Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

May 2, 2024May 2, 2024

Colorado State PGR course runs again

From Dr Pat Byrne, Professor Emeritus of Plant Breeding and Genetics at Colorado State University.

Colorado State University Online will offer 3 one-credit courses in Fall 2024 on Plant Genetic Resources Conservation and Use. Courses are targeted to the upper undergraduate/graduate student level and can be taken sequentially or independently. Course instructors are Dr Geoff Morris (CSU), Dr Davina Rhodes (CSU), and Dr Gayle Volk (USDA-ARS). The courses are as follows:

SOCR 501 – Plant Genetic Resources: Origins, Aug. 19 – Sep. 22. Discover the origins of plant genetic resources, their domestication and diversification, their genetic and genomic properties, and their vital role in global food systems.
SOCR 502 – Plant Genetic Resources: Conservation, Sept. 23-Oct. 27. Examine the role of genebanks in the global effort to conserve plant genetic resources. Explore each step from collection to storage, regeneration, and distribution.
SOCR 503 – Plant Genetic Resources: Discovery, Oct. 28-Dec. 8. Learn how breeders overcome the challenges of unadapted germplasm, how novel traits and genetic variants are discovered, and how they get from genebank to plant breeders, then on to farmers and consumers.

For more information on course content, fees, and registration, visit PGRCourse.colostate.edu.

April 11, 2024

Agricultural biodiversity conference and survey

A couple of quick announcements today that I don’t want to get lost in Nibbles.

First, there’s an International Conference on Agrobiodiversity going on in Nepal. I just found out about it, but it’s hybrid, so you can still join.

Second, if you’re an expert on potatoes or sweet potatoes, consider taking this survey from CIP.

April 9, 2024April 9, 2024

Brainfood: Food shift, Food footprint, Periodic Table of Food, Nutritious food, Diverse food, Food seed kits, Food meta-metrics

Food matters: Dietary shifts increase the feasibility of 1.5°C pathways in line with the Paris Agreement. Go flexitarian.
Biodiversity footprints of 151 popular dishes from around the world. Go flexitarian?
Periodic Table of Food Initiative for generating biomolecular knowledge of edible biodiversity. Unclear if flexitarians have the best molecules.
Environmentally protective diets may come with trade-offs for micronutrient adequacy. More sustainable may mean less nutritious. Flexitarians unavailable for comment.
Market engagement, crop diversity, dietary diversity, and food security: evidence from small-scale agricultural households in Uganda. Market access and crop diversification are both good for dietary diversity and food security. The ultimate flexitarianism.
Sustainability of one-time seed distributions: a long-term follow-up of vegetable seed kits in Tanzania. Now watch flexitarians demand an even playing field.
Developing holistic assessments of food and agricultural systems: A meta‑framework for metrics users. One framework to rule all of the above.

April 9, 2024

Giving a fig

Jeremy’s latest newsletter is out, with a medium-deep dive on a deep dive on figs. There’s more on FIGGEN here. And FYI, Genesys shows about 1500 fig accessions in genebanks.

AramcoWorld is a glossy publication from the Saudi oil giant that covers all sorts of topics generally linked to the Muslim world. In the latest issue a deep dive into fig diversity. For the scientifically inclined, FIGGEN is a cooperative effort to collect figs wild and cultivated and decode links between DNA and desirable qualities. The heart of the story, however, is the Tunisian farmers working to keep ahead of the climate emergency by changing the varieties they grow and the ways they grow them.

Read it, and you too will be able to speak knowledgeably about caprification, and if you can find an etymology beyond something like goat figs, do let me know.

March 27, 2024

An award for conserving seeds

Did you have to develop new methods to clean the seed? Is it one of the longest cleaning or dormancy breaking processes? Was it the first time your species was germinated in a collection and unique germination methods had to be found?

The catch is that the “you” has to be a botanic garden, but I do like the idea of the Global Seed Conservation Challenge Awards. The above is just one of six different categories. A few more days only for nominations, so get cracking.