Brainfood: Taxonomic identification, Niche mapping, Harvest tracking, Drones, Phenomics, Yield analysis

Nibbles: Supermarkets, Cate Blanchett, ABS, Transformation, Medieval haymaking, Aurochs rewilding, Breed concept

  1. What’s wrong with supermarkets.
  2. Cate Blanchett on the Millennium Seed Bank. Attitude to supermarkets unknown.
  3. Access & Benefit Sharing 101. Cate Blanchett unavailable for comment.
  4. Experts weigh in on how we should change how we eat. Nobody but Cate Blanchett will listen, but supermarkets and seeds feature, for what it’s worth.
  5. How they ate in the Middle Ages without supermarkets. Or at least harvested.
  6. After we’re done with medieval haymaking, let’s bring back the aurochs too. And put it in a supermarket?
  7. Yeah but what is a breed anyway? Or an aurochs, for that matter.

Brainfood: Core collections of…durum, deulkkae, barnyard millet, durian, sesame, flax, Fendler’s horsenettle, jute mallow, barley

Brainfood: Agroecology, Afghan wheat, CWR microbes, Chocolate microbes, Liberica coffee, Wild apples, USDA cotton collection, Parmesan cattle, Sweetpotato genome, Vertical tomatoes

Tuber or not tuber

A paper in Cell has really caught the imagination of the media in the past few days. You wouldn’t necessarily be able to guess why from its title, though: “Ancient hybridization underlies tuberization and radiation of the potato lineage.” The reason for all the interest, I guess, is that the hybridization in question was between a potato ancestor with no tubers and a plant that was closer to a tomato. Yes, two genes from distant lineages, neither tuber-forming, combined by chance some 9 million years ago to produce the progenitor of all tuber-bearing potatoes, which then diversified as the Andes were uplifted and themselves diversified. Definitely worth the hoopla.

Jeremy also includes the paper in his latest newsletter.