Wild relatives

July 1, 2026July 1, 2026

Playing around with wild potatoes

Journey through 1946’s South America to find and collect wild potato plants, which might hold the key to defeat the blight affecting British crops.

Choose your route, solve puzzles, and learn more about the world of potato biodiversity. But be careful not to run out of resources or you’ll have to cut your expedition short!

That’s all the introduction you get to a new online game from Abertay University and the James Hutton Institute, but it’s clearly inspired by Jack Hawkes’ famous potato collecting expeditions to South America. The resulting Empire Potato Collection, now called the Commonwealth Potato Collection, is still maintained at the Hutton. Our friend Mike Jackson has blogged very comprehensively about it, and also about his own efforts following in the footsteps of Prof. Hawkes.

Let’s see what Mike thinks about the game. I found it a little tricky to get into, though mildly entertaining once I did. But I never collected wild potatoes.

June 29, 2026

Brainfood: Animal genetic resources

Beyond the binary: Queer inclusion and invisible labour in Samoa’s fisheries value chains. Fisheries in Samoa depend on significant but largely unrecognized labour by LGBTQ+ people, particularly fa’afafine and fa’afatama, whose contributions are overlooked by policies based on rigid gender categories.
Genetic and morphological diversity of indigenous chicken of Kenya: A Review. Kenya’s indigenous chickens are adapted to diverse environments, resilient to disease, and important for rural livelihoods.
Uncovering the lives of rock doves (Columba livia) in Late Bronze Age Hala Sultan Tekke, Cyprus. Rock doves lived alongside people in a major Late Bronze Age port city, revealing a more complex relationship than simple domestication in which doves exploited urban environments while providing food and other resources.
Farmed Escapees Threaten MHC Diversity in Wild Atlantic Salmon. Escaped farmed Atlantic salmon can erode the diversity of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes in wild populations through interbreeding, which could reduce the long-term resilience and adaptability of wild salmon.
Creation of intermuscular bone-free genetic mutants in grass carp and multiomics reveals molecular regulatory basis. Genome editing was used to produce grass carp lacking the numerous fine intermuscular bones that reduce consumer appeal, opening new possibilities for breeding more marketable fish while deepening understanding of skeletal biology.

June 26, 2026June 26, 2026

Nibbles: Cayman coconuts, Wild beans, Breeding Bambara, Aussie genebank, UAE law, EBI, Amazonian ag

The Cayman Islands bets on a genebank of coconut diversity.
The Alliance of Bioversity & CIAT’s genebank bets on growth cabinets to save picky wild bean.
IITA bets on stakeholders to build a better Bambara groundnut. And its genebank, presumably.
The Australian Seed Bank Partnership bets on, well, seeds.
The UAE bets on a PGRFA law.
Ethiopia bet on a national genebank 50 years ago.
People have been betting on the chagra in the Amazon for 4,500 years.

June 22, 2026June 22, 2026

Brainfood: Seeds through time

Natufian sickle blades (ca. 15,000–11,700 cal. BP) reveal cereal cultivation ca. 4.5 millennia before domestication. Archaeological evidence from ancient sickle blades suggests that people were harvesting cereal seeds thousands of years before domesticated forms emerged, blurring the line between foraging and farming, and offering fresh insight into the long co-evolution of humans and crops.
Teosinte alleles enhance nitrogen assimilation and seed protein in maize. Wild relatives continue to provide valuable genetic resources for the improvement of crop seeds.
Modeling seed germination data to meet biodiversity conservation needs in the Mediterranean. Robust germination models can improve both restoration planning and ex situ conservation by predicting when and how seeds are most likely to establish.
To grow or not to grow: questioning seed dormancy and thermal germination responses along elevational gradients in four plant taxa. Seed dormancy does not always follow predictable patterns across environmental gradients.
Delayed Seed Germination as a Strategy to Cope With Environmental Stress and Disturbance. Seed dormancy follows a (fairly) predictable pattern when you look at stress and disturbance.
Reconsidering how to dry orthodox seeds for improved ex situ conservation outcomes. Conventional wisdom about drying orthodox seeds before storage may deserve re-evaluation, and refining drying protocols could enhance long-term viability and strengthen the effectiveness of seed banks.
Short periods dominate mast seeding across diverse tree species. A broad analysis of mast seeding reveals that many tree species synchronize seed production over relatively short recurring intervals rather than highly irregular cycles.

June 16, 2026June 16, 2026

Nibbles: NSW genebank, Ghana genebank, Community seed bank standards, Kenya legislation, Valuing diversity, BBC on potato, Ube yams in Philippines, Strawberry anatomy and history

Another genebank in Australia. Unclear how it relates to the existing ones.
Ghana’s genebank in funding trouble.
How to run a community seed bank, according to the Bureau of Indian Standards. Apparently includes things like its relationship with other genebanks and funding.
How to change legislation in Kenya to be more supportive of genebanks.
Why we need genebanks in the first place.
Otherwise decent podcast on the potato manages not to mention genebanks.
Otherwise decent article on ube (Dioscorea alata) manages not to mention genebanks.
Otherwise excellent dissection of the strawberry manages not to mention genebanks.