Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

June 11, 2018June 12, 2018

Botany schooled about crop genebanks

So, thanks to an invitation from graduate students, I was able to give a lecture in the University of Cambridge Botany School (as was) auditorium about 35 years after last listening to one there. A somewhat emotional experience. Here’s the talk, minus a cute though entirely superfluous Google Earth zoom into the Svalbard Vault because that made it too big for SlideShare.

Building a Global System for Conserving Crop Diversity from Luigi Guarino

June 11, 2018June 11, 2018

Where to plant chokeberry

Readers who were excited by the announcement of a new Plant Hardiness Zone Map from USDA will probably like the interactive version we’ve just been pointed to. Have fun!

June 11, 2018June 11, 2018

Brainfood: Sustainable Brazil, Epigenetic variation, Global conservation, Rice nutrition, Austronesian societies, Saharan domestication, GM wheat, Smallholders, Bos introgression

Sustainable diet from the urban Brazilian consumer perspective. Healthiness, basically.
Comparison of the Relative Potential for Epigenetic and Genetic Variation To Contribute to Trait Stability. Genetic >> epigenetic.
Global mismatch of policy and research on drivers of biodiversity loss. Except for climate change.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels this century will alter the protein, micronutrients, and vitamin content of rice grains with potential health consequences for the poorest rice-dependent countries. And not in a good way. But some variation among varieties = breeding opportunity?
Coevolution of landesque capital intensive agriculture and sociopolitical hierarchy. Among Austronesian-speaking societies, no evidence that agricultural intensification drives social complexity; if anything, it’s the other way around.
Plant behaviour from human imprints and the cultivation of wild cereals in Holocene Sahara. Weediness has been good to humans in the past.
Gene Flow in Genetically Modified Wheat. Would probably only be a problem within fields.
How much of the world’s food do smallholders produce? FAO: 70%. New paper: 30-34%.
Pervasive introgression facilitated domestication and adaptation in the Bos species complex. Miscegenation has been rampant.

June 7, 2018

Another hymn to Vavilov. Amen

Hard on the heels of the 99 per cent Invisible podcast on Svalbard comes another once-over-lightly on NI Vavilov. A book by photographer Mario del Curto documents the genebank in St Petersburg and the legacy of its founder. A review of the book is mostly fine and dandy, although I do take issue with this image.

The caption reads “Sunflower plant at the Kuban research station (from Seeds of the Earth: The Vavilov Institute, © Mario Del Curto)”.

Can that possibly be correct?

June 4, 2018June 5, 2018

Brainfood: Cassava domestication, Phylogenomics review, Flavour breeding, Anticolonialism, Arid beet, Arid Vigna, Arid maize, ABS double, Trout stem cells

Patterns of nuclear and chloroplast genetic diversity and structure of manioc along major Brazilian Amazonian rivers. No structure related to river basins. Separate histories for sweet and bitter types, with the sweet domesticated and spreading first.
Practical considerations for plant phylogenomics. Use the right tool for the job.
The genetics of fruit flavour preferences. Here’s a “molecular roadmap to flavour improvement,” breeders. Now go crazy.
Beyond Culinary Colonialism: Indigenous Food Sovereignty, Liberal Multiculturalism, and the Control of Gastronomic Capital. Multiculturalism is incompatible with food sovereignty.
Predicting genotypes environmental range from genome‐environment associations. Fraction of aridity-associated alleles in wild beet could accurately predict adaptation to aridity in independent set of cultivated individuals.
Diversity of drought tolerance in the genus Vigna. No word on genotypes. But wilds more tolerant of drought in Vigna too.
Identification of Drought, Heat, and Combined Drought and Heat Tolerant Donors in Maize. Only 2 out of 300 inbreds are resistant to both drought and heat. No word on how teosinte does.
Benefit sharing mechanisms for agricultural genetic diversity use and in-situ conservation. Show me the money.
The Nagoya Protocol could backfire on the Global South. It’s not just about the money.
Invasion of a legume ecosystem engineer in a cold biome alters plant biodiversity. Biosafety first.
Interspecific germ cell transplantation: a new light in the conservation of valuable Balkan trout genetic resources? Maybe.