- A domestication assessment of the big five plant families. Half of cultivated plants are legumes, a third grasses.
- The vulnerability of US apple (Malus) genetic resources. Moderate.
- Microorganisms associated with amylolytic starters and traditional fermented alcoholic beverages of north western Himalayas in India. Veritable microbial communities.
- Spatial incongruence among hotspots and complementary areas of tree diversity in southern Africa. It’s not just about the hotspots.
- Integrating Agricultural and Ecological Goals into the Management of Species-Rich Grasslands: Learning from the Flowering Meadows Competition in France. Gotta document the synergies.
- Genetic–geographic correlation revealed across a broad European ecotypic sample of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) using array-based SNP genotyping. Strong structure both with latitude and longitude. Wonder if the Flowering Meadows competition took that into account.
- Interactions of knowledge systems in shiitake mushroom production: a case study on the Noto Peninsula, Japan. Tradition is not always a totally good thing.
- Development of Core Sets of Dolichos Bean (Lablab purpureus L. Sweet) Germplasm. Heuristic is better. But is it PowerCore?
- Genetic Diversity of Local and Introduced Sweet Potato [Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam.] Collections for Agro-morphology and Physicochemical Attributes in Ethiopia. The improved varieties are not all that great. But there were only two of them. And the local landraces were not necessarily the best.
- Study of genetic variability in Vitis vinifera L. germplasm by high-throughput Vitis18kSNP array: the case of Georgian genetic resources. Some differentiation between wild and cultivated, but significant overlap.
Invisible Angola
Kew botanist David Goyder had a thought-provoking blog post a couple of days back describing the relative lack of floristic data from Angola. Here’s his map of plant collection data for southern Africa, from GBIF:
Angola emerges quite clearly as a gap, particularly the interior. There’s lots of reasons for that, not least landmines, as Goyder points out, and there are also efforts underway to redress the situation. But the thought that the map provoked in me was, of course, whether the situation was similar for crops. So here’s what Genesys knows about crop germaplasm collections in southern Africa:
It seems the answer is a pretty resounding yes. Again, you can clearly trace the borders of Angola by where the genebank accessions end. There is, in fact, though, a very active national genebank in Angola, which has been collecting the country’s crop diversity for years, landmines or no landmines:
A total of 441 accessions were collected during a mult-crop collection in Huila province, Namibi province and Malanga province in 2004. With these collections, NPGRC now has a representative sample from 55% of the total number of districts in the country and representing 60% of the recognized agricultural zones (MIIA).
But when will we be able to see the data?
Rational botanical gardens
The 7th European Botanic Gardens Congress is on this week, in Paris. You can follow it in all the usual ways, or most of them anyway. I was struck by this tweet from the opening day, of a slide from the presentation by new BGCI director Paul Smith. Sounds a lot like what we’re trying to do with crop genebanks around the world too.
La importancia de los #jardines #botánicos #EurogardVII by Smith Paul pic.twitter.com/ULQanwdBCM
— Aso.AmigosConcepcion (@AAJBHC) July 6, 2015
There’s a botanical garden that is conserving one crop almost single-handedly, but Diane Ragone, who’s in charge of the the National Tropical Botanical Garden and its breadfruit collection, is at a different, and I suspect more entertaining, conference in Trinidad.
LATER: Paul’s vision is more fully set out here.
Brainfood: Weed collection, Japan vs China wheat, China wheat, Indian maize, Aromatic rice, African cattle, Food system vulnerabilities, SDGs & nutrition, Suitable days, Setaria phenotyping
- Genetic Resources of Cannabis sativa L. in the Collection of the Gene Bank at INF&MP in Poznan. I’d pay money to see this in the field at evaluation time.
- Specific median flour particle size distribution of Japanese common wheats; Comparison with Chinese common wheats. Japanese diversity is a small fraction of Chinese diversity. Also, can you really have semicolons in titles?
- Association and Validation of Yield-Favored Alleles in Chinese Cultivars of Common Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). And among Chinese wheats, the modern cultivars are a small subset of the diversity in the mini core collection.
- Diversity among maize landraces in North West Himalayan region of India assessed by agro-morphological and quality traits. I like it when specific accessions are highlighted as being special in some way. But will breeders around the world have access to them?
- Genetic Diversity and Population Structure in Aromatic and Quality Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Landraces from North-Eastern India. More than just basmati. But will breeders around the world have access to them?
- African Indigenous Cattle: Unique Genetic Resources in a Rapidly Changing World. At least 150 breeds, many endangered, all important.
- Sustainable Sourcing of Global Agricultural Raw Materials: Assessing Gaps in Key Impact and Vulnerability Issues and Indicators. We don’t know the vulnerabilities well enough.
- Can the sustainable development goals reduce the burden of nutrition-related non-communicable diseases without truly addressing major food system reforms? No.
- Suitable Days for Plant Growth Disappear under Projected Climate Change: Potential Human and Biotic Vulnerability. Tropical areas are screwed.
- A versatile phenotyping system and analytics platform reveals diverse temporal responses to water availability in Setaria. Fancy equipment picks out differences among genotypes.
Nibbles: Monocultures redux, Seedless watermelons, Red kiwifruit, Herbaria problems, Forest foods, Sorghum beer, SIRGEALC, Chinese veggies, Organic tomatoes, Andean women, Rise origins, Fermentation
- Deploy your cover crop diversity in time rather than space. But deploy it.
- Triploid goodness.
- Searching for a red kiwi.
- Herbaria on the rack.
- Let them eat non-timber forest products.
- Sorghum spurts in Kenya. Because beer.
- Sign up for SIRGEALC 10.
- Knowing your 菠菜 from your 西洋菜.
- 400 tomato varieties. No pesticides. No water. No problem.
- Women are conserving Andean crops. Sure, though with some occasional help from genebanks.
- The Rice Origins Wars continue.
- Sauerkraut changed the world.