Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

September 30, 2020

The state of plants — in genebanks and out

More than 4,000 species of plants and fungi were discovered in 2019. These included six species of Allium in Europe and China, the same group as onions and garlic, 10 relatives of spinach in California and two wild relatives of cassava, which could help future-proof the staple crop eaten by 800 million people against the climate crisis.

That’s from The Guardian’s article on the release of Kew’s latest State of the World’s Plants and Fungi. Nice to see a shout-out for crop wild relatives, and indeed orphan crops. But it’s not all sweetness and light, of course.

Two in five of the world’s plant species are at risk of extinction as a result of the destruction of the natural world…

This year the report comes with a full volume of scientific publications in the journal Plant, People, Planet. That includes International collaboration between collections‐based institutes for halting biodiversity loss and unlocking the useful properties of plants and fungi, which has case studies on the CWR Project and Genesys.

International collaboration across biodiversity projects offers numerous benefits. Through the eight case studies presented we have identified the five key benefits to collaboration: (a) synergy; (b) greater efficiency; (c) sharing resources; (d) greater impact and leverage; and (e) transfer of knowledge and technologies. We remain mindful that successful collaborations are environments where trust and professional respect within and between partners flourish.

‘Nuff said.

September 28, 2020September 28, 2020

Brainfood: Cali ag, Wild potato double, Enset diversity double, Banana collecting, Disease models, Wild resistance, SP drought, Wheat blast, MAGIC wheat, Biological control, Teosinte, Artemisia, Multiple cropping, Mungbean value, Traditional crops, Singing dogs, Biodiversity metric, Hotspots

Projected temperature increases may require shifts in the growing season of cool-season crops and the growing locations of warm-season crops. In California’s Mediterranean climate, cool season crops will have to shift in time, and warm-season crops in place.
A “Mega Population” of the Wild Potato Species Solanum fendleri. Large population, safe, accessible and very diverse. Who needs genebanks, right?
Survival of Solanum jamesii Tubers at Freezing Temperatures. Very unusual trait in both the crop and the wild relatives, apparently.
Diversity and uses of enset [Ensete ventricosum (Welw.) Cheesman] varieties in Angacha district, Southern Ethiopia: call for taxonomic identifications and conservation. 55 varieties in 75 homegardens, 88 in the field genebank, many in only one or the other.
Impact of Climate Change on the Diversity and Distribution of Enset (Ensete ventricosum (Welw) Cheesman) in Ethiopia: A Review. Some are moving, some are dying. I guess we really need in vitro and cryo after all.
Filling the gaps in gene banks: Collecting, characterizing and phenotyping wild banana relatives of Papua New Guinea. Much diversity of banana ancestor still not in genebanks, but people are on the job.
Modeling the Impact of Crop Diseases on Global Food Security. Genetic diversity is not enough.
What natural variation can teach us about resistance durability. That genetic diversity is not enough, apparently.
Wheat blast: a new threat to food security. We have the genes to fight it, but they won’t be enough.
Limited haplotype diversity underlies polygenic trait architecture across 70 years of wheat breeding. I hope at least those genes can be found in this MAGIC population based on European bread wheat varieties from the past few decades.
Potential Short-Term Memory Induction as a Promising Method for Increasing Drought Tolerance in Sweetpotato Crop Wild Relatives [Ipomoea series Batatas (Choisy) D. F. Austin]. Wild sweet potatoes have the genes to remember drought stress, and hence cope with it better. Will they be enough though?
Ecological pest control fortifies agricultural growth in Asia–Pacific economies. Biological control has been worth USD 15-20 billion a year for non-rice crops over the past 100 years across 23 countries. But how much is the interaction with genetic diversity worth?
Evaluation of the contribution of teosinte to the improvement of agronomic, grain quality and yield traits in maize (Zea mays). Wild relative not just a source of stress resistance, could be useful for yield potential too.
“It may also have prevented churchgoers from falling asleep”: southernwood, Artemisia abrotanum L. (fam. Asteraceae), in the church bouquet, and its contemporary presence as a heritage plant in Sweden. The fragrance lingers.
Multiple cropping systems of the world and the potential for increasing cropping intensity. Multiple cropping on 12% of total agricultural area, which could increase, but probably not as much as was thought.
Impact and returns on investment of mungbean research and development in Myanmar. Four varieties coming out of international research created economic gains of USD 1.4 billion from 1980-2016. That’s a ROI of about 90, but it took 20 years to kick in.
Are Traditional Food Crops Really ‘Future Smart Foods?’ A Sustainability Perspective. Well, they could be, but maybe we don’t have 20 years.
New Guinea highland wild dogs are the original New Guinea singing dogs. …which are therefore not extinct in the wild as used to be thought. Or so the DNA says.
WEGE: A new metric for ranking locations for biodiversity conservation. That’s “Weighted Endemism including Global Endangerment,” and it hasn’t been tried on plants. Yet.
Toward Unifying Global Hotspots of Wild and Domesticated Biodiversity. They overlap a lot but not completely. Expect WEGE to be applied at some stage.

