Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

May 26, 2015May 26, 2015

Brewing up some new coffee

Over the years, we’ve mentioned attempts by breeders to call an evolutionary do-over and re-synthesize interspecific hybrid crops like bread wheat, banana, brassicas and peanuts. I don’t think we mentioned an early attempt to do something similar with potato which ended up not quite working to plan. Anyway, point is, they’re going to try it with coffee now, according to Dr Timothy Schilling, executive director of World Coffee Research (WCR):

What we aim to do is to get a bunch of highly diverse C eugenioides and C canephora ¹ and cross them, to recreate C arabica but better — more diverse.

I for one would like to taste it.

May 25, 2015May 20, 2015

Brainfood: Agrobiodiversity & nutrition, Solanaceae, Pepper resistance, Fenugreek erosion, Wild grapes double, CC & mountains

Improving diets with wild and cultivated biodiversity from across the landscape. Only 12 papers on the link between agrobiodiversity or crop diversity and nutrition included nutritionally relevant information, so perhaps not surprising that we still don’t really know how agrobiodiversity or wild biodiversity contribute to overall diet quality.
Biodiversity of Food Species of the Solanaceae Family: A Preliminary Taxonomic Inventory of Subfamily Solanoideae. 15 genera used as food, 4 have economic crops, but then one of them is Solanum.
Diversity of genetic backgrounds modulating the durability of a major resistance gene. Analysis of a core collection of pepper landraces resistant to Potato virus Y. Breakdown of resistance conferred by given allele depends a lot on the background it finds itself in.
Brief but alarming reminder about the need for reintroducing ‘Greek hay’ (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) in Mediterranean agricultures. Why don’t people like this thing? Is it the smell?
Crop Wild Relatives as Genetic Resources – the Case of the European Wild Grape. Introgression from American wild species in S. German wild grapes. Still probably valuable for various disease resistances, though.
Mining new resources for grape resistance against Botryosphaeriaceae: a focus on Vitis vinifera ssp. sylvestris. See what I mean?
Global mountain topography and the fate of montane species under climate change. Some plants may have more land available to them as they migrate upwards.

May 23, 2015

We must cultivate our garden

IMG_5907 (2) No better way to find out why — and how — than by reading The Seed Garden: The Art & Practice of Seed Saving. And I’m not just saying that because I just got my free copy. It really is a fabulous book, as beautiful as it is useful. Thank you, Seed Savers Exchange.

May 22, 2015May 22, 2015

In the footsteps of Vavilov…

It is an invisible, apolitical band of dedicated researchers around the world who maintain these gene bank insurance policies. They walk in the footsteps of Vavilov, who died of starvation in prison during World War II, while his staff suffered a similar fate during the Siege of Leningrad rather than compromise the seeds they had saved for humanity.

Here are some members of that band.

Happy International Day of Biodiversity, everyone!

May 21, 2015May 21, 2015

Catching up with CROPS 2015

The CROPS 2015 conference on Improving Agriculture Through Genomics in on. Actually it’s almost finished. Sorry. But you can read about the keynote. And follow what’s left on Twitter. Maybe someone will explain what’s wrong with China’s soybeans.