• Reconsidering domestication from a process archaeology perspective. De-colonising, and de-transitivising, domestication.
• Maize biochemistry in response to root herbivory was mediated by domestication, spread, and breeding. Not archaeology, but an example of the more expansive view of domestication being touted above.
• Tracking the transition to agriculture in Southern Europe through ancient DNA analysis of dental calculus. Agriculture was associated with some changes in oral microbiomes, but not nearly as big as happened relatively recently. One could perhaps argue that some oral commensals were domesticated? No? Too much? More on dental calculus below…
• The Failed Globalization of Psychedelic Drugs in the Early Modern World. Culture and religion affected why tobacco spread around and peyote didn’t. Wait, domestication had nothing to do with it?
• Estimating agronomically relevant symbiotic nitrogen fixation in green manure breeding programs. All the better to domesticate them.
• Assessing Forage Potential of the Global Collection of Finger Millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.) Conserved at the ICRISAT Genebank. The top 10 identified, and they’re not bad, considering forage potential was not what the crop was domesticated for. ILRI unavailable for comment :)
• Genetic Diversity of Phenotypic and Biochemical Traits in VIR Radish (Raphanus sativus L.) Germplasm Collection. More variable than was once thought. Ah, domestication, you never disappoint…
• Preliminary evaluation of wild bean (Phaseolus spp.) germplasm for resistance to Fusarium cuneirostrum and Fusarium oxysporum. Wait, domestication can disappoint after all. Deeply. At least we still have the CWR.
• Modern Siberian dog ancestry was shaped by several thousand years of Eurasian-wide trade and human dispersal. People moved dogs about, post-domestication.
• Not so local: the population genetics of convergent adaptation in maize and teosinte. People moved maize about, post-domestication, usefully bringing it into contact with teosinte. But the main author Dr Silas Tittes says it better. Hail the maize taxi!
• Dairying enabled Early Bronze Age Yamnaya steppe expansions. People moved around because of milk. But the main author Dr Shevan Wilkin says it better, and links this with other important papers. Dental calculus never disappoints.

1. More evidence that some food staples are going to be in trouble.
2. Samoa to Rapa Nui in 400 years. But the Americas before that? Mash up with banana, taro and sweet potato next.
3. TED talk on genetic rescue.

Many thanks to Victor Kommerell for pointing me to a new paper representing a sort of culmination of work that we first blogged about back in 2007. The older paper posed a question in its title: Can biological nitrification inhibition (BNI) genes from perennial Leymus racemosus (Triticeae) combat nitrification in wheat farming? The answer now seems to be a resounding maybe.

You’ll remember that the good people at Access to Seeds Index rate seed companies on how and to what extent they make their products available to smallholder farmer in developing countries. Today they launched the results for 32 companies working in Western and Central Africa. Here are the key findings (I’m quoting):

• Seed companies are active in almost all index countries across Sub-Saharan Africa and South and South-east Asia.
• Many companies are providing more diverse portfolios for vegetables and field crops but need to offer more pulses to help tackle malnutrition.
• Leading seed companies are offering extension services in more countries.
• Companies are still only concentrating their investments in infrastructure in a few countries.

But you want to know who did well in the rankings, right? Ok, here’s the Top 3.

Well done, Bayer and the rest.

I’m not sure what their relationship is to the “Strategies and guidelines for developing, managing and utilising ex situ collections” from the Australian Network for Plant Conservation, which we blogged about a few days ago, but the similarly Australian Florabank Guidelines, “15 modules that roughly follow the seed supply chain,” also seem pretty useful.

1. The story of the potato in Poland.
2. The story of one man’s obsession with the pear.
3. Nice extract from Eating to Extinction by Dan Saladino. Get the whole book!
4. Free version of the classic Food Regimes and Agrarian Questions by Philip McMichael.

