Yeah, well, in the end I didn’t win. But I’m not bitter. Not much.
Swings and roundabouts
Much harm has been done. In the past century about three-quarters of global crop genetic diversity is thought to have been lost, and with it many potentially beneficial traits. Preserving what remains is an insurance policy against the effects of climate change: Britain’s Millennium Seed Bank, the world’s largest, cost £73m ($112m) to complete in 2010. The damage from the brown planthopper came to $1 billion in today’s money. Governments should share species and fund seed banks. Their work is a vital safeguard against hunger.
That’s from a leader in The Economist, one of three pieces on the conservation and use of crop diversity in this week’s issue. Which the writers got through without even once mentioning Svalbard, but were not, alas, able to negotiate without resorting to the dreaded 75% number. On balance, though, I’ll take it.
Brainfood: Olive oil composition, Storing rice, Fair Trade, Red List, Farmer seed systems, Dipterocarp genetic structure, Italian bread wheat, Nepal crop diversity, Rice origins
- In situ evaluation of the fruit and oil characteristics of the main Lebanese olive germplasm. Some may have levels of ∆-7-stigmastenol which are on the high side. This is a chemical used in fraud detection, apparently.
- Viability monitoring intervals for genebank samples of Oryza sativa. Wait for fail (<85% germination) in the active collection before testing the corresponding seedlot in the base collection.
- Fair Trade and Free Entry: Can a Disequilibrium Market Serve as a Development Tool? Busted.
- Green Plants in the Red: A Baseline Global Assessment for the IUCN Sampled Red List Index for Plants. 20% of species assessed are threatened with extinction, mainly from tropical rain forest, mainly as a result of conversion to agriculture and harvesting of natural resources.
- Farmer seed networks make a limited contribution to agriculture? Four common misconceptions. They’re not inefficient, they’re not closed and conservative, and they’re not doomed. But they could work better and in a more egalitarian way.
- Understanding local patterns of genetic diversity in dipterocarps using a multi-site, multi-species approach: Implications for forest management and restoration. In most of these species, genetically similar individuals cluster together, resulting in inbreeding, especially after fragmentation due to logging. But you can do something about that through management.
- Morpho-physiolological and qualitative traits of a bread wheat collection spanning a century of breeding in Italy. The ideotype has changed significantly in Italy over the past 100 years.
- Assessing links between crop diversity and food self-sufficiency in three agroecological regions of Nepal. Whether greater crop diversity translates into more stable livelihoods depends on access to markets.
- A Population Genomics Insight into the Mediterranean Origins of Wine Yeast Domestication. Closest wild population to wine yeast comes from Mediterranean oak, and diverged at about the right time.
- Modelling the Geographical Origin of Rice Cultivation in Asia Using the Rice Archaeological Database. Two centres of origin, in Middle Yangtze and Lower Yangtze valleys.
Cup runneth over
Well, all I can say is that it’s not every day that you wake up to three articles on genebanks in The Economist:
Featured: ICRAF app
Paulo van Breugel tells us how to look for species that fulfill multiple functions in ICRAF’s new database thingy:
On each vegetation fact sheet there is a link to an excel workbook which lists the species and all their functions of that vegetation types. It allows you to do searches using multiple criteria using filters. See also the short tutorial.
Allrighty then.