Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

July 27, 2020July 27, 2020

In situ conservation practitioners in Europe getting serious

The latest from the Farmer’s Pride project, which as you may remember focuses on the in situ conservation of landraces and crop wild relatives in Europe:

“This tool is for landrace maintainers or those considering the cultivation of landraces to diversify their crop production system. It provides access to evidence-based information on the benefits, opportunities and practices of landrace cultivation to help in decision-making and to promote their in situ maintenance as a means of conserving and diversifying plant genetic resources for food, nutrition and livelihood security.”
“Are you taking care of plant diversity in situ (in cultivation and in the wild) and interested in joining forces to support future food security?” Yes? Then please take this survey.

Stay up to date by subscribing to their newsletter.

July 27, 2020July 14, 2020

Brainfood: Bacterial contamination, Yam diversity, Multi-parent pops, Small millets breeding, Plural valuation, Seed conservation, Transition, Wild spuds, Enset conservation, Cassava viruses, Maize stemborer, Rice roots

Identification and Control of Latent Bacteria in in vitro Cultures of Sweetpotato [Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam]. 10% of about 2400 in vitro plantlets had a total of about 20 types of bacteria, some of which might be beneficial for all we know, but all of which could be removed.
Genome-wide genotyping elucidates the geographical diversification and dispersal of the polyploid and clonally propagated yam (Dioscorea alata L.). Asian and Pacific genepools, thence to India, then Africa, then the Caribbean.
Multi-parent populations in crops: a toolbox integrating genomics and genetic mapping with breeding. Like MAGIC.
Genetic and genomic resources, and breeding for accelerating improvement of small millets: current status and future interventions. Here’s all the promising material, now go crazy with the MAGIC.
Plural valuation of nature for equity and sustainability: Insights from the Global South. The road to decolonizing conservation.
Long-Term Storage and Longevity of Orthodox Seeds: A Systematic Review. Treat your seeds right.
Changes in food access by mestizo communities associated with deforestation and agrobiodiversity loss in Ucayali, Peruvian Amazon. Less diversified diets, loss of forest cover and reduced agricultural biodiversity go together, somehow.
Evaluation of Wild Potato Germplasm for Tuber Starch Content and Nitrogen Utilization Efficiency. Wild species are better on both counts.
Conservation protocols for Ensete glaucum, a crop wild relative of banana, using plant tissue culture and cryopreservation techniques on seeds and zygotic embryos. 2 accessions thus conserved at NBPGR.
Computational models to improve surveillance for cassava brown streak disease and minimize yield loss. Fancy maths shows that planting clean material helps a lot.
Genome wide association analysis of a stemborer egg induced “call-for-help” defence trait in maize. “…egg-induced parasitoid attraction trait was more common in landraces than in improved inbred lines and hybrids.”
Low Additive Genetic Variation in a Trait Under Selection in Domesticated Rice. That would be root growth under drought and Al stress conditions. Every accession has a different set of low frequency causal alleles.

July 20, 2020January 18, 2021

Brainfood: SDGs, Ancient sustainability, Phenomics, Wheat phenotyping, Public breeding, Almond breeding, Ethiopian sorghum, Methane mitigation, Reindeer games, Raised fields, #ArtGenetics

Living Links Connecting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: Small-Scale Farmers and Agricultural Biodiversity. Want to address a whole bunch of SDGs at once? Here’s a tip…
Archaeology for Sustainable Agriculture. Sustainability is not forever.
A Congo Basin ethnographic analogue of pre-Columbian Amazonian raised fields shows the ephemeral legacy of organic matter management. Another example of the above?
Genebank Phenomics: A Strategic Approach to Enhance Value and Utilization of Crop Germplasm. A lot of useful phenotyping can be done fast and cheap, and genebanks should do it.
LeafMachine: Using machine learning to automate leaf trait extraction from digitized herbarium specimens. This might help with the above.
Affordable Phenotyping of Winter Wheat under Field and Controlled Conditions for Drought Tolerance. This certainly could. Basically a supermarket cart with a drone mounted on top of it.
Plant Breeding Capacity in U.S. Public Institutions. It’s in trouble.
Redomesticating Almond to Meet Emerging Food Safety Needs. Turning to peach, wild and cultivated, to reduce immunoreactivity and control aflatoxin and Salmonella. Somebody say public breeding is in trouble?
Genetic variability among Ethiopian sorghum landrace accessions for major agro-morphological traits and anthracnose resistance. From 360 accessions to 10. Let’s hope at least the public sector can get hold of them.
Review: Genetic and genomic selection as a methane mitigation strategy in dairy cattle. Gotta measure emissions on individual animals.
Genome sequence and comparative analysis of reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) in northern Eurasia. Two domestications, affecting at least a dozen genes. No word on methane.
Genomes on Canvas: Artist’s Perspective on Evolution of Plant-Based Foods. Crowdsourcing historical images to trace crop evolution.

July 18, 2020July 17, 2020

Zac does CIP

My off-the cuff take on Episode 5 of Down to Earth with Zac Efron, featuring our hero’s visit to the CIP genebank.

July 17, 2020July 17, 2020

A Genesys use case for the weekend

I figured today I’d tweet about a cool new feature of Genesys, the online portal to genebank accessions. And I did, but then I thought I should really put it on here too. So here goes.

The use case I’ll consider today is:

I have an accession I like, and I know where it was collected. Show me all other accessions anywhere in the world that come from a roughly similar climate.

Here’s what you do. Hang on to your butts.

When you have selected the accession you like in Genesys, go to Map, and look for this on the far left.

Click on Show Climate…

Then click on your accession on the map. You’ll get a summary description of the climate at that point.

If you then click on List Accessions (bottom left hand corner), you’ll get a list of all accessions from places which are roughly comparable in climate to that of the accession which you clicked. I can explain how that’s calculated separately if people are interested.

Or, you can choose one of those bioclimatic variables listed, decide on some max and min values, go to Filter Accessions on the left of the map, and insert your chosen values in the appropriate place on the menu that should appear (scroll down).

Click on Apply Filters at the top of the menu, and there’s a list of accessions again, this time from places with climates within your chosen limits.

Let me know in comments if you have any questions, or indeed ideas for improvement.

Here’s a PDF of the Twitter thread.