• Food systems: seven priorities to end hunger and protect the planet. Oh good, includes “Biodiversity and genetic bases need to be protected. Seed varieties must be preserved, and their phenotypes and genotypes explored in the contexts of climate change and nutrition. Traditional food and forest systems, including those of Indigenous peoples, need to be better understood and supported in national agricultural research systems.” Phew.
• Future Changes in Wet and Dry Season Characteristics in CMIP5 and CMIP6 Simulations. The above is just as well because longer hotter and drier spells are coming to the tropics, and crops will suffer.
• Global assessment of the impacts of COVID-19 on food security. Plus there’s this too. Resilience has a cost.
• The future of farming: Who will produce our food? Smallholders…
• When agriculture drives development: Lessons from the Green Revolution. …and that may be bad.
• Ok, the above two entries need unpacking. The second paper shows that the “agricultural engine of growth” was totally a thing during the Green Revolution, but the first that it now appears to be broken.
• Extinction risk of Mesoamerican crop wild relatives. Oh no, on top of everything else, we might lose avocados and vanilla.
• Determinants of Smallholder Maintenance of Crop Diversity in Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains. Markets, land and water. So what would any new Green Revolution do to diversity? Have we learned anything?
• Landscape complexity and US crop production. …are positively correlated. For Morocco too, I wonder?
• Utilize existing genetic diversity before genetic modification in indigenous crops. At least in Ethiopia.
• Compulsion and reactance: Why do some green consumers fail to follow through with planned environmental behaviors? Because some believe in technology, and other is abstinence. Which means they need different messages to encourage them to put their money where their mouths are. Would it work in Ethiopia?

David Bertioli points out, in a comment to a blog post about a recent paper of his, that there’s more than one way to use peanut wild relatives in breeding:

Your previous blog detailed the impact of Charles Simpson’s crosses in Texas, which used the “tetraploid route” of introgression which donated a chromosome segment from A09 which confers root knot nematode resistance. The PNAS paper focuses mostly on progeny from the North Carolina “hexaploid route”, which ended up traveling most around the world. These introgressions, from A02 and A03, confer resistance to Late Leaf Spot, Rust, and to a lesser extent Web Blotch.

Would be interesting to compare the impacts of the two “routes.”

1. The importance of Indigenous plant names.
2. The Navajo Nation has a herbarium.
3. A Palestinian seed saver rightfully celebrated.
4. Ancient potatoes of the Canaries.
5. Fancy GMOs for dinner? Wait, what?

The publication of “Legacy genetics of Arachis cardenasii in the peanut crop shows the profound benefits of international seed exchange” in PNAS rang a faint bell:

Here, we uncover the contribution of one wild species accession, Arachis cardenasii GKP 10017, to the peanut crop (Arachis hypogaea) that was initiated by complex hybridizations in the 1960s and propagated by international seed exchange.

And yes, it turns out we had blogged about this wild peanut species more than a decade ago: Another feel-good crop wild relative story.

Some things have changed since 2008, I’m happy to say. I seem to have had some trouble pulling together data1 at the time, whereas Genesys had no trouble at all showing me 45 accessions. And GKP 10017 even has a DOI now.

1. And the links are now dead.

Masumi Shiohara was born in Nagano Prefecture in 1974. He worked as a development engineer at a microfabrication manufacturer. After leaving the company, he took over his family’s orchard from his parents, and is now running the farm. He is also involved in breeding and has developed a number of varieties.

He also takes amazing photos to record the characteristics of the different varieties he grows.

When filing a plant patent application, we keep records to identify each of the varieties and to compare those with other similar varieties. A collection of these records is called a characteristic table. As a fruit farmer and breeder, I continue to use photographic techniques to illustrate all of the important items in the trait table in a single piece of work. My photographs become a form of botanical art.

Art indeed. For a more mundane approach to varietal identification, however, check out these resources on Orchard Notes.

