Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

February 28, 2022February 28, 2022

Unfried beans

Are you interested in populations that happen to be hybrids between common beans and some other species? Well, so are our friends at CIAT, and they’re involved in a project with NIAB in the UK to study these hybrid populations from their genebank:

The idea is to see if they could be used in breeding for climate change adaptation.

Researchers will be exploring common bean hybrid populations to learn more about their physical characteristics, genetics, responses to disease and ease of use for breeding programmes.

You can catch up on the latest findings on the NIAB website, but also in an online workshop on March 1.

February 28, 2022February 25, 2022

Brainfood: Spatial data, Extinction risk, Improved lentils, Lentil collection, Ohia germination, Shea genomics, Wild olive, Cacao climate refugia, Cacao sacred groves, Italian winter squash, Nigerian yams, Bambara groundnut diversity

CropHarvest: A global dataset for crop-type classification. 90,000 datapoints all over the world, nicely labelled with what’s going on there agriculturally speaking. Let the AI rip.
Using publicly available data to conduct rapid assessments of extinction risk. Pretty much useless, but at least now we know why. Should have used AI.
Plot-level impacts of improved lentil varieties in Bangladesh. About 15% higher yields and gross margins, resulting in lots of savings on imports.
Agro-Morphological Characterization of Lentil Germplasm of Indian National Genebank and Development of a Core Set for Efficient Utilization in Lentil Improvement Programs. And a core subset to boot. Unclear if any were used to breed the above.
Variation in Germination Traits Inform Conservation Planning of Hawaiʻi’s Foundational ʻŌhiʻa Trees. Germination was lower from some populations than from others, but not because of environmental factors.
Genomic Resources to Guide Improvement of the Shea Tree. Ok, great, but now what exactly? And no word on germination…
Current Status of Biodiversity Assessment and Conservation of Wild Olive (Olea europaea L. subsp. europaea var. sylvestris). When can we expect something similar for shea tree?
Extreme climate refugia: a case study of wild relatives of cacao (Theobroma cacao) in Colombia. The forest areas where wild cacao has survived the longest, and is particularly diverse, will be cut in half in 50 years. I wonder what the figures are for wild olive.
Soil biomarkers of cacao tree cultivation in the sacred cacao groves of the northern Maya lowlands. Maybe re-introduce it? More here.
How to save a landrace from extinction: the example of a winter squash landrace (Cucurbita maxima Duchesne) in Northern Italy (Lungavilla-Pavia). It’s great to have ‘Berrettina di Lungavilla’ back, but 7 years for one landrace? No sacred groves involved. Shea harvesters unavailable for comment.
Collection, characterizaton, product quality evaluation, and conservation of genetic resources of yam (Dioscorea spp.) cultivars from Ekiti State, Nigeria. At least it’s more than one landrace.
Genetic Diversity and Environmental Influence on Growth and Yield Parameters of Bambara Groundnut. 95 landraces, no less. All safe from extinction. Right?

February 25, 2022

Millet, anyone?

…But millet, a major crop in both Africa and Asia and one of the world’s most nutritious cereals, is now under threat. Production is decreasing and many families have flattened the wooden granaries where they used to store the crop, using them as firewood. A dish of millet bread and pigeon peas-groundnut stew is no longer a common traditional meal in many households.

That’s from a recent BBC Follow the Food feature by Pascal Kwesiga entitled Why we need to expand our crop menu. In addition to finger and pearl millet in Uganda and Kenya, the piece looks at the diversity of grapevine in Portugal, cacao in Brazil and avocado in the USA. There’s also a bit on coffee cryo at the National Laboratory for Genetic Research Preservation at Ft Collins.

Follow the Food is a multimedia series by BBC Future and BBC World News that investigates how agriculture is responding to the profound challenges of climate change, environmental degradation and rapidly growing populations that face our global food supply chains. Follow the Food traces emerging answers to these problems – both high-tech and low-tech, local and global – from farmers, growers and researchers across six continents.

