- Unlocking the secrets of extreme seed longevity: the relevance of historic botanical collections to modern research. Claims that very old seeds are still alive are probably exaggerated. Except from genebanks, of course.
- Archaeological assessment reveals Earth’s early transformation through land use. We had transformed the world globally by 3000 years ago.
- Genome-wide association studies in apple reveal loci of large effect controlling apple polyphenols. It should be surprisingly easy to breed really healthy apples. No word on adaptation.
- Identifying loci with breeding potential across temperate and tropical adaptation via EigenGWAS and EnvGWAS. 13 genomic regions under ecological selection in maize. No word on nutrition.
- The maize frontier in rural South India: Exploring the everyday dynamics of the contemporary food regime. Adoption is being driven both top-down and bottom-up.
- Simple study designs in ecology produce inaccurate estimates of biodiversity responses. Complexity in experimental design is worth it.
- Early integration of pastoralism and millet cultivation in Bronze Age Eurasia. In southeastern Kazakhstan, ca 2700 BC, mobile pastoralists winter foddered their sheep and goat with the region’s earliest cultivated millet, which came from China.
- The formation of human populations in South and Central Asia. People and crops moved together, both east and west. Oh, and are the above the Yanmaya?
- Lost Grains and Forgotten Vegetables from Japan: the Seikei Zusetsu Agricultural Catalog (1793–1804). Fewer than half of the 109 species illustrated are still grown in Japan.
- Soil legacy data rescue via GlobalSoilMap and other international and national initiatives. Should do the same with genebank data too.
- Insights into deployment of DNA markers in plant variety protection and registration. Will increasingly be used in support of DUS, apparently.
- Genetic Contribution of Synthetic Hexaploid Wheat to CIMMYT’s Spring Bread Wheat Breeding Germplasm. 20% of the lines in international yield trials were synthetic-derived with an average genetic contribution from the D genome wild relative of 15.6%.
- Genetic diversity and population structure analysis of synthetic and bread wheat accessions in Western Siberia. The Japanese synthetics are something else.
Harvesting diversity
The World Bank’s latest blockbuster report, Harvesting Prosperity: Technology and Productivity Growth in Agriculture, argues that we can’t afford to take our eye off the ball of raising agricultural productivity just yet, despite past successes. The report weighs in at over 200 pages, but there’s a nice summary in a blog post by one of the authors. I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but I was quite pleased — and not a little surprised — to see this on a quick first run-through:
Although agricultural technologies need to be tailored to location-specific conditions, much of the pool of knowledge and genetic resources that scientists draw upon to make these adaptions is supplied by universities and research institutes in developed countries or centers participating in the CGIAR, which are sometimes referred to as advanced research institutes, or ARIs. Basic and applied research at ARIs continues to make major methodological advances in the scientific tools used in agricultural research… ARIs are also sources of broad and accessible collections of crop genetic resources, such as those maintained by the CGIAR centers and the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service.
https://twitter.com/jessfanzo/status/1174961074073812993
Brainfood: Nutrient availability, Afghani wheat, Poverty reduction, Tanzania ag development, Fish refuges, Gender, Cerrado conversion, Rice origins, Global erosion, Food perceptions, Ag & health, Mongolian Allium, Bean disease, Tropical legumes
- Combining the effects of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide on protein, iron, and zinc availability and projected climate change on global diets: a modelling study. Global net availability to decrease by 15-20% by 2050, mostly where it’s already low.
- Tracking the adoption of bread wheat varieties in Afghanistan using DNA fingerprinting. 75% of samples were varieties released after 2000, landraces are being replaced, and farmers name varieties correctly about 50% of the times.
- Pathways from research on improved staple crop germplasm to poverty reduction for smallholder farmers. Land, land, land.
- “Modern” farming and the transformation of livelihoods in rural Tanzania. Small is still beautiful.
- Analyzing drivers of fish biomass and biodiversity within community fish refuges in Cambodia. Governance, governance, governance.
- The Role of Women in Production and Management of RTB Crops in Rwanda and Burundi: Do Men Decide, and Women Work? Guess. I bet you’re wrong.
- Soy expansion in Brazil’s Cerrado. Forget the Amazon.
- Genomic history and ecology of the geographic spread of rice. Yangtze Valley –> global cooling –> temperate + tropical japonica –> SE Asia –> diversification. Indica is more complicated.
- Estimated six per cent loss of genetic variation in wild populations since the industrial revolution. The new 75%.
- Eating Healthy or Feeling Empty? How the “Healthy = Less Filling” Intuition Influences Satiety. Healthier food is perceived as less filling, unless it’s described as nutritions. People are strange.
- What is the cost of integration? Evidence from an integrated health and agriculture project to improve nutrition outcomes in Western Kenya. Not insignificant, but worth it.
- Traditional utilization and management of wild Allium plants in Inner Mongolia. 38 species, no less; many uses, much threatened.
- Haplotypes at the Phg-2 Locus Are Determining Pathotype-Specificity of Angular Leaf Spot Resistance in Common Bean. Good use being made of the CIAT genebank.
