Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

September 3, 2013September 3, 2013

Giant fruit update

For some reason, this seems to be the time of year which the media sets aside for stories on large fruits. Or largish, anyway. Because I may be spoilt by my time in the tropics, but this “Avozilla” doesn’t look like such a big avocado to me. I was hoping I’d be able to be more precise about this, but I couldn’t find systematic characterization data on the world’s avocado collections, not even in GRIN. And no, I’m not impressed that Avozilla has its own Twitter account either:

“@DailyMailUK: AVOZILLA, world's largest avocado goes on sale at Tesco http://t.co/8wCZl4WiNA pic.twitter.com/gLEV98M0It” Yes, I'm here!

— Avozilla (@Avozilla) September 2, 2013

And likewise, 14-15 grams is not bad for an olive, but there’s bigger, and not all of them are from Italy.

September 2, 2013

Featured: Santorini

Dirk sets us straight on those Santorini sweet peas:

The charred sweet peas from Santorini are actually Lathyrus clymenum, the Santorini Fava bean. The crop is still cultivated on the island. Prepared as a pulse, Santorini fava is eaten by tourists and locals. No worries about seed toxins which are identical and at higher levels than those in grasspea.

September 2, 2013September 2, 2013

Brainfood: Pests & CC, Germplasm pix, Latvian legume rescue, Estonian potatoes, NZ genebanks, Yam polyploids, Tree evaluation, Ethiopian veggie, European seed law, Zulu sheep, Celosia management

Crop pests and pathogens move polewards in a warming world. At 3 km/year.
Systems for making NIAS Core Collections, single-seed-derived germplasm, and plant photo images available to the research community. The next level in genetic resources documentation?
Recovering Genetic Resources of Some Legume Species of Latvian Origin by Plant Tissue Culture. You have to work at it.
Overview of in vitro Preservation of Potato and Use of the Gene Bank Material in Estonia. They like coloured potatoes in Estonia.
The key roles of seed banks in plant biodiversity management in New Zealand. Are many and varied.
Microsatellite and flow cytometry analysis to help understand the origin of Dioscorea alata polyploids. Unreduced gametes did it.
Genetic variation in progenies of Jacaranda cuspidifolia Mart using the fan systematic design. Yon can measure genetic variation and evaluate performance under different spacings at the same time, which is important in a tree.
Diversity analysis in Plectranthus edulis (Vatke) Agnew collection in Ethiopia. As ever, a considerable amount of variability was found. Oh hum.
The European seed legislation on conservation varieties: focus, implementation, present and future impact on landrace on farm conservation. There should be more landraces in the Common Catalogue.
Characterization of Zulu sheep production system: Implications for conservation and improvement. If they’re so drought tolerant, why is drought threatening them? Well, there’s drought, and then there’s drought.
Effects of paraquat on genetic diversity and protein profiles of six varieties of Celosia in South-Western Nigeria. That would be a tasty and diverse local leafy green. Well, before the paraquat anyway.

August 30, 2013August 30, 2013

One more cup of coffee

For some reason, there’s been a sackful of coffee stories lately. Here’s a quick summary:

“Pistols for two, and coffee for one.”

“[Coffee] is of excellent Use in the time of Pestilence, and contributes greatly to prevent the spreading of Infection.”

“We just had to try at least a cup in every village we stopped at, and as they were small cups, sometimes more than one… The irony is that I am a ‘tea-only girl’.”

“Yes, Starbucks has announced it’s taking up shop in Bogota, Colombia. It says it wants to celebrate Colombian coffee.”

“Here, we do not work hard for survival, but we work hard to live a better life; that is what I’ve learned from working on this plantation.”

“In order to create these pre-breeding populations with enough genetic diversity for these economically important traits, WCR ¹ will utilize genetic material from the current germplasm collections as well as new material coming from wild populations from the WCR GERMPLASM Project.”

August 28, 2013August 27, 2013

Looking for Mr Soybean

I think the following Twitter exchange is pretty self-explanatory.

https://twitter.com/soyshadow/statuses/371571357550518272

But let me break it down anyway, as I have a feeling you may not be able to see the whole conversation without the sort of extra clicking that we’re always told users don’t like to do. Farmer finds 5-seed soybean pod, which is kinda unusual, apparently. Seed company makes much of it on both Twitter and Facebook. Soybean breeder says: that’s nothing, some wild species have more than 8 seeds per pod! Luigi tries to figure out which ones by trawling GRIN, to no avail. Breeder comes up with factsheet on Glycine tabacina, which is interesting enough but not really the point. Another fine day in Genebank Database Hell.