• Conservation needs to break free from global priority mapping. Couldn’t agree more. And less.
• National climate and biodiversity strategies are hamstrung by a lack of maps. Wait, what?
• The evolutionary genomics of species’ responses to climate change. You need to combine niche modelling with genetic adaptation to get the best maps.
• Payoffs to a half century of CGIAR research. A benefit-to-cost ratio (BCR) of 10:1. Not counting the genebanks. And all the maps.
• A case for conserving plant pathogens. But will it be worth it?
• Poor data stewardship will hinder global genetic diversity surveillance. What’s the BCR for decent metadata?
• Mitigating tradeoffs in plant breeding. Cutting out the cross-talk changes tradeoff to payoff.
• Comparing Productivity of Organic and Conventional Farming Systems: A Quantitative Review. Conventional is more productive. But should yield be the only criterion?
• Priority micronutrient density in foods. Right. Micronutrients are also important.
• Reconciling yield gains in agronomic trials with returns under African smallholder conditions. And how was yield measured anyway?
• Data-driven, participatory characterization of traditional farmer varieties discloses teff (Eragrostis tef) adaptive and breeding potential under current and future climates. This might well be an example of applying the lessons of the above.
• Genetic Diversity and Utilization of Cultivated Eggplant Germplasm in Varietal Improvement. The wild relatives will save us.
• Quinoa Phenotyping Methodologies: An International Consensus. But will it work for the wild relatives? Just kidding, this is an important development for another crop (with the above) which doesn’t have something like the CGIAR and its 10:1 BCR behind it…

1. Luxury brands discover biodiversity: “There is no champagne without grapes, no ready-to-wear without silk and cotton, no perfume without flowers…”
2. What about global food and agriculture companies though? Let’s find out, shall we?
3. TV can help where companies won’t.
4. Of course, you can set up your own company, as these Tunisian women did.
5. Imagine a company helping to move a species to “green status.” Imagine.
6. They could sign the Zero Hunger Pledge for the Private Sector while they’re at it.
7. But meanwhile, on Ojibwe land…

Important reminder from Maarten van Ginkel as part of a comment on yesterday’s post about the Australian genebanking publication.

We need strong awareness raising and encouragement to see gene banks not just as final resting places for historic exotic germplasm, but also as portals for highly needed useful genetic diversity for future introgression into modern crops.

Maarten was closely involved in both CIMMYT’s Wheat Genebank and the Australian Grains Genebank.

1. Useful roundup of the application of modern analytical techniques to archaeological food residues.
2. Medieval “greek wine” was not greek wine. No modern analytical techniques used.
3. Phoenicians traded wine. Some modern analytical techniques used.

The third edition of “Strategies and guidelines for developing, managing and utilising ex situ collections” from the Australian Network for Plant Conservation is out and it’s nothing short of monumental. Here’s the contents.

Chapter 1: Introduction.
Chapter 2: Options, major considerations and preparation for plant germplasm conservation.
Chapter 3: Genetic guidelines for acquiring and maintaining collections for ex situ conservation.
Chapter 4: Seed and vegetative material collection.
Chapter 5: Seed banking: orthodox seeds.
Chapter 6: Identifying and conserving non-orthodox seeds.
Chapter 7: Seed germination and dormancy.
Chapter 8: The role of the plant nursery in ex situ conservation.
Chapter 9: Tissue culture.
Chapter 10: Cryopreservation.
Chapter 11: Living plant collections.
Chapter 12: Isolation, propagation and storage of orchid mycorrhiza and legume rhizobia.
Chapter 13: Special collections and under-represented taxa in Australasian ex situ conservation programs.
Chapter 14: Risk management and preparing for crises.
Chapter 15: Maintenance, utilisation and information storage.

There are also 50 case studies, focusing on Australian examples.

And, given the news about the threats to crop wild relatives and trees, it’s all just as well.