All in association with Corteva (sic).

February 21, 2022February 21, 2022

Save SID!

Some troubling news that we missed back in December ((Thanks to Dr Fiona Hay for alerting us to this.)):

A recent assessment of the Seed Information Database (SID) for compliance with UK legislation on website accessibility (Public Sector Bodies [Websites and Mobile Applications] Accessibility Regulations 2018; themselves aligned with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at the AA standard) found the web interface deficient in several respects. Regrettably, due to RBG Kew’s need to prioritise its limited resources, we will be unable to remedy the faults; and the SID web interface will be taken down at the end of this financial year (March 2022).

Now, SID is absolutely essential to the work of genebanks (among many others), so lack of access to it, even for a short period as Kew figures out what to do, would be a Very Bad Thing.

SID is a compilation of seed biological trait data from the MSBP’s own collections and from other published and unpublished sources. Its primary purpose is as an internal source of a variety of seed biological information; for use in large scale analysis and decision support for seed conservation operations.

In an effort to try to prevent any suspension in access, the International Network for Seed-based Restoration (INSR) has a short survey out. Please consider filling it out and adding your voice to those of many seed scientists, genebank curators and restoration practitioners around the world who don’t want SID to go.

February 21, 2022February 16, 2022

Brainfood: Aspen mapping, Biodiversity & ag, Mining forages, China forages, China groundnuts, Soil microbes, Agroecology messaging, Old wood, Ugandan sorghum, New wild sweetpotato, Tasty fruits

Remote sensing of cytotype and its consequences for canopy damage in quaking aspen. You can tell diploid from triploid trees from space.
Future global conflict risk hotspots between biodiversity conservation and food security: 10 countries and 7 Biodiversity Hotspots. Fancy maths tells us biodiversity and agriculture are most in conflict in DRC, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Togo, Zambia, Angola, Guinea, Nigeria, Laos, and Cambodia.
Allele mining in diverse accessions of tropical grasses to improve forage quality and reduce environmental impact. A draft reference genome from a single species tells us about 7 potentially useful alleles among 104 clearly very well chosen accessions of Urochloa spp and Megathyrsus maximus.
Research Status of Forage Seed Industry in China. I wonder how many of the above alleles can be found in the Chinese forage collection. Might be easier to eventually find out if the website supposedly serving up the national forage germplasm resource management system actually worked.
Safe conservation and utilization of peanut germplasm resources in the Oil Crops Middle-term Genebank of China. We are even told about some individual interesting accessions, though not how to get hold of them.
The impact of crop diversification, tillage and fertilization type on soil total microbial, fungal and bacterial abundance: A worldwide meta-analysis of agricultural sites. Meta-analysis tells us that use of organic fertilisers and reduced tillage are associated with more microbes, fungi and bacteria in the soil.
Detecting the linkage between arable land use and poverty using machine learning methods at global perspective. Machines tells us that higher crop yields and more fertilisers are associated with lower poverty levels. Non-machines are shocked. No word on soil microbial abundance.
The 10 Elements of Agroecology: enabling transitions towards sustainable agriculture and food systems through visual narratives. Well, these 10 are not only the elements of agroecology, so they could tell us about other messaging too.
Regional Patterns of Late Medieval and Early Modern European Building Activity Revealed by Felling Dates. Tree rings in old buildings tells us more felling where and when grain prices were low and mining activity high. No machines involed.
Genetic diversity analysis and characterization of Ugandan sorghum. A tropical genebank collection can tell us about temperate-adapted germplasm, if we know how to ask.
Discovery and characterization of sweetpotato’s closest tetraploid relative. Meet Ipomoea aequatoriensis T. Wells & P. Muñoz sp. nov. from, well, Ecuador.
Metabolomic selection for enhanced fruit flavor. Another machine tells us how to pick tasty tomatoes and blueberries from chemical profiles. No word on when it will be able to describe new species.