Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

May 7, 2018May 7, 2018

Ensuring the future of coffee

Biz model is growing, having benefits, and impact, and understanding that is better if you share it. @HowardShultz @Starbucks #SaC18 pic.twitter.com/0PqUgLl3Vy

— TechFood Magazine (@techfood_mag) May 7, 2018

Want impact, Mr Starbucks? You could try supporting the coffee diversity conservation strategy for a start.

May 7, 2018

Featured: Diversification

Jacob has a suggestion for researchers interested in the link between agricultural diversification and nutrition:

We need a new generation of studies that looks at the effects of diversification on nutrition with a broader perspective on the candidate mechanisms for this link.

So, people, get specific.

May 7, 2018May 7, 2018

Taking the pulse of legume research

The 7th International Food Legumes Research Conference started yesterday in Marrakesh. Like the World Cup, they happen only every four years, and are eagerly awaited. Unlike the World Cup, Brazil doesn’t feature much, and you can’t follow along on TV with a beer. There is, however, Twitter.

A short summary of Day 1 at the International Food Legumes Research Conference #IFLRC2018 @iflrc: https://t.co/jikEKvuKcI pic.twitter.com/uWPnx4xQVT

— ICARDA (@ICARDA) May 6, 2018

May 7, 2018May 7, 2018

Brainfood: Genebanks genomics, Improving forages, 3000 rices, Sweet potato dispersal, Diversity on farm double, Herbaria double, Phenotyping box, Invasives, Meta-meta-analysis, Rice domestication, Soil depth

Role of genomics in promoting the utilization of plant genetic resources in genebanks. Genebanks don’t need to do genomics themselves to benefit from genomics.
Improving the Yield and Nutritional Quality of Forage Crops. Case in point.
Genomic variation in 3,010 diverse accessions of Asian cultivated rice. Case in point. Multiple independent domestications. Tomorrow, the world.
Sweet potato dispersal or human transport? Maybe no evidence one way or another after all. Rebuttal of: Reconciling Conflicting Phylogenies in the Origin of Sweet Potato and Dispersal to Polynesia. And the counter to the rebuttal. This genomics stuff not so easy after all.
Review: Meta-analysis of the association between production diversity, diets, and nutrition in smallholder farm households. It’s not always there. But that would have been a high bar.
Agricultural diversification as an important strategy for achieving food security in Africa. Case in point. More diverse households and farming systems are more food secure, but only up to a point, and it depends on various factors. 43% of African cropland will be difficult to diversify.
Using herbaria to study global environmental change. Have been used to monitor the effects of climate change, habitat change, pollution and invasives on plants.
Green Digitization: Online Botanical Collections Data Answering Real‐World Questions. Gotta get the stuff digitized first though.
The ‘PhenoBox’, a flexible, automated, open‐source plant phenotyping solution. Somebody mention digitizing?
Dissecting the null model for biological invasions: A meta-analysis of the propagule pressure effect. The success of aliens is down to their numbers. Wonder if it works for pest and disease organisms too.
Are systematic reviews and meta-analyses still useful research? We are not sure. All righty then. Scrap the above.
Shattering or not shattering: that is the question in domestication of rice (Oryza sativa L.). From one of the authors, Debarati Chakraborty: Loss of shattering through sh4 is not a crucial step for rice domestication. Genetics, cultural anthropology and archaeology suggests that primitive agrarians were dependent on wild or semi-domesticated shattering rice.
Rooting for food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa probably hasn’t the rootable soil depth for monster maize yields.

May 3, 2018

Animal genetic resources get new IMAGE

Nice monologue from Dr Sipke Joost Hiemstra, Director of the Centre for Genetic Resources, the Netherlands (CGN) at Wageningen University & Research and Head of the Animal Genetic Resources Group, on plant and animal genetic resources collections in Europe. But mainly animal genebanks, and what the Horizon2020 IMAGE project is doing about them.