Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

August 19, 2014August 19, 2014

Freeing the banana

By freeing Musa balbisiana of infectious eBSV, virologists are once again friends with #banana breeders says Pierre-Yves Teycheney #IHC2014

— ProMusa (@promusa_banana) August 19, 2014

Well, that sounds teasingly intriguing. Fortunately, we have a mole at the relevant symposium of the International Horticultural Congress in Brisbane. Here’s his brief report from the trenches:

Great talk also by Pierre Yves Teycheney, who together with his colleagues at CIRAD seems to have found a way to deal with the problem of the endogenous Banana Streak Virus that is embedded in the Musa B-genome. Since its discovery this virus had essentially brought to a halt CIRAD’s inter-specific hybrid breeding program, and prevented distribution of any hybrid materials that contained the B-genome. Luckily, an allelic difference was detected that renders the virus non-infectious, so researchers at CIRAD managed to develop B-genome materials (through traditional approaches but also doubled haploids) that are homozygous for the non-infections alleles and ‘voila!’ derived non-infectious material is now again flowing through CIRAD’s interspecific hybrid breeding program!

Keep it coming, people!

August 18, 2014

Standing up for fruits and veggies

The International Horticulture Congress is up and running in Brisbane, and getting a lot of attention from the Aussie media. ¹ There’s a slick video on the global importance of horticulture to help the frenzy along:

Apart from the World Vegetable Center — whose DG came up with the quote of the day: “Things like cucumber and cabbage are essentially just water standing up” — ProMusa is also there in force, and making a splash on social media. That’s because of a special symposium on banana genomics, one of a great lineup of side-workshops. The one we’re particularly looking forward to is the 4th International Symposium on Plant Genetic Resources: Genetic Resources for Climate Change. The hashtag for the whole thing is #IHC2014.

No word on whether the black sapote or medicinal willows, both in the news this week, will feature at any point in Brisbane, but, if they don’t, they have a second chance at the next big global research shindig, the International Union of Forest Research Organization’s (IUFRO) 24th World Congress, from 5 to 11 October 2014 in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. Its theme will be “Sustaining Forests, Sustaining People: The Role of Research.”

As ever, we welcome reports from such events.

August 18, 2014August 18, 2014

Brainfood: Dryland protected areas, Breeding olives, Tomato cryo, Bacterial diversity, Beta diversity, Old hops, Wild strawberries, Sea bass genome, Forest management, Sorghum biomass

The role of protected areas in supplying ten critical ecosystem services in drylands: a review. Let the communities take the lead, be inventive about governance.
Breeding Oil and Table Olives for Mechanical Harvesting in Spain. 19,000 seedlings, 481 preselections in intermediate field trials, 31 advanced selections in a network of field trials, 1 new protected cultivar Sikitita (Chiquitita in USA).
Phenotypic and molecular characterization of plants regenerated from non-cryopreserved and cryopreserved wild Solanum lycopersicum Mill. seeds. Oops, SSRs pick up some changes.
Pollen Cryopreservation to Support Maintenance of a Wild Species Collection of the Genus Allium. Variable success. And no word on somaclonal variation.
Epiphytic bacteria biodiversity in Brazilian Cerrado fruit and their cellulolytic activity potential. No fewer than 29 bacterial genera on 32 native fruits, 30% producing cellulase.
Fine-scale spatial genetic structure of common and declining bumble bees across an agricultural landscape. Not much structure, due to queen dispersal. Declining species less diverse.
Genetic Diversity in Remnant Swedish Hop (Humulus lupulus L.) Yards from the 15th to 18th Century. The old varieties are still there, having gone feral in abandoned yards because, unlike for 450 years until 1860, Swedish farmers are, alas, no longer obliged to grow the stuff.
A comparison of wild and cultivated strawberries for nitrogen uptake and reduction. Some wild accessions might be better at assimilating N.
Advances in European sea bass genomics and future perspectives. There’s a sequenced genome, but nobody’s using it.
Genetic effects of forest management practices: Global synthesis and perspectives. There’s no excuse for not doing the right thing now.
Exploring the variability of a photoperiod-insensitive sorghum genetic panel for stem composition and related traits in temperate environments. You can improve biomass quantity and quality simultaneously. Stem composition variability follows genetic origin.

August 15, 2014

Capsules of Life

Screen Shot 2014-08-15 at 2.53.52 PM The BBC’s Roots to Riches reaches genebanking for conservation, with the above title. Mainly about the Millennium Seed Bank, which is predictable, and perfectly fine, but we know there’s a lot more to it than that, of course.

August 12, 2014August 11, 2014

Totally terere

The launching of FAO’s Traditional Crop of the Month with amaranth, just announced on Twitter, reminds me that I was going to post a couple of photos showing how much the crop is being used nowadays in Kenya. These show that terere leaves are used — along with other stuff — to fortify maize meal, which is used to make ugali, the main staple food around here for many people. I took the pix in a supermarket in Lavington, an upscale residential area, and they represent two different brands of unga. Just look under ingredients.

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