Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

April 14, 2016April 30, 2021

A PGRFA course to take note of

A shout-out to everyone at the Wageningen UR course “Contemporary approaches to genetic resources conservation and use.” I was with them yesterday, and a great bunch they are too.

This is a very well put together and expertly taught, in large part by CGN staff, three-week introductory course, particularly strong on the policy aspects. It is offered every year. There were about 20-25 participants on this occasion, from all over the world, including four from CG Centre genebanks (ICRISAT and IITA).

April 11, 2016April 15, 2016

Another threatened Russian fruit collection

…a commission ordered that the land of the academy be transitioned for the destruction of educational buildings and living, agricultural fields, in order to establish the new development and construction of multi-level residential buildings.

Sound familiar? No, not Pavlovsk, but another famous Russian agricultural icon, Moscow’s Timiryazev Agricultural Academy.

…part of the land, Michurin’s orchard, was founded in 1939 and includes an extensive collection of fruit and berry biodiversity. The orchard is dedicated to the protection of unique plant varieties, which could not be transplanted without causing a dramatic loss. Nearly 200 apple varieties and 167 varieties of pears still flourish on this parcel. Apart from the historic and educational value of the land, it is also a national heritage, as granted by President Medvedev in 2008.

There’s a petition. Remember: pressure worked with Pavlovsk.

April 11, 2016

Seeds on Ice

Ready to pre-order!

April 11, 2016April 14, 2016

Brainfood: African greens, Latin American pigs, Japanese fruits, Cassava selection, Sunflower breeding, Angolan vegetables, Californian backyard maize, Mesoamerican priorities, Genetic stocks

Molecular Markers for Genetic Diversity Studies in African Leafy Vegetables. Not surprisingly, only 3% of 33 studies since 1998 are on Cleome, more than half on cowpea. And a quarter used RAPDs. Orphan crops, anyone? These one don’t even get a table summarizing and comparing findings across species.
Conservation priorities of Iberoamerican pig breeds and their ancestors based on microsatellite information. Depending on how you crunch the genetic numbers, Iberoamerican pig breeds could conceivably best be looked after by conserving their ancestral Iberian pig breeds. But it’s not just about the genetics, is it?
Native fruit tree genetic resources in Japan. Only a Castanea was domesticated in pre-modern times, and they’re all endangered in post-modern times.
Perceptual selection and the unconscious selection of ‘volunteer’ seedlings in clonally propagated crops: an example with African cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) using ethnobotany and population genetics. It’s seedlings that look most like existing varieties that farmers try to keep.
Changes in sunflower breeding over the last fifty years. From yield under optimal conditions to disease resistance, from oil quantity to quality. But international collaboration still needed.
Angolan vegetable crops have unique genotypes of potential value for future breeding programmes. Unique material documented, and hopefully made available for use.
Maize Germplasm Conservation in Southern California’s Urban Gardens: Introduced Diversity Beyond ex situ and in situ Management. Migrants bring along their crops.
An assessment of the conservation status of Mesoamerican crop species and their wild relatives in light of climate change. Priority areas for on farm and in situ conservation don’t by and large coincide with protected areas.
A Proposal Regarding Best Practices for Validating the Identity of Genetic Stocks and the Effects of Genetic Variants. Just do it.

April 7, 2016April 7, 2016

Amaranth across the Rio Grande

A quick follow up to my very telegraphic postscript to a post a few days back. I was listening to an AgTalks session on “forgotten food crops” from IFAD, and I was quite surprised to hear from Mary M. Delano Frier, one of the excellent speakers, that when she started her work on amaranth in Mexico, she had to get material from the USDA genebank.

So I contacted David Brenner, who curates the amaranth collection at the Plant Introduction Station at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. This is what he said:

We send substantial amaranth germplasm to Mexico and we have large holdings of Mexican amaranths that we distribute worldwide. There is at least one other organization (Puente) in Mexico with a parallel mission to Mary Delano Frier’s. They are both solving issues of food sovereignty and poverty by restoring amaranth to poor villages. We have sent germplasm to both. There are also organizations in East Africa with a similar mission, although grain amaranths are newer in Africa. Mary Delano Frier attends some of the Amaranth Institute meetings where I have met her. Her brother John Delano Frier has published research on amaranth done in Mexico with our germplasm. Amaranth enthusiasts from these and other perspectives get to together at the Amaranth Institute meetings which are built on contacts I get from distributing germplasm. The Amaranth Institute folks are very encouraging to me as a curator. I think these days amaranth projects in Mexico can start up with germplasm from older project and from the INIFAP genebank under Dr. Espitia, which is investing in amaranth. There are also skilled agronomists to advise growers in Mexico.

A great example of international collaboration. No walls or other impediments to exchange of germplasm between the US and Mexico.