Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

Nibbles: Millets 2023, Pygmy hog, Iraqi seeds, Botanicals, Business, EU

Fri, 05 Mar 2021 09:09:19 GMT

Watch out for the millets renaissance.
This small wild pig is already having a renaissance.
Can you help with the renaissance of some Iraqi vegetable seeds?
Alpine botanicals will be having anything but a renaissance. Genebanks anyone?
No way to call the uptick in interest in biodiversity in the financial industry a renaissance. I’m not even sure it’s an uptick, actually. Absinthe, anyone?
Will the EU’s Farm to Fork plus biodiversity strategies lead to an environmental renaissance?

Nibbles: Bean atlas, Community seedbanks double, Canadian stamps

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 14:32:09 GMT

New edition of the Atlas of Common Bean Production in Africa still doesn’t have localities of genebank accessions.
Community seed banks have genebank accessions in Kenya and India.
Canadian stamps have crabapple varieties that are probably genebank accessions somewhere.

Rooting for consumers

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 12:26:14 GMT

The International Journal of Food Science + Technology has a special issue out that sounds extremely interesting. Here’s how the introductory editorial, led by Dominique Dufour, describes it.

“Consumers have their say: assessing preferred quality traits of roots, tubers and cooking bananas, and implications for breeding” special issue, brings together new knowledge about quality traits required for roots, tubers and bananas (RTB) varieties to successfully meet diverse user preferences and expectations, along the variety development and RTB value chains (production, processing, marketing, food preparation, consumption). Key RTB crops in sub‐Saharan Africa are cassava, yams, sweetpotatoes, potatoes and bananas/plantains. They are mainly consumed directly as boiled pieces or pounded in the form of smooth, not sticky, and stretchable dough. They are also stewed, steamed or fried. Cassava, the most widely grown RTB, is generally boiled, stewed or steamed in Eastern and Southern Africa, and in West and Central Africa is usually processed directly into derivative products, e.g. whole root fermentation through retting or heap fermentation; fermentation/dewatering of the mash. Biophysical and social knowledge presented in this issue help elaborate goals for both the processing unit operations (food scientist control) and variety traits (breeder control).

In a perfect world, I’d do a deep-dive Brainfood on the whole thing, but that’s looking highly unlikely at the moment, so let me whet your appetite with this nice illustration from the paper “Cyanogenic, carotenoids and protein composition in leaves and roots across seven diverse population found in the world cassava germplasm collection at CIAT, Colombia.”

All the papers are open access. Anyone out there want to help me out with a dedicated Brainfood? Maybe go halves?

Brainfood: Extra livestock edition

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 11:22:47 GMT

Resilience and livestock adaptations to demographic growth and technological change: A diachronic perspective from the Late Bronze Age to Late Antiquity in NE Iberia. The changing balance between sheep, cattle and pigs through time was driven by socio-economics more than environment.
Heat stress will detrimentally impact future livestock production in East Africa. 4-19% of livestock production will have more heat to cope with.
Pastoralism in the highest peaks: Role of the traditional grazing systems in maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem function in the alpine Himalaya. A ban on grazing would be counter-productive.
The evolving interface between pastoralism and uncertainty : reflecting on cases from three continents. Adaptive herd management, livelihood mosaics, persisting mobility, reticular territories, and articulated social networks have been enough, but for how long more?
Redefinition of the Mora Romagnola Pig Breed Herd Book Standard Based on DNA Markers Useful to Authenticate Its “Mono-Breed” Products: An Example of Sustainable Conservation of a Livestock Genetic Resource. Fraudsters beware.
Estimating the genetic diversity of Pacific salmon and trout using multigene eDNA metabarcoding. DNA was recovered from the water, for pity’s sake.

Bean there, done that

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 08:43:30 GMT

Back in the day, together with co-authors Nigel Maxted and Edwin Chiwona, I used maps from the Atlas of Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) Production in Africa1 in a little thing called A Methodological Model for Ecogeographic Surveys of Crops. I don’t remember what software we used, and how difficult it was to do, as it was getting on for 25 years ago, but I suspect it was a bit of struggle mashing up the maps with genebank accession locality data.

