77 posts · 58,493 views
Gathering nuggets of information about agricultural biodiversity, widely construed. Some people call it agrobiodiversity.
Jeremy
77 posts
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- January 30, 2012
- 07:33 AM
- 995 views
Absence of evidence is, er, well, absence of evidence — even for agrobiodiversity and health
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
It has been a bit of a rough week for people who prefer their grand policy pronouncements backed with a teeny bit of evidence. Like us. Two big papers, in important journals, have concluded that there is very little evidence that agriculturally improving dietary diversity feeds into better nutrition and health. In the British Medical [...]... Read more »
Masset, E., Haddad, L., Cornelius, A., & Isaza-Castro, J. (2012) Effectiveness of agricultural interventions that aim to improve nutritional status of children: systematic review. BMJ, 344(jan17 1). DOI: 10.1136/bmj.d8222
Termote, C., Bwama Meyi, M., Dhed'a Djailo, B., Huybregts, L., Lachat, C., Kolsteren, P., & Van Damme, P. (2012) A Biodiverse Rich Environment Does Not Contribute to a Better Diet: A Case Study from DR Congo. PLoS ONE, 7(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0030533
Frison EA, Smith IF, Johns T, Cherfas J, & Eyzaguirre PB. (2006) Agricultural biodiversity, nutrition, and health: making a difference to hunger and nutrition in the developing world. Food and nutrition bulletin, 27(2), 167-79. PMID: 16786983
Frison, E., Cherfas, J., & Hodgkin, T. (2011) Agricultural Biodiversity Is Essential for a Sustainable Improvement in Food and Nutrition Security. Sustainability, 3(1), 238-253. DOI: 10.3390/su3010238
- January 17, 2012
- 02:45 AM
- 172 views
Debating the future of grasspea breeding
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) is an important crop in Ethiopia. Its vital importance in the Ethiopian agriculture emanates from its resistance to drought, salinity, waterlogging and low soil fertility. However, low levels of the amino acids methionine and tryptophan and the presence of the neurotoxin β-N-oxalyl-L-α,β-diaminopropanoic acid (ODAP) in the seeds are the major [...]... Read more »
Girma, D., & Korbu, L. (2012) Genetic improvement of grass pea (Lathyrus sativus) in Ethiopia: an unfulfilled promise. Plant Breeding. DOI: 10.1111/j.1439-0523.2011.01935.x
- December 17, 2011
- 11:50 AM
- 487 views
Mining the minerals in cowpea
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
In the wake of recent news of successes in biofortifying root and tuber crops like sweet potato and cassava, it is as well to remind ourselves that grains also provide micronutrients, and a paper in Plant Genetic Resources: Characterization and Utilization does a good job of just that for the somewhat neglected cowpea. The authors [...]... Read more »
Boukar, O., Massawe, F., Muranaka, S., Franco, J., Maziya-Dixon, B., Singh, B., & Fatokun, C. (2011) Evaluation of cowpea germplasm lines for protein and mineral concentrations in grains. Plant Genetic Resources, 9(04), 515-522. DOI: 10.1017/S1479262111000815
- November 23, 2011
- 09:18 AM
- 591 views
Some faba beans, without the nice Chianti
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
If you’re a faba bean breeder interested in cold tolerance you will have come across a paper recently in GRACE which will have set your pulse racing: Screening and selection of faba beans (Vicia faba L.) for cold tolerance and comparison to wild relatives. And if you had skimmed ahead to the conclusion you would [...]... Read more »
Inci, N., & Toker, C. (2011) Screening and selection of faba beans (Vicia faba L.) for cold tolerance and comparison to wild relatives. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution, 58(8), 1169-1175. DOI: 10.1007/s10722-010-9649-2
- November 17, 2011
- 09:40 AM
- 347 views
Broadening the base for oilseed rape
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Cabbages are the dogs of the crop world, trotted out whenever a point about diversity needs to be made. Brussels sprouts, Siberian kale, kohl rabi and good old boring Savoys are all members of a single species, Brassica oleracea, just as chihuahuas and great Danes are all Canis familiaris. If anything, though, brassicas are more [...]... Read more »
Girke, A., Schierholt, A., & Becker, H. (2011) Extending the rapeseed genepool with resynthesized Brassica napus L. I: Genetic diversity. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution. DOI: 10.1007/s10722-011-9772-8
- October 20, 2011
- 05:13 AM
- 634 views
Solving broomcorn millet
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Broomcorn millet is a bit of a puzzle. You start to get archaeobotanical evidence for cultivated Panicum miliaceum in both China and Europe at about the same time before 7000 BP. Independent domestication or movement along the fabled Silk Road (like wheat)? And if the latter, in which direction? You can hear the conundrum set [...]... Read more »
HUNT, H., CAMPANA, M., LAWES, M., PARK, Y., BOWER, M., HOWE, C., & JONES, M. (2011) Genetic diversity and phylogeography of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) across Eurasia. Molecular Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2011.05318.x
- August 10, 2011
- 08:15 AM
- 848 views
Mashing maize seed systems and climate change
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Smallholder farmers overwhelmingly save their own seed, maybe getting a bit extra from relatives, friends, neighbours and, very occasionally, further afield. If climate change is going to affect growing conditions — and it is — will the so-called informal sector be able to supply them with material that can thrive in the new conditions? A [...]... Read more »
Bellon, M., Hodson, D., & Hellin, J. (2011) Assessing the vulnerability of traditional maize seed systems in Mexico to climate change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1103373108
- August 1, 2011
- 06:49 AM
- 822 views
More to rice intensification than meets the SRI.