1. Safety duplicating a chickpea collection.
2. Tunisia’s genebank in the news.
3. Ghana’s genebank trying to save taro.
4. Using a genebank to improve Elephant grass.
5. On-farm conservation of rice in Goa.
6. Molecular tools show that a couple of varieties account for about half the wheat acreage in Bangladesh and Nepal. Hope all the landraces are in genebanks, and safety duplicated.
7. Celebrating Peruvian pepper diversity.
8. Peru’s cacao diversity doesn’t need help, apparently.
9. However, the Amazon’s wild-extracted fruits (including cacao and a wild relative) could be in trouble. Hope they’re in genebanks, just in case.
10. How the date came to the US. Including in its genebanks.
11. India had a precursor of the Green Wall of Africa but nobody remembers it. Glad it wasn’t used as a genebank of sorts.
12. Conservation genetics (i.e., most of the above) explained in 48 slides.

• Extreme climate events increase risk of global food insecurity and adaptation needs. Factoring in climate variability shows that just considering the change in the average climate underestimates the food security hit.
• Increases in extreme heat stress in domesticated livestock species during the twenty-first century. And the hit is already landing.
• Data-driven decentralized breeding increases prediction accuracy in a challenging crop production environment. What we therefore need is 3-D breeding.
• Novel Sources of Pre-Harvest Sprouting Resistance for Japonica Rice Improvement. Including for resistance to pre-harvest sprouting in rice due to unexpected typhoons.
• The genome of stress tolerant crop wild relative Paspalum vaginatum leads to increased biomass productivity in the crop Zea mays. For sure crop wild relatives are going to help.
• Megabase-scale presence-absence variation with Tripsacum origin was under selection during maize domestication and adaptation. If they haven’t helped already.
• Registration of three peanut allotetraploid interspecific hybrids resistant to late leaf spot disease and tomato spotted wilt. Sometimes you need multiple CWR.
• Collection, genotyping and virus elimination of cassava landraces from Tanzania and documentation of farmer knowledge. But landraces too will come in handy, especially if farmers’ knowledge is properly documented.
• Prioritizing host phenotype to understand microbiome heritability in plants. And don’t forget the microbiome.
• Economic analysis of habitat manipulation in Brassica pest management: Wild plant species suppress cabbage webworm. Not to mention the ecosystem as a whole.
• Relevance of hop terroir for beer flavour. Oh hell, I give up, time for a craft beer.
• On the Trail of the German Purity Law: Distinguishing the Metabolic Signatures of Wheat, Corn and Rice in Beer. Maybe even a weissbier.

Dr Amber Hartman Scholz gave the latest GROW Webinar last week, and her talk and PowerPoint are now online: “Digital Sequence Information: A Looming Disaster or Hidden Opportunity for Positive Change?”

Dr Scholz has been working on the project Wissenschaftliche Lösungsansätze für Digitale Sequenzinformation (Scientific approaches for digital sequence information), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, about which we have blogged before. If you’re interested in biodiversity access and benefit sharing (ABS), and in particular what to do about digital sequence information (DSI), it’s well worth listening to the presentation and Q&A as a whole.

But here’s a spoiler: Dr Scholz is optimistic that there may be a way forward in what she calls “de-coupling.” That is, not tying benefit sharing to access to a particular bit of DSI, but rather designing a system whereby fee-paying membership of a club allows access to all DSI.

That sounds like the subscription system that the Plant Treaty has been considering for a while. So Dr Scholz is really suggesting a double de-coupling, because her idea would also de-couple ABS on the physical material from ABS on DIS, resulting in two parallel but connected multilateral systems.

Thoughts?

1. Jeremy’s latest newsletter covers in more depth things we just Nibbled here, including perry and ancient bananas, plus much other stuff. We talked about “wild rice” here a couple of times.
2. As for actual rice, the controversy between India and Pakistan about the origin of Basmati just got a bit more complicated. Could it in fact have come from Afghanistan?
3. Maybe everyone should listen to Dr Amber Scholz’s ideas about ABS.
4. Meanwhile, India’s National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources regional centre in Kumaon has been busy collecting germplasm. No word on whether that includes rice, Basmati or otherwise.
5. Pretty cool way of presenting accession data, courtesy of Mystery Haze. I wonder where that’s from originally.