Well, there’s a new edition of the atlas out, and, thanks to Genesys and Google Earth, it’s not quite so difficult (the colours represent ecologically distinct bean production areas).

Which is not to say it couldn’t be a bit easier. I mean, why not allow people to import their own data on the atlas’ nifty online interactive maps?

Oh, and BTW, only a tiny percentage of bean accessions from Kenya are geo-referenced, so that hasn’t changed much in 25 years.

Wortmann CS, Kirby RA, Eledu CA, Allen DJ. 1998. CIAT, Cali, Colombia. pp. 133

Virtual veggie visit

Tue, 02 Mar 2021 10:24:26 GMT

Want to know what happens in a genebank? Do you have 8 minutes to spare?

More on the UK Vegetable Genebank for those who prefer to read.

No word on whether breeding vegetables is as tough as potatoes.

Nibbles: Transformation, Livestock pod, Coffee pod, GHUs, Viz double, Yaupon, Wild foods, GRIN, ...

Tue, 02 Mar 2021 07:59:05 GMT

IAASTD ten years on. Not many people hurt.
Interesting new ILRI podcast hits the airwaves.
And here’s another new podcast: A History of Coffee. So far so pretty good.
Meanwhile, CIP rounds up recent webinars on germplasm health.
Fun visualizations on the seasonality of food.
Speaking of visualizations, RAWGraphs is a pretty neat tool.
North America used to have a native caffeinated beverage, the attractively named Ilex vomitoria.
Maybe South Africa’s local wild foods have a better chance.
Using USDA’s genebank database, GRIN.
Not sure if this Korean-American farmer does (access USDA’s genebank database, do keep up), but probably.
I wonder if any of these Australian wild foods will find their way into a genebank, just in case.
Genebanks like the UK veggie one at Warwick.

Breeding potatoes back in the day

Tue, 02 Mar 2021 07:40:25 GMT

Via William Whitson of the Kenosha Potato Project on Facebook comes this nice quote about potato breeding:

It’s from an article by Drs P. Grun and J. Staub in a CIP publication from 1979: Report of the Planning Conference on the Exploration, Taxonomy and Maintenance of Potato Germ Plasm III.

I wonder how much things have changed?

Brainfood: Rewilding, Neotropical domestication, Teosinte hybrids, Milpa, Wild grapes, Wild ...

Mon, 01 Mar 2021 07:00:33 GMT

Agricultural wilding: rewilding for agricultural landscapes through an increase in wild productive systems. But would it be sparing or sharing?
Disentangling Domestication from Food Production Systems in the Neotropics. “Wild” is a contested concept in the Neotropics anyway.
Evidence for Multiple Teosinte Hybrid Zones in Central Mexico. Maize systems are already pretty wild in Mexico.
Maize intercropping in the milpa system. Diversity, extent and importance for nutritional security in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. And they’re doing pretty well, thank you very much.
Extensive introgression among North American wild grapes (Vitis) fuels biotic and abiotic adaptation. Plenty of wilding in American grapevines too.
Conservation status assessment of banana crop wild relatives using species distribution modelling. There’s a danger of de-wilding.
A route to de novo domestication of wild allotetraploid rice. The upside of dewilding.
Landrace added value and accessibility in Europe: what a collection of case studies tells us. Landraces can maybe help with that rewilding of agriculture in Europe, as they are mostly adapted to marginal, low-input systems.
The Analysis of Italian Plant Agrobiodiversity Databases Reveals That Hilly and Sub-Mountain Areas Are Hotspots of Herbaceous Landraces. Like I said, landraces can help.
Locally Adapted and Organically Grown Landrace and Ancient Spring Cereals—A Unique Source of Minerals in the Human Diet. Plus they’re good for you.
Not my cup of coffee: Farmers’ preferences for coffee variety traits – Lessons for crop breeding in the age of climate change. Which is not to say landraces don’t need improvement every now and then.
The potential for income improvement and biodiversity conservation via specialty coffee in Ethiopia. But in the end, it’s about the value added.
From anger to action: Differential impacts of eco-anxiety, eco-depression, and eco-anger on climate action and wellbeing. Does any of the above make you angry? Good!

