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Six new lists of descriptors for tropical fruit trees Rome, Italy, 01 February 2022 – The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and the World Agroforestry (ICRAF) have published six new booklets of descriptors for multi-purpose tropical fruit tree species conserved in situ, which also contribute to the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables (2021) of FAO. “The new descriptor booklets aim at facilitating access to and utilization of indigenous fruit trees, which are important sources of nutrients and provide other nutritional benefits, thereby contributing to enhancing overall food and nutrition security” said Kent Nnadozie, Secretary of the International Treaty. “The text of the International Treaty stresses the importance of in situ conservation and the need to collect and make publicly available related information,” he added. These new publications provide an initial minimum set of characterization and evaluation descriptors for six different underutilized fruit tree species conserved in situ: (1) Dacryodes edulis, (2) Docynia indica, (3) Irvingia spp., (4) Sclerocarya birrea, (5) Strychnos cocculoidesand (6) Ziziphus mauritiana. All six of these species produce edible fruits that are highly valued by local people for their richness in vitamins, lipids, fibres, proteins, and minerals, playing a significant role in nutrition and health benefits. These descriptors, which follow the international standardized documentation system for the characterization and study of genetic resources (Alercia, 2011), are expected to support studies focusing on genetic and morphological diversity of these species, conservation and use of their genetic resources, domestication and increased household income and production. They are the result of global consultations managed by the International Treaty and ICRAF in which more than 100 experts worldwide participated. The consultations involved 23 Core Advisory Group experts and 80 scientists and researchers from 25 different countries. The lists were based on preliminary datasets developed by World Agroforestry. In addition, internet searches were carried out looking for the most updated information on relevant characteristics and traits. The lists were subsequently integrated with evaluation traits. For the purposes of these booklets, special attention was given to the inclusion of descriptors related to climate change and nutritional components of particular importance. Africa and Asia are home to particularly diverse agro-ecological regions hosting a large number of native and underutilized fruit trees, whose genetic resources hold the potential to address challenges such as sustainable agricultural development, food security, human health, nutrition and climate change. Those included in these key sets have been chosen because of their local importance and global impact. The Global Information System of the International Treaty makes these and other descriptors available to facilitate their use. The new booklets are expected to be particularly helpful for researchers, plant breeders, and conservationists worldwide, in addition to national focal points of the International Treaty.
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Securing the future of African food culture: One phenotype at a time The FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, and the World Agroforestry (ICRAF) have released two publications with key strategic sets of characterization and evaluation descriptors for wild species conserved in situ of two African indigenous fruit trees, Safou and Monkey orange.https://www.fao.org/plant-treaty/news/news-detail/en/c/1447367/ |
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Seeding the future of edible forests Agroforestry means integrating trees in agriculture, including the agricultural use of trees. This creates numerous benefits: it produces nutritious foods to meet local and market demands; it boosts biodiversity and generates multiple ecosystem services; and it increases resilience and reduces vulnerability to shocks. An estimated 1.2 billion people rely on agroforestry to help feed themselves and their families. Safeguarding genetic resources is critical to global food security. The World Agroforestry, ICRAF seed bank in Nairobi and field genebanks in other regions ensure the supply of living genetic resources such as seeds from superior read more |
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International Phytosanitary Awareness Week The Germplasm Health Units (GHU) of CGIAR Research Centers have teamed up to organize the ‘International Phytosanitary Awareness Week’ from 23 – 27 October 2017. The objective is to increase awareness about the phytosanitary challenges and organizational responsibilities in ensuring distribution of healthy seed for food and agricultural research and development. The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) ensures the distribution of clean agroforestry tree germplasm at its Genebanks through efficient germplasm health testing protocols, pathogen control measures and compliance to phytosanitary regulations. ICRAF’s goal is to develop a germplasm health quality management system for its genebank, nurseries and field sites by 2020. Tree germplasm acquisition and distribution at the country-based genebanks are certified?by the respective national plant protection organizations. ICRAF maintains genebanks in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Senegal Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe in Africa; Bangladesh, China, India, Sri Lanka and Vietnam in Asia; and Peru in Latin America. Read more on ICRAF’s Genetic Resources Unit here.
