locus) for Drought Tolerance in Rice. Back to the landraces.
Nibbles: Botanical gardens, Glass flowers, Remarkable trees, Rhubarb history, Expensive pumpkin, Back to the future, Quinoa glut, Citrus greening biocontrol
- All of BGCI’s ex situ surveys on one cool page. Have they re-modelled their website?
- Harvard’s glass flowers are totally cool.
- The world’s coolest trees.
- Rhubarb is cooler than you think.
- I’m not sure paying over a thousand pounds for a pumpkin seed is all that cool.
- Conventional breeding is cooler than genetic engineering. Cool quote of the week: “I tell my students they should drop acid before they go to the field, and just look at the plants and let them tell you what they are doing.”
- Is the coolness over for quinoa? Jeremy unavailable for comment.
- Cool Pakistani bug may help with citrus greening in the US. But don’t stop looking for resistance, y’all.