- Natural and human-mediated selection in a landrace of Thai rice (Oryza sativa). There is selection, but that’s counteracted by exchange and diverse agronomic practices. The result is diversity, but structured.
- Trademarks, Geographical Indications and Environmental Labelling to Promote Biodiversity: The Case of Agroforestry Coffee in India. Adding value locally is the only way to stop a really lucrative cash crop destroying the forest.
- Characterization of dairy cattle germplasm used in Mexico with national genetic evaluations in importing and exporting countries. Bringing in diversity from another country is not always the best approach.
- Phenotypic characterization of the Miami World Collection of sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) and related grasses for selecting a representative core. 300 accessions will do. That’s a bit more than 10% of the total.
- Genetic variation of salinity tolerance in Chinese natural bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers.) germplasm resources. There is some. Good for all those golf courses.
- The sustainable development of grassland-livestock systems on the Tibetan Plateau: problems, strategies and prospects. There are 19 things to do, and genetic resources are important across the board.
- Status and prospects of oil palm in the Brazilian Amazon. On already deforested land, for biofuel. What could possibly go wrong?
- Bee Species Diversity Enhances Productivity and Stability in a Perennial Crop. That would be the highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum). Can we take this for granted now?
Call for US ratification of Seed Treaty
But is Congress listening?
Searching Genesys: The Video
Genesys is trialling an improved data filtering mechanism. Say you want to find Aegilops tauschii from Armenia with frost tolerance. Go to Browse and play around with the Filter button. If you have trouble, see if this little video helps you figure it out. The answer, by the way, is that there are 14 accessions that satisfy those requirements, all at ICARDA. Here’s where they are:
Did you get the same answer? Any suggestions for improvements?
Purslane possibilities
Sharp-eyed readers may remember a recent Nibble about somewhat quixotic efforts to promote cultivation and consumption of purslane (Portulaca oleracea) in the US, driven more by necessity than conviction. Well, one particularly sharp-eyed reader pointed out that across the border, in Mexico, there’s a whole network of researchers within the Sistema Nacional de Recursos Fitogenéticos para la Alimentación y la Agricultura devoted to this unusual vegetable, which has some half dozen accessions in the bank to play with. There are 106 accessions in Genesys. Purslane researchers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your mineral deficiencies.
An e-atlas for the ages
I do love maps. I love looking through atlases, even their faintly ridiculous 21st century incarnation, the e-atlas. But really, in this world we live in now — rather than that of bewhiskered gentlemen poring over suspiciously stained folios in the libraries of London clubs, motes of dust dancing in the air as each leaf is turned over and final plans are agreed for their next foray into the Heart of Darkness — what is an atlas for? Surely it is for more than just displaying the ingenuity and skill of the mapmakers? There is much ingenuity and skill on display in the new online version of the Atlas of African Agriculture Research & Development, don’t get me wrong. But what do the mapmakers think their atlas is for? I don’t think it is enough to say that there are
…plans for an online, open-access resource of spatial data and tools that will be generated and maintained by a community of research scientists, development analysts, and practitioners working in and for Africa.
If you’re going to call something an e-atlas and put it online, to much fanfare, you can’t just make the maps available for download and sharing as PDFs. That’s really no use to anyone. Take these maps on growing season length and its likely changes.
What anyone would want to do is start combining these with other data, say on — oh I don’t know, let me think — the distribution of germplasm in genebanks? Like this on pearl millet, according to Genesys.
I’m pretty sure that there must be some pearl millet landraces in genebanks somewhere with the adaptation to shorter growing seasons that we’re going to need in the sorts of places highlighted by that Map 2 from the e-atlas. And that we might find those with the help of their Map 1 and the data from Genesys (which I can donwload as a KML). But how can I be sure, when Maps 1 and 2 are only available as PDFs? 1
Anyway, maybe I won’t have long to wait. There are plans, after all. I don’t know, maybe the maps in the e-atlas are already available elsewhere as KMLs or shapefiles or something usable, and you just have to ask? But then, what is this e-atlas for? Nice maps, though. Lots of fun to leaf through.