For further information please contact Dr Alice Muchugi, Genebank Manager, ICRAF at a.muchugi@cgiar.org. |
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ICRAF GENEBANK REVIEW The Global Crop Diversity Crop Trust commissions the five-yearly review of the CGIAR Center genebanks in its role as Project Manager of the CGIAR Research Programme (CRP) for Managing and Sustaining Crop Collections and as donor of long-term grants. This review aims to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the genebank operation as a whole, and the status of the genebank within the context of the global system for the conservation and use of the crops in question. The ICRAF genebank review is scheduled to take place on 06-12th June 2015 and will be led by Dr. Paul Smith of Botanic Gardens Conservation International. |
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ALLANBLACKIA, Your favourite newsletter Your favourite newsletter, ALLANBLACKIA is here with interesting stories including;
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Whats in a name? Im on a germplasm ID crusade! What’s in a name? Well, not a lot it seems when it comes to crop germplasm. It’s a particular ‘bee in the bonnet’ I’ve had for many years. We use names for everything. In the right context, a name is a ‘shorthand’ as it were for anything we can describe. In the natural world, we use a strict system of nomenclature (in Latin of all languages) – seemingly, to the non-specialist, continually and bewilderingly revised. Most plants and animals also have common names, in the vernacular, for everyday use. But while scientific nomenclature follows strict rules, the same can’t be said for common names. Stretching an analogy We share the same name, though I doubt anyone would confuse us. Certainly not based on our phenotypes – what we look like. In any case, I’m WYSIWYG. Our ‘in common’ name implies no relationship whatsoever. What about identical monozygotic twins, such as Marian and Val Brown? Dressing alike, they became celebrities in their adopted city of San Francisco from the 1970s until their deaths. Same genetics, but different names. Maybe I’m stretching the analogy too much. I just want to hammer home the idea that sharing the same name should not imply common genetics. And different names might mask common genetics. Naming crop varieties I had found in my doctoral research that apparently identical Andean potato varieties – based on morphology and tuber protein profiles – might have the same name or, if sourced from different parts of the country, completely different names given by local communities. And it also was not uncommon to find potatoes that looked very different having the same name – often based on some particular morphological characteristic. When we collected rice varieties in Laos during the 1990s, we described how Laotian farmers name their varieties [1]. During the 1980s my University of Birmingham colleague Brian Ford-Lloyd and I, with Susan Juned, studied somaclonal variation in the potato cv. Record. We received a sample of 50 or so tubers of Record, and fortunately decided to give each individual tuber its own ID number. The number of somaclones generated from each tuber was very different, and we attributed this to the fact that seed potatoes in the UK are ultimately produced from different tissue culture stocks. This suggested that there had been selection during culture for types that responded better to tissue culture per se [2]. The implication of course is that potato cv. Record (and many others) is actually an amalgam of many minor variants. I recently read a paper about farmer selection of somaclonal variants of taro (Colocasia esculenta) and cassava (Manihot esculenta) in Vanuatu. Dropping the ID Why does this matter, and how to resolve this dilemma? During the 1990s when we were updating the inventory of samples (i.e. accessions) in the International Rice Genebank Collection at IRRI, we discovered there were multiple accessions of several IRRI varieties, like IR36, IR64 or IR72. I’m not sure why they had been put into the collection, but they had been sourced from a number of countries around Asia. We decided to carefully check whether the accessions with the same name (but different accession numbers) were indeed the same. So we planted a field trial to carefully measure a whole range of traits, not just morphological, but also some growth ones such as days to flowering. I should hasten to add that included among the accessions of each ‘variety’ was one accession added to the genebank collection at the time the variety had been released – the original sample of each. We were surprised to discover that there were significant differences between accessions of a variety. I raised this issue with then head of IRRI’s plant breeding department, the eminent Indian rice breeder Dr Gurdev Khush. Rather patronizingly, I thought, he dismissed my concerns as irrelevant. As a rice breeder with several decades of experience and the breeder responsible for their release, he assured me that he ‘knew’ what the varieties should look like and how they ought to perform. I think he regarded me as a ‘rice parvenu’. It seemed to me that farmers had made selections from within these varieties that had been grown in different environments, but then had kept the same name. So it was not a question of ‘IR36 is IR36 is IR36‘. Maybe there was still some measure of segregation at the time of original release in an otherwise genetically uniform variety. I have a hunch that some of the equivocal results from different labs during the early rice genome research using the variety Nipponbare can be put down to the use of different seed sources of Nipponbare. Germplasm requests for seeds from the International Rice Genebank Collection often came by variety name, like Nipponbare or Azucena for example. But which Nipponbare or Azucena, since the there are multiple samples of these and many others in the collection? What I also discovered is that when it comes to publication of their research, many rice scientists frequently omit to include the germplasm accession numbers – the unique IDs. Would ‘discard’ be too strong an indictment? I was reviewing a manuscript just a few days ago, of a study that included rice germplasm from IRRI and another genebank. There was a list of the germplasm, by accession/variety name but not the accession number. Now how irresponsible is that? If someone else wanted to repeat or extend that study (and there are so many other instances of the same practice) how would they know which actual samples to choose? There is just this belief – and it beggars belief – germplasm samples with the same name are genetically the same. However, we know that is not the case. It takes no effort to provide the comprehensive list of germplasm accession numbers alongside variety names. Accession numbers should be required Draconian response? Pedantic even? I don’t think so, since it’s a fundamental germplasm management and use issue. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
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Landscapes for People, Food and Nature in Africa Conference updated Critical regional and international dialogues on food security, climate change, environment and sustainable development are underway. In the coming year major decisions on policy directions and investment will be made. In response, leading minds from African government, research, civil society and the private sector will gather in Nairobi to generate an ambitious agenda to enhance and scale effective integrated landscape initiatives for Africa. These initiatives will address in a coordinated way the full set of products and services required from land, biodiversity, water and other resources. By sharing the best in landscape management research and the lessons from years of local and national initiatives on the continent, meeting invitees will generate a powerful set of policy and program recommendations for national, regional and international action. The outcome will also serve as basis for a high level conference on this subject to be organized in Africa in early 2015. |
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Landscapes for People, Food and Nature in Africa Conference Critical regional and international dialogues on food security, climate change, environment and sustainable development are underway. In the coming year major decisions on policy directions and investment will be made. In response, leading minds from African government, research, civil society and the private sector will gather in Nairobi to generate an ambitious agenda to enhance and scale effective integrated landscape initiatives for Africa. These initiatives will address in a coordinated way the full set of products and services required from land, biodiversity, water and other resources. By sharing the best in landscape management research and the lessons from years of local and national initiatives on the continent, meeting invitees will generate a powerful set of policy and program recommendations for national, regional and international action. The outcome will also serve as basis for a high level conference on this subject to be organized in Africa in early 2015. |