September 25, 2020September 25, 2020

The fun begins for the amazing Denise Costich

Another transition at an international genebank. Dr Denise Costich, head of the CIMMYT maize genebank, is retiring. Here’s what they call her “exit seminar.”

Denise and her team kept 32,000 accessions safe, and made them available to all. Denise is moving on, but that work continues.

Happy retirement, Denise!

September 21, 2020September 16, 2020

Brainfood: Bending the curve edition

Bending the curve of terrestrial biodiversity needs an integrated strategy. Meaning: (i) sustainable agricultural intensification, (ii) trade, (iii) less food waste, (iv) more plant-based human diets, and (v) more and better protected areas.
The carbon opportunity cost of animal-sourced food production on land. See (iv) above.
Just ten percent of the global terrestrial protected area network is structurally connected via intact land. See (v) above.
Cropland expansion in the United States produces marginal yields at high costs to wildlife. See (i) above.
A cultivated planet in 2010 – Part 1: The global synergy cropland map. Gotta know where the cropland is before you can do (i) above.
Advances in plant phenomics: From data and algorithms to biological insights. Fancy maths can really help with (i) above.
Retrospective Quantitative Genetic Analysis and Genomic Prediction of Global Wheat Yields. Different fancy maths shows that CIMMYT’s Obregon wheat testing site can really help with (i) above.
Diversity analysis of 80,000 wheat accessions reveals consequences and opportunities of selection footprints. Here’s some stuff that wheat breeders can use to develop new materials to test at Obregon using phenomics, genomics and fancy maths.
First report on cryopreservation of mature shoot tips of two avocado (Persea americana Mill.) rootstocks. This should help with (iv) above. Eventually, work with me here.
Bread and porridge at Early Neolithic Göbekli Tepe: A new method to recognize products of cereal processing using quantitative functional analyses on grinding stones. Ahem. Well… No, sorry, I got nothing.

September 18, 2020September 18, 2020

Brainfood: Special citizen science edition

Something for the weekend. I hope you enjoy this special edition of Brainfood focusing on citizen science, Indigenous knowledge and participatory research. Do you like themed Brainfood editions like this? There will be another one on Monday, as it happens. They’re more tricky to produce, but if there’s significant interest I may make the extra effort. Let me know, and suggest topics.

The value of climate-resilient seeds for smallholder adaptation in sub-Saharan Africa. Up to USD 2 billion in Malawi and Tanzania over the next 30 years.
Agricultural productivity and deforestation: Evidence from input subsidies and ethnic favoritism in Malawi. Cheaper fertilizers increased yields and decreased deforestation. Better seeds would help too, no doubt (see above).
Channels used to deliver agricultural information and knowledge to smallholder farmers. Farmer groups and demonstration plots work well to spread the news about fertilizers and seeds.
Integrating Conventional and Participatory Crop Improvement for Smallholder Agriculture Using the Seeds for Needs Approach: A Review. Combine high-tech centralized and participatory decentralized germplasm evaluation and breeding approaches to get those better seeds to farmer groups and their demonstration plots.
Citizen science breathes new life into participatory agricultural research. A review. Why do the participatory, decentralized bit? Here’s why. Fortunately, there’s an app for it…
A global resource for exploring and exploiting genetic variation in sorghum crop wild relatives. If those seeds include sorghum, you could start with this lot.
Gendered differences in crop diversity choices: A case study from Papua New Guinea. And don’t forget gender as you do all this participatory, decentralized stuff. For example, in PNG, the women are into marketing, the men into tradition.
Crowd breeding of Danish apple cultivars. No word on gender differences, alas.
Modelling illustrates that genomic selection provides new opportunities for intercrop breeding. Here’s the high-tech, centralized bit, or at least a model of it, ripe for mashing up with citizen science.
Dissection of the domestication‐shaped genetic architecture of lettuce primary metabolism. More high-tech, centralized stuff, the real thing this time. Which can now be used to breed a better lettuce, hopefully by lots of citizens growing the stuff in their gardens and providing salad tasting results through a nifty app.
Indigenous and Local Knowledge Practices and Innovations for Enhancing Food Security Under Climate Change: Examples from Mijikenda Communities in Coastal Kenya. Maybe farmers should run participatory programmes, with scientists as the citizens.
Micronutrient composition and microbial community analysis across diverse landraces of the Ethiopian orphan crop enset. Don’t know how you’d do citizen science on this, but I bet somebody does.
Discovering the indigenous microbial communities associated with the natural fermentation of sap from the cider gum Eucalyptus gunnii. Someone mention traditional fermentation practices?
The Milpa Game: a Field Experiment Investigating the Social and Ecological Dynamics of Q’eqchi’ Maya Swidden Agriculture. Citizen science is not a game. No, wait…
The Ancient Tree Inventory: a summary of the results of a 15 year citizen science project recording ancient, veteran and notable trees across the UK. Not a game indeed: very serious, but fun, definitely fun.