- A decade of Tropical Legumes projects: Development and adoption of improved varieties, creation of market‐demand to benefit smallholder farmers and empowerment of national programmes in sub‐Saharan Africa and South Asia. US$ 67 million in from Gates Foundation, US$ 3.2 billion out in certified seed alone. Read the whole special issue for more. All starts with genebanks, though, doesn’t it. Doesn’t it? Hello? Is there anyone out there? Is this thing on?
A very special issue of Plants in the making
Our friends Andreas Ebert and Jan Engels are editing a Special Issue of the journal Plants on “Plant Biodiversity and Genetic Resources.”
Dear Colleagues,
The foundation of the world food supply is based on thousands of years of crop selection, and improvement carried out on wild and semi-domesticated species, crop wild relatives and landraces, giving rise to present-day cultivated crop varieties. The ‘wild’ genes of crop wild relatives and landraces strongly influence agronomic characteristics such as phenology, growing seasons, sensitivity to inputs (i.e., fertilizer and water), resistance to diseases and insect pests and tolerance to heat, drought, and salinity. The availability of such genetic diversity is critical for plant breeding, especially with climate change. Moreover, the genetic diversity within and between species gives rise to a multitude of characteristics that enable plants, animals, and microbes to fulfill different roles in the environment and to adapt to changing conditions, as this diversity will ensure the continued functioning of ecosystems and the provisioning of ecosystem services.
Current over-reliance on a handful of major staple crops has inherent agronomic, ecological, nutritional, and economic risks and is unsustainable in the long run. The wider use of underutilized minor crops provides more options to build temporal and spatial heterogeneity into uniform cropping systems helping to maintain and enhance efficiency and resilience of agroecosystems and to enhance dietary diversity and combat malnutrition.
Production systems and the underlying genetic resources including crop wild relatives that are found in cultivated and protected land, and especially in natural ecosystems such as forests (ranging from tropical to temperate), are severely threatened due to drastic land-use changes, over-exploitation of resources, and man-made and natural disasters. Climate change is already affecting the distribution of plants and associated species, their population sizes, and life cycles. Efficient adaptation strategies for a changing climate require, among other measures, the effective and rational conservation and sustainable utilization of the remaining (in particular agricultural) biodiversity, both in situ as well as in genebanks and access to genetic resources of crops and their wild relatives by plant breeders.
To develop and grow ‘climate-smart’ crop varieties for sustainable production systems, farmers and plant breeders worldwide are in dire need of access to a wide range of traits and genes, often found in plant genetic resources located far away from major production areas. This raises a multitude of policy issues and concerns regarding access and benefit-sharing, ownership, intellectual property rights, and patents imposed on PGRFA and breeding lines, as well as implications of transgenic crops for biodiversity and sustainable agriculture.
Therefore, in this Special Issue on plant biodiversity and genetic resources, we invite articles (original research papers, reviews, perspectives, opinions, and modeling approaches) that address the above-mentioned issues and are guided by the keywords provided for this topic.
Dr. Andreas W. Ebert
Dr. Johannes M. M. Engels
Guest Editors
Deadline for manuscript submission is 29 February 2020.
Brainfood: Creole cattle, Wattle diversity, Olive death, Cucurbit diversity, Child nutrition, Seed systems, N efficiency, Black Sigatoka, Ag oils, Sharing double, Cow sharing, Horse phenotyping, Nutrients & CC
- The genetic ancestry of American Creole cattle inferred from uniparental and autosomal genetic markers. Out of Africa…
- Tracing the genetic origin of two Acacia mearnsii seed orchards in South Africa. For one of the orchards, the origin is unknown, but it’s distinct to all the other, known provenances.
- Genetic Characterization of Apulian Olive Germplasm as Potential Source in New Breeding Programs. Ok, but unclear what all this means for Xylella resistance, which presumably was the main reason for doing the work?
- Whole-genome resequencing of Cucurbita pepo morphotypes to discover genomic variants associated with morphology and horticulturally valuable traits. The two subspecies were domesticated and evolved independently.
- Mapping the effects of drought on child stunting. Lower precipitation is bad for kids.
- Governing Seeds in East Africa in the Face of Climate Change: Assessing Political and Social Outcomes. Wealthier, more food secure households are more likely to grow maize hybrids. Cause? Effect? But in any case the commercialization agenda has left sorghum behind.
- Exploiting genetic variation in nitrogen use efficiency for cereal crop improvement. Back to the genebank. Just one of a whole issue on genetic variation in physiological traits.
- Black Sigatoka in bananas: Ecoclimatic suitability and disease pressure assessments. The high yield areas are most at threat.
- Fats of the Land: New Histories of Agricultural Oils. Hidden histories are the best histories.
- Food Provisioning Services Via Homegardens and Communal Sharing in Satoyama Socio-ecological Production Landscapes on Japan’s Noto Peninsula. Sharing promotes diversity. Kinda beautiful.
- Cow Sharing and Alpine Ecosystems: A Comparative Case Study of Sharing Practices and Property Rights. The jury is out on whether it contributes to conservation, but it still seems pretty cool.
- Horse phenotyping based on video image analysis of jumping performance for conservation breeding. Judges don’t know what they’re talking about.
- Preserving the nutritional quality of crop plants under a changing climate: importance and strategies. Mainly due to eCO2. Need to breed for it under the new conditions. Or try other crops.