Wild relatives

July 18, 2017July 18, 2017

Measuring the success of botanical gardens

Good to see Botanic Gardens Conservation International first technical review online, entitled Defining the botanic garden, and how to measure performance and success.

The definition part turns out to be a compendium of “criteria useful in defining a botanic garden.” The performance measures are rather long lists of indicators in the following areas, ranked by the percentage of correspondents who agreed with each measure:

Plant conservation
Scientific research
Collections
Horticulture
Public engagement and education
Sustainability and ethics
Business management and governance

Here’s the overall list:

Is there anything genebanks could learn from these?

July 17, 2017July 17, 2017

Brainfood: African tea, Iranian olives, Persistent identifiers, Fast breeding, Lablab domestication, Pea origin, Celebs & conservation, Ancient dope, Sugarcane evolution, Chicken selection

Multiple origins and a narrow genepool characterise the African tea germplasm: concordant patterns revealed by nuclear and plastid DNA markers. It’s a “potpourri,” but kinda missing Chinese Assam stuff.
The eastern part of the Fertile Crescent concealed an unexpected route of olive (Olea europaea L.) differentiation. It was in Iran before domestication.
Identifiers for the 21st century: How to design, provision, and reuse persistent identifiers to maximize utility and impact of life science data. Why DOIs succeeded, and why something like them needs to be applied to biological specimens, including genebank accessions, to combat “desultory citation practices”. But we knew that.
Speed breeding: a powerful tool to accelerate crop research and breeding. Can double the number of generations per unit time with fully-enclosed controlled-environment growth chambers.
Evidence for two domestication events of hyacinth bean (Lablab purpureus (L.) Sweet): a comparative analysis of population genetic data. With the 2-seeded group domesticated in Ethiopia, the 4-seeded somewhere else in Africa.
Refinement of the collection of wild peas (Pisum L.) and search for the area of pea domestication with a deletion in the plastidic psbA-trnH spacer. Maybe not Turkey.
The effectiveness of celebrities in conservation marketing. Use carefully, and evaluate.
Cannabis in Eurasia: origin of human use and Bronze Age trans-continental connections. Proto-Indo-Europeans were real stoners.
Analysis of Three Sugarcane Homo/Homeologous Regions Suggests Independent Polyploidization Events of Saccharum officinarum and Saccharum spontaneum. It’s really complicated, not least because of plant breeders.
Genomic Comparison of Indigenous African and Northern European Chickens Reveals Putative Mechanisms of Stress Tolerance Related to Environmental Selection Pressure. African chickens able to withstand high temperatures due to a region on chromosome 27 and European chickens low temperatures due to region on chromosome 2.

July 14, 2017July 14, 2017

Nibbles: Dwarf rice, Ricestoration, Tarostoration, Biorepositories, Sustainable coffee, Cactus wars, Goaty portraits, Spandrels, Potato genebank, Forests and nutrition

The long and short of Green Revolution rice.
Restoring historical slave-worked rice fields in North Carolina.
Kinda similar, but taro in Hawaii.
There’s a bank for milk diversity.
Nice review of sustainable coffee production.
Opuntia: tasty but deadly (to some).
Handsome goat pix.
Festoons of fruits at the Farnesina: Jeremy is incensed.
Great new webpages for the CIP genebank.
Another report on a report that living close to forests is good for nutritional security, up to a point. But bushmeat?

July 11, 2017July 11, 2017

Nibbles: Visionary edition

New guy in charge Peter Wenzl gives us his vision for the CIAT genebank.
Agriculture and Irrigation Minister of Peru gives us his vision for the Peruvian genebank.
CIMMYT’s annual report gives us a vision of conserving maize in Guatemala.
Farmer Somashekhara gives us his vision for finger millet farming in India. And two makes a trend…
Retired agriculture expert Malcolm Hazelman gives us his vision for Samoan gardens.
A Tagorean vision of radical relocalization involving perennial edimentals.
Lots of people give us their vision for saving the wild apple.
IFPRI gives us their vision for the future of food in a changing world. With infographic goodness.
Natalie Mueller et al. give us their vision for reviving the forgotten crops of the Eastern Agricultural Complex.
A vision of a planet protected in situ, in multiple ways. Yes, even pigeons. And yes, even cities, though agrobiodiversity neglected as usual.
A vision of permanent identifiers everywhere.
DNA gives us a vision of domestication explained. Yes, even sugarcane.

July 10, 2017July 10, 2017

Brainfood: Wild foods, Maize in Guatemala, Wild lentils, Sorghum gaps, Ethiopian erosion, Chikanda barcoding, Brazil nut systems, Wild carrots, Ancient wild potato use, Wild wheat grains

The role of wild fruits and vegetables in delivering a balanced and healthy diet. Not great, until they’re domesticated.
Maize Diversity, Market Access, and Poverty Reduction in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. Forget maize.
Evaluation of Wild Lentil Species as Genetic Resources to Improve Drought Tolerance in Cultivated Lentil. Environment explained drought response in wild lentils better than molecular classification.
Geographical distribution, diversity and gap analysis of East African sorghum collection conserved at the ICRISAT genebank. Both Sudans.
Explaining the Ethiopian farmers’ perceptions on potential loss of traditional crop varieties: A principal components regression analysis. Poor farmers know more, and care more, about loss of traditional landraces.
High-throughput sequencing of African chikanda cake highlights conservation challenges in orchids. Those are very biodiverse cakes, but not in a good way.
Revisiting the ‘cornerstone of Amazonian conservation’: a socioecological assessment of Brazil nut exploitation. It’s actually in pretty good shape, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.
Phylogenetic Prediction of Alternaria Leaf Blight Resistance in Wild and Cultivated Species of Carrots. Look for taller material in clade A.
Starch granule evidence for the earliest potato use in North America. S. jamesii may have been used for 10,000 years in Utah.
Genome-Wide Association Study of Grain Architecture in Wild Wheat Aegilops tauschii. Two genetic lineages, with big differences in grain width and weight.