- Archaeogenomic Evidence of Punctuated Genome Evolution in Gossypium. Egyption cotton is not very stable.
- On-farm dynamic management of genetic diversity: the impact of seed diffusions and seed saving practices on a population-variety of bread wheat. More studies of Rouge de Bordeaux show that population diversity mirrors seed-exchange systems.
Two things about agricultural biodiversity
If the point of a good blog post is to get you thinking, Alan Cann’s over at the Annals of Botany blog certainly worked on me. What are the two things you need to know about a subject? I’ve been pondering that since 18 March, when Alan’s post appeared. I had my answer almost immediately, but I haven’t been able to refine it as I thought I might.
A bit of background. Alan was riffing on an article in The Guardian, which in turn was building on a site kept (and now more or less abandoned) by economist turned screenwriter Glen Whitman. The basic idea is that
For every subject, there are only two things you need to know. Everything else is the application of those two things, or just not important.
So what are my two things?
- All intrinsic improvements in agriculture are founded on existing agricultural biodiversity.
- Improvements in agriculture intrinsically destroy existing agricultural biodiversity.
But I’m sure you can do better …
Brainfood: Medicinal plants, Einkorn diversity, Chestnut diversity, Leeks etc, Phylogenetic diversity
- The Use of Phylogeny to Interpret Cross-Cultural Patterns in Plant Use and Guide Medicinal Plant Discovery: An Example from Pterocarpus (Leguminosae. It’s kinda like parallel evolution.
- Genetic diversity in the Red wild einkorn: T. urartu Gandilyan (Poaceae: Triticeae). Northwest Syria and South Turkey contain the most genetic diversity, and genetic similarity is not a proxy for geographic closeness.
- Castanea spp. biodiversity conservation: collection and characterization of the genetic diversity of an endangered species. Overview of a 7-year project to conserve and study sweet chestnut diversity.
- Diversity in Allium ampeloprasum: from small and wild to large and cultivated. The continuing, complex saga of onion, leek and garlic evolution. It’s about heterozygosity, rathen than ploidy.
- Phylogenetic diversity promotes ecosystem stability. How crazy is that!
Mufhoho for the masses, finger millet for the rest of us
The Gaia Foundation recently featured a slideshow about the work of the Mupo Foundation. The slideshow is all about finger millet (Eleusine coracana) in Venda, a region of South Africa. Mupo says it:
[S]trengthens local communities in ecological governance by reviving indigenous seed, facilitating and encouraging intergenerational learning, and rebuilding confidence in the value of indigenous knowledge systems.
That kind of language probably wows donors; I hope so. What it comes down to, though, is helping young people to learn from those who have not yet forgotten about crops that are better for them and their environment. Finger millet certainly fits the bill. The Mupo Foundation is gathering, storing and sharing finger millet diversity, promoting its nutritional value, and preserving rituals and traditions that depend on millet. It would be nice to think that they could be funded under a new call for proposals for research on Improving rural livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa: Sustainable and climate-smart intensification of agricultural production. Maybe even trialling some of the 5957 varieties that ICRISAT says it has in its genebank, to see whether any can deliver additional benefits under changing climate regimes.
Moroccan wheat additions to the global genepool
There are times when the whole social media buzz conversation engagement thang is a bit overwhelming. Like today. I saw an item from FAOCrops on Facebook, which said “The gene pool of the Treaty gets 351 Moroccan wheat accessions from a benefit-sharing Fund project“. That’s interesting, I thought. It was attached to a photo, presumably of a Moroccan examining wheat, and offered to let me continue reading. Which I did. Now Facebook links can be very hard to access even if you’re already a member (and not everyone is), and indeed that link takes you to all FAOCrops’ photos. I’ve no idea how to link to just one of them. However, at the end of the extended photo caption is another link. That, alas, just takes you to a PDF of a letter to the Secretariat of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which contains very little truly interesting information beyond the details of the accessions. So here, to save you the frustration I felt, is a copy of the Facebook story:
The gene pool of the Treaty gets 351 Moroccan wheat accessions from a benefit-sharing Fund project
The global gene pool of the International Treaty received this week 351 new wheat accessions that have been evaluated during the life of a Benefit-sharing Fund project implemented in Morocco, as announced by the National Agriculture Research Institute of this country.
This is the first time that the Multilateral System is enlarged with material generated by a project of the Benefit-sharing Fund of the Treaty. In particular, the project helped in the evaluation of selected accessions held at INRA and the collection and evaluation of new landraces through a participatory process that joined the efforts of researchers and farmers.
The 195 durum wheat and 156 bread wheat accessions can now be shared through the Standard Material Transfer Agreement.
“For the first time since the entry into force of the International Treaty, this moment marks the completion of the full circle between the facilitated access mechanisms of the Treaty and the benefit-sharing under the Treaty’s Multilateral System and its Benefit-sharing Fund”, said Dr. Modibo Traoré, Assistant Director-General of the Agriculture and Consumer Protection of FAO.
“This work goes beyond regular conservation of genetic diversity”, said the Secretary of the International Treaty, Dr. Shakeel Bhatti, “as we know that some of this genetic material will contribute to the global efforts against the UG99, a fungus that attacks wheat and that has caused serious production losses in Africa and the Middle East for more than a decade”.
Detailed documentation and evaluation
Many of the collected varieties come from on-farm conservation and quite a large number of observations have been documented during the collection process such as yield, biomass, height, maturation rate, grain size or color.
During the collecting and evaluation missions, scientists also gathered information from farmers about local names, origins of seeds, any pre-sowing treatments, length of use, preferred characteristics, and any resistance or tolerance they had observed. In addition, scientists and farmers screened and selected the samples independently, and then compared their results in order to improve the quality of information generated by the project.
The material is conserved in the collection held by INRA and the Regional Agricultural Research Centre of Settat, in western Morocco. The Secretariat of the International Treaty has published the notification sent by INRA and detailed information on the accessions on its new website.
The Director of the National Research Institute has also informed the Secretary that the material belonging to Annex 1 crops of the International Treaty and held at the Moroccan Genebank is also incorporated in the Multilateral System and available under the Standard Material Transfer Agreement. The Moroccan Genebank conserves today 48 000 accessions, representing 91 genera of 403 different species.