Nibbles: Improving heirlooms, CRISPR, Greening, International Space Station

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 09:17:33 GMT

Breeding better beans.
Including soybeans.
And potatoes.
And grapes. In space.

Nibbles: Costich, GHUs, Locusts, Brachiaria, Fruits & veggies, Ag data, Agroecology

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 08:27:18 GMT

Dr Costich’s Odyssey.
CGIAR Germplasm Health Units: Between the Scylla of spreading pests and diseases and the Charybdis of getting stuff out to genebank users too slowly.
Turning insects into food
Feeding cattle under the Congolese sun.
Plenty of intoxicating fruits out there besides lotus.
Weaving a web of data for food security.
Europe heeds the siren song of agroecology.

Brainfood: GBIF, CWR hotspots, Feralization, Gene editing, Japanese seeds, Campesino maize, ...

Mon, 22 Feb 2021 07:41:58 GMT

Data integration enables global biodiversity synthesis. Biodiversity data is not enough.
Review of congruence between global crop wild relative hotspots and centres of crop origin/diversity. Vavilov is enough.
Feralization: Confronting the Complexity of Domestication and Evolution. Centres of diversity are not enough.
De novo domestication of wild species to create crops with increased resilience and nutritional value. Conservation is not enough.
Evaluating plant genetic diversity maintained by local farmers and residents: A comphrehensive assessment of continuous vegetable cultivation and seed-saving activities on a regional scale in Japan. Economic incentives are not enough.
Beyond subsistence: the aggregate contribution of campesinos to the supply and conservation of native maize across Mexico. Small farmers could be enough.
Unlocking the Patterns of the Tunisian Durum Wheat Landraces Genetic Structure Based on Phenotypic Characterization in Relation to Farmer’s Vernacular Name. Small farmers could be enough.
Linkages between dietary diversity and indicators of agricultural biodiversity in Burkina Faso. Production of diverse crops could be enough.
Seed longevity of two nutrient-dense vegetables (Amaranthus spp.). 5°C and aluminium packets are enough.
Phytosanitary Interventions for Safe Global Germplasm Exchange and the Prevention of Transboundary Pest Spread: The Role of CGIAR Germplasm Health Units. Genebanks are not enough.

Nibbles: Bangladeshi gardens, Rambo root, Invasive hybrids, Pomologia, CWR, Genebanks, ...

Sat, 20 Feb 2021 07:21:49 GMT

Floating gardens are a solution.
Cassava is a solution.
Eco-fusion is a solution.
Art is a solution.
Crop wild relatives are a solution.
Genebanks are a solution.
Understanding the effect of agricultural commodities on forests is a solution.
My agroecology is a solution, but not yours.
2021 will be a solution.
Long-term thinking is the solution.

Watch and learn

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 11:14:52 GMT

The annual course organized by Wageningen University on Plant Genetic Resources and Resilient Seed Systems for Sustainable Food Security will be online this year. Find out more and apply here.

Oh, wait, so will EUCARPIA’s international conference on Breeding and Seed Sector Innovations for Organic Food Systems.

Anybody zoomed out yet?

Toolbox tuber released

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 16:09:23 GMT

The Toolbox offers a collection of 11 tools that help diagnose, evaluate and improve seed systems of banana, cassava, potato, sweet potato, and yam. These tools can be used by researchers, policy makers, and practitioners working on seed systems of these crops.

Interested? The launch is on 2 March and you can register for the online event.

Nibbles: Goodness edition

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 08:28:15 GMT

What makes a good seed?
What makes good seed conservation?
No, really, what makes good seed conservation?
What makes better seeds?
What makes good seed planting?
What makes a good tree for planting?