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
We’ve written a fair bit about the System of Rice Intensification, or SRI, and our most recent little piece sparked what passes for a vociferous debate over at Facebook (which of course I cannot now link to). As I recall it all seemed to hinge on whether there was one SRI or several different systems, [...]... Read more »
Shepherd, C., & McWilliam, A. (2011) Ethnography, Agency, and Materiality: Anthropological * Perspectives on Rice Development in East Timor. East Asian Science, Technology and Society, 5(2), 189-215. DOI: 10.1215/18752160-1262876
- July 18, 2011
- 04:56 AM
- 523 views
To split or not to split
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Usually when I notice a paper that might be of interest to a particular constituency what I might do is write a post and then send the link to those people and try to get them to comment on it on this blog. With variable results. So with “Managing self-pollinated germplasm collections to maximize utilization” [...]... Read more »
Nelson, R. (2011) Managing self-pollinated germplasm collections to maximize utilization. Plant Genetic Resources, 9(01), 123-133. DOI: 10.1017/S147926211000047X
- July 4, 2011
- 04:43 PM
- 882 views
Even heirloom tomatoes may not be what they seem
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Oh, pesky scientists! A bunch of them in Spain has taken a close look at one of the darlings of European tomato culture and found it, how shall we say, disappointing. The subject of their investigation was a type of tomato known as Marmande, associated with the town of that name. There are several landraces [...]... Read more »
Joan Casals, Laura Pascual, Joaquín Cañizares, Jaime Cebolla-Cornejo, Francesc Casañas, & Fernando Nuez. (2011) The risks of success in quality vegetable markets: Possible genetic erosion in Marmande tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum L.) and consumer dissatisfaction. Scientia Horticulturae. DOI: 10.1016/j.scienta.2011.06.013
- May 12, 2011
- 03:00 AM
- 821 views
How to give agrobiodiversity an even break
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Our friends at Bioversity have meta-done it again. After a milestone contribution a few years ago on the patterns of landrace diversity in farmers’ fields, now arrives a monumental review of the kinds of things that can be done to keep it there. It comes as part of a special issue of Critical Reviews in [...]... Read more »
Jarvis, D., Hodgkin, T., Sthapit, B., Fadda, C., & Lopez-Noriega, I. (2011) An Heuristic Framework for Identifying Multiple Ways of Supporting the Conservation and Use of Traditional Crop Varieties within the Agricultural Production System. Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences, 30(1), 125-176. DOI: 10.1080/07352689.2011.554358
- May 6, 2011
- 01:54 AM
- 1,022 views
Plant traits analyzed globally
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
When we talk about plant traits here we are usually referring to things like characterization and evaluation descriptors, and how they vary within crops. But there’s an ambitious initiative underway to document “the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical, and phenological characteristics of plants and their organs” — some 1500 of them — across the world’s entire [...]... Read more »
Moles, A., Wallis, I., Foley, W., Warton, D., Stegen, J., Bisigato, A., Cella-Pizarro, L., Clark, C., Cohen, P., Cornwell, W.... (2011) Putting plant resistance traits on the map: a test of the idea that plants are better defended at lower latitudes. New Phytologist. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2011.03732.x
- May 4, 2011
- 09:03 AM
- 599 views
Forests at your service: lessons from Kibale
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
We are submitting this post to the ‘Forests: Nature at Your Service’ blogging competition being run by UNEP and Treehugger in celebration of World Environment Day. Wish us luck. It must have seemed a no-brainer. Uganda’s Kibale National Park (KNP) is scenic, diverse, important for the largest bit of mid-elevation tropical rainforest remaining in East [...]... Read more »
LILIEHOLM, R., & WEATHERLY, W. (2010) Kibale Forest Wild Coffee: Challenges to Market-Based Conservation in Africa. Conservation Biology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01527.x
- April 21, 2011
- 02:00 PM
- 741 views
Seedbanks are a trillion-dollar business with big problems
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
If you consider genebanks as sources primarily of information — the genetic information contained in samples — then racks of sealed foil pouches and guarantees that 99% of the genetic diversity has been captured are probably deeply reassuring. There’s another side to storing biodiversity, though. Seedbanks (though often used interchangeably with “genebanks”) store a greater [...]... Read more »
