- New technologies to improve the ex situ conservation of plant genetic resources. Genebanks need to catch up with the latest science even just to maintain their seeds.
- Advanced Strategic Research to Promote the Use of Rice Genetic Resources. High-throughput phenotyping and genome sequencing are the latest science that will make the most of those seeds.
- Phased diploid genome assemblies and pan-genomes provide insights into the genetic history of apple domestication. Analysis of genomes of two main wild progenitors plus the crop uncovers genes so far untapped for improvement.
- The elephant grass (Cenchrus purpureus) genome provides insights into anthocyanidin accumulation and fast growth. It’s related to pearl millet, apparently. Which may or may not be a good thing. No word on any genes so far untapped for improvement.
- Triticum population sequencing provides insights into wheat adaptation. Wide adaptation is largely due to introgression from the wild. No word on any genes so far untapped for improvement.
- The Right Tortilla for the Right Occasion: Variation in Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Blue Maize Tortillas Based on Utilization. Consumers are willing to pay 42% more for blue tortillas, but only when eating out, presumably as part of virtue signalling.
- 30 years of free‐air carbon dioxide enrichment (FACE): What have we learned about future crop productivity and its potential for adaptation? That enrichment wont save us, that’s what.
- Phenotypic Divergence Analysis in Pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millspaugh] Germplasm Accessions. From 81 accessions to 9 promising ones, at least for Malawi.
- A model for the domestication of Panicum miliaceum (common, proso or broomcorn millet) in China. Domestication took 3000 years.
- Origins and genetic legacy of prehistoric dogs. All dogs are descendants of a now extinct wolf population, and their genetics show both interesting parallels with, and divergences from, that of humans.
- Brain Size Does Not Rescue Domestication Syndrome. Not even for humans, I suspect. Kidding apart, this is fascinating. It suggests that, for animals at least, the domestication syndrome is not actually a thing. Or at least has not been properly tested. If there’s interest, I’ll do a full post. Let me know in the comments below.
- Ancient genomes reveal tropical bovid species in the Tibetan Plateau contributed to the prevalence of hunting game until the late Neolithic. The now tropical gaur ranged much further north during the warmer Neolithic, which facilitated the exploration of the Tibetan Plateau.
- Optimization of in vitro germination and cryopreservation conditions for preserving date palm pollen in the USDA National Plant Germplasm System. Always good to have another way of storing germplasm.
- Beyond the material: knowledge aspects in seed commoning. Comparing global with local seed commons reveals importance of managing knowledge, both scientific and traditional.
- Genetics to the rescue: managing forests sustainably in a changing world. To manage forests sustainably, you have to conserve and use their genetic diversity. Interesting that they needed a conference to work that out.
- Genetic mixing for population management: from genetic rescue to provenancing. And using that genetic diversity could mean mixing it up.
- The importance of genomic variation for biodiversity, ecosystems and people. Maintaining ecosystem services means maintaining genetic diversity. Sounds like these authors went to the same conference.
A little R&R for ecosystems
It seems we missed, back in August, a huge report on CGIAR’s work on ecosystem restoration. After a thorough stocktaking, the report suggests the following are critical for successful restoration:
- secure tenure and use rights
- access to markets (for inputs and outputs) and services
- access to information, knowledge and know-how associated with sustainable and locally adapted land use and land management practices
- awareness of the status of local ecosystem services, often used as a baseline to assess the level of degradation
- high potential for restoration to contribute to global ecosystem services and attract international donors
Which seems sensible. At least if “practices” in 3 and “services” in 4 and 5 include some consideration of genetic diversity. And on that note, it’s also about time we linked to the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney’s page on Restore & Renew (R&R).
It only covers New South Wales and Victoria, but the R&R Webtool could be something for CGIAR to run with globally. You pick a spot you want to restore, and, for a selection of trees, it tells you where best to source germplasm from. That’s based on current climate, future climate and, crucially, genetic similarity ((But see this for a different view.)) (if data are available).
Of course, this is just the start. Scaling up the supply of tree seeds for landscape restoration remains a major challenge. A recent review, also involving CGIAR scientists, makes quite a few useful recommendations. But in the end, I suspect, it will come down to this:
- put in place incentives and enabling policies to support smallholders in producing, trading and using high-quality genetically diverse reproductive materials
When landraces are elite
Have you ever found a genebank accessions that performed better straight out of the box than a modern variety, under a particular set of conditions? If so, let me know below. I’d like to compile a list, because why not?
Some examples already up on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/rellanalvarez/status/1326197628548358144
Yes, we have lots of banana news
There’s recently been some interesting banana germplasm collecting in Papua New Guinea. ((No, I don’t mean the Bougainville expedition, do keep up.))
The results are summarized in two articles, one in Plants evaluating methods to ensure the viability of collected seeds, and the other in Crop Science summarizing the characterization of diverse phenotypes.
We’ve included both the papers in question in past Brainfoods, but this press release, from which the above quote is taken, does a really nice job of bringing them together. It might also have added an additional recent paper on the work of the International Musa Germplasm Transit Centre (ITC), but anyway.
There’s a whole bunch of summary statistics on the ITC, and lots of useful links, on the Genebank Platform webpage. And of course Genesys has a selection of accession-level data. But the place for all your banana information needs is ProMusa.
China’s path to new crops
Jeremy’s latest newsletter includes this nice write-up of a recent paper on the origins of Chinese food, under the title I’ve stolen above. Here’s the rest of the newsletter. We blogged here about the paper Jeremy discusses in the podcast episode mentioned at the end. LATER: There’s also a belated article in Archaeology.
Path dependence is the idea that the choices available today are constrained by choices that were made some time back. A new research paper in PLOS One looks at the way existing cooking techniques affected new crops as they made their way into China.
Wheat and barley arrived in China about 4000 years ago. But while the people of western China adopted the new plants quite quickly (you can tell by looking closely at their bones) those in central China were apparently not as keen.
The reason, according to the researchers, reflects north-south differences in cuisine that can be detected 8000 years ago. Northeners had millet as their staple grain, while southerners ate nuts, tubers, fruits and rice. Overlaid on this, central China is part of the northern complex, where millet was prepared by boiling or steaming the whole grain. Western China’s approach to wheat and barley was to mirror their neighbours to the west, grinding the grains to make flour that was baked into breads.
It took much longer for cooking methods in the east to adapt to the new cereals, not least because it takes far longer to boil wheat than millet, and the taste is quite different. There is some evidence, too, that in the course of this adaptation, wheat itself was selected to be more amenable to boiling and steaming.
This east-west vs north-south story adds detail to the [Eat This Podcast] episode with Martin Jones on Prehistoric food globalisation.