Nibbles: Breeding conference, Anthropology conference, Ecosystem services, Quality of life, ...

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 10:34:36 GMT

The 10th Annual Cornell Plant Breeding Symposium is coming up in April.
The Anthropology and Conservation Virtual Conference is coming up in October.
How much is a farm worth, environmentally speaking? Plant breeders and anthropologists invited to reply.
How much is nature worth to quality of life?
How much is the research of CGIAR worth?
How much does a healthy diet cost?
The oldest beer factor? Priceless?

Brainfood: Bird shit, Ancient Greece, Maize adaptation, Resistant peanut, Adaptive variation, ...

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 07:34:24 GMT

‘White gold’ guano fertilizer drove agricultural intensification in the Atacama Desert from ad 1000. And maize was at the heart of it.
What’s new during the first millennium BCE in Greece? Archaeobotanical results from Olynthos and Sikyon. Not maize, alas, but what you’d expect, plus pine and sesame.
Local adaptation contributes to gene expression divergence in maize. Stress-response genes are the ones which have been selected. No word on whether any of them were important in the Atacama.
Genotyping tools and resources to assess peanut germplasm: smut-resistant landraces as a case study. Ok, so it sounds like the resistant line that was previously used is virtually identical to an accession in the USDA collection.
Do We Need to Identify Adaptive Genetic Variation When Prioritizing Populations for Conservation? No, but we’ll need it to prioritize use, surely?
Incorporating Realistic Trait Physiology into Crop Growth Models to Support Genetic Improvement. We’ll need better growth models too.
Wild to domesticates: genomes of edible diploid bananas hold traces of several undefined genepools. 3 of them, in fact, in both SE Asia and New Guinea.
Evolution of the bread wheat D-subgenome and enriching it with diversity from Aegilops tauschii. Three lineages were involved in the hybridizations that led to bread wheat. Coincidence?
De novo genome assembly of two tomato ancestors, Solanum pimpinellifolium and Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme, by long-read sequencing. Thousands of genes not found in the cultivated crop, apparently.
Genomic mechanisms of climate adaptation in polyploid bioenergy switchgrass. Introgression from the northern genepool (one of three) was really important in adaptation after the glaciers retreated. Gene duplication also involved in adaptation.
Economic Studies Reinforce Efforts to Safeguard Specialty Crops in the United States. Where “safeguard” means “provide clean planting material.”
Comparative analysis of genetic diversity of rice (Oryza sativa L.) varieties cultivated in different periods in China. Diversity went up, then down, between the 1980s and the 2010s.
Wheat Varietal Diversification Increases Ethiopian Smallholders’ Food Security: Evidence from a Participatory Development Initiative. Why the diversity in breeding programmes is important, and how farmer participation can help maintain it.
The tricot citizen science approach applied to on-farm variety evaluation: methodological progress and perspectives. How to do the above.
Biodiversity and conservation of Phoenix canariensis: a review. A wild relative in trouble, and what to do about it.
Tropical and Mediterranean biodiversity is disproportionately sensitive to land-use and climate change. As can be seen from the above.

Nibbles: Celebration edition

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 07:53:00 GMT

Celebrating the International Year of Plant Health with another webinar on Germplasm Health in Preventing Transboundary Spread of Pests and Pathogens, 17 Feb.
Celebrating World Pulse Day (late) by linking to Tropical Legumes Hub.
Celebrating International Day of Women and Girls in Science by reading profiles of 16 women saving crop diversity and watching a video of IPBES expert Laura Pereira. Speaking of IPBES, not sure why this take on their October 2020 report is coming out now, but it’s a good read.
Celebrating another year of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
Celebrating little forests. Well, why not?

Nibbles: Dasgupta, WorldVeg, ABS, Cattle breeding

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 15:06:49 GMT

CWR and the Dasgupta Review.
New project on veggies in Africa.
ABS rules are important.
Webinar on breeding low-emitting cattle, 25 February.