David J. Merritt, & Kinsley W Dixon. (2011) Restoration Seed Banks—A Matter of Scale. Science. info:/
- April 14, 2011
- 01:14 AM
- 1,016 views
New insights into barley domestication
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
We asked one of the co-authors, Ian Dawson, who’s an old friend, to briefly summarize for us a paper just out in New Phytologist on the domestication of barley. Here is his contribution. Thanks a lot, Ian, and keep ‘em coming… The power of new technologies to explore crop evolution is illustrated by a just [...]... Read more »
Russell, J., Dawson, I., Flavell, A., Steffenson, B., Weltzien, E., Booth, A., Ceccarelli, S., Grando, S., & Waugh, R. (2011) Analysis of 1000 single nucleotide polymorphisms in geographically matched samples of landrace and wild barley indicates secondary contact and chromosome-level differences in diversity around domestication genes. New Phytologist. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2011.03704.x
- April 11, 2011
- 09:00 AM
- 723 views
Agricultural diversity improves health
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Here’s a turn-up for the books. A newspaper article headlined New farming practices grow healthier children actually delivers some specifics. The article reports on a project called Soils, Food and Healthy Communities, a joint effort by Canada and Malawi, and I’m ashamed to say (or can I blame the project’s communications?) that I knew nothing [...]... Read more »
Bezner Kerr R, Berti PR, & Shumba L. (2010) Effects of a participatory agriculture and nutrition education project on child growth in northern Malawi. Public health nutrition, 1-7. PMID: 21059284
- March 24, 2011
- 03:58 AM
- 1,036 views
The climate–demography vulnerability index of my mother-in-law
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Another dispatch from the outer reaches of GISland. Yesterday’s post on the likely consequences of climate change around my mother-in-law’s farm in Kenya got me thinking that it would be nice to see where that locality fits in the global vulnerability scene. One can actually do that thanks to a recent paper in Global Ecology [...]... Read more »
Samson, J., Berteaux, D., McGill, B., & Humphries, M. (2011) Geographic disparities and moral hazards in the predicted impacts of climate change on human populations. Global Ecology and Biogeography. DOI: 10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00632.x
- March 11, 2011
- 08:20 AM
- 824 views
The error of genebanks’ ways
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
The Crop Science paper by Mark van de Wouw, Rob van Treurena and Theo van Hintum of the Centre for Genetic Resources, the Netherlands (CGN) probably deserves more than the rather cryptic Nibble we gave it yesterday. It certainly seems to be eliciting some interest in the media. What van de Wouw and friends did [...]... Read more »
Wouw, M., Treuren, R., & Hintum, T. (2011) Authenticity of Old Cultivars in Genebank Collections: A Case Study on Lettuce. Crop Science, 51(2), 736. DOI: 10.2135/cropsci2010.09.0511
- February 7, 2011
- 12:56 PM
- 459 views
Mixing it up for organic tomatoes
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
The many benefits of growing a mixture of crop varieties together have now been demonstrated for many crops under many conditions. Latest entry is in a kind of specialised niche — organic tomatoes for processing — and the results are a little underwhelming. Three scientists at the University of California, Davis, grew one, three or [...]... Read more »
Barrios-Masias, F., Cantwell, M., & Jackson, L. (2010) Cultivar mixtures of processing tomato in an organic agroecosystem. Organic Agriculture, 1(1), 17-30. DOI: 10.1007/s13165-010-0002-z
- January 31, 2011
- 06:48 AM
- 686 views
Seed dispersal: how far is far enough?
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
This barely merits the Research Blogging tag, because all I want to do here is raise a possibility, and a tenuous one at that. I confess that I was attracted in a high-speed scan of headlines, by this one: Leaving home ain’t easy: non-local seed dispersal is only evolutionarily stable in highly unpredictable environments. The [...]... Read more »
Snyder, R. (2010) Leaving home ain't easy: non-local seed dispersal is only evolutionarily stable in highly unpredictable environments. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 278(1706), 739-744. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2010.1549
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