“The earth’s land surface receives about 110,000 km3 of rainfall annually. More than half of this water is evapotranspired (transmitted from soils and through plants to the air); about 20,000 km3 falls on land that is cultivated in some form; and about 40,000 km3 becomes available in dams, lakes, rivers, streams and aquifers for human…
Category: Literature
Chromosomal evolution in Brachiaria forage grasses with Fabiola Carvalho Santos
Fabiola Santos from University of Londrina, Brazil, is working on the Chromosomal evolution and the organization of repetitive DNA sequences in diploid and polyploid Brachiaria forage grasses in the molecular cytogenetics group in Leicester. Brachiaria is most important cultivated forage grass genus in Brazil (with billion-dollar production), and the genus includes diploid and polyploid species with similar…
Animal Cytogenetics, Gene Mapping and Chromosome Research – The 21st Colloquium Ischia, Naples, Italy
Cytogenetics of animals is moving forward rapidly with the integration of sequencing and robust phylogenies with methods of chromosome analysis. The 21st International Colloquium on Animal Cytogenetics and Gene Mapping held June 2014 covered a range of topics in comparative, molecular, veterinary and environmental cytogenetics, as well as a session on cytogenetics of non-mammalian vertebrates and…
Crocus and the origin of Saffron
305. Alsayied N, Schwarzacher T, Heslop-Harrison P. 2014. Crocus: research into the origin of saffron. Botanic Garden Newsletter 5: 3. Link to scan of Crocus and the origin of saffron article. The genus Crocus has nearly 100 species, each with unique characters of colour, flowering time or geographical distribution. We are aiming to understand the relationships of the different species, the diversity within species,…
From vegan to meat: human diet and trophic levels
Where are humans in the food chain? Bonhommeau et al. address this question in PNAS, apparently for the first time, in detail across all countries and over the period from 1961 that FAO statistics on food consumption and production are available (FAOstat.FAO.org). If we ate only the primary producers – plants – we would have a…
Aquaculture, farming and development: an FAO consultation
Aquaculture has major prospects for providing high quality, palatable protein for people. Compared to other animals, the conversion of plants into animal protein in fish, shellfish and crustaceans is very efficient: the ratio of input food to output is less than 2:1 (typically 1.6 to 1.8:1), compared to 2.5 to 3:1 for pigs and poultry,…
Fertilizer statistics: changes and usage
Fertilizer has been critical to crop yields from the start of agriculture, and the application of artificially fixed nitrogen has been fundamental to crop yield increases since the 1970s. However, finding definitive data about absolute amounts, costs, effects on yields and changes in application is tricky – with dispersed literature, many units, confusion with sales…
Wild banana species: their classification and the sequencing of Musa balbisiana
Crop relatives are important – we learn about the relationships of wild germplasm in comparison to the domesticated forms, and about the genetics and genes in the wild species. Two papers in the last month advance our understanding of wild banana (Musa) from different perspectives. The first presents “A draft Musa balbisiana genome sequence for…
Food and nutrition security in dry areas: ICARDA 2012 report and research-for-development obstacles
ICARDA_2012_Annual Report ICARDA – the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas http://www.icarda.org – is an international organization targeting crops for these critical regions. It’s annual report for 2012 has just been published and highlights their genetic, breeding and agronomy research. Their headquarters in Aleppo, Syria, was taken over – there are shocking YouTube…
100 years after Sturtevant and the linear order of genes on chromosomes: an ECA cytogenetics session
Among the exciting Plenary Sessions at the European Cytogeneticists Association conference in Dublin – #ECA2013 – one marked 100 years since publication of Alfred H Sturtevant’s landmark research paper presenting the first genetic map of a chromosome (1913: J. Exp. Zool., 14 (1), 43-9. URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jez.1400140104 but see http://www.esp.org/foundations/genetics/classical/holdings/s/ahs-13.pdf for the original paper and a commentary by Robert J. Robbins). In his…
Wheat-Thinopyrum introgression work wins prize for Niaz Ali, Hazara, Pakistan
Dr Niaz Ali, Hazara University, Mansehra, Pakistan works on the introgression of characters from alien species into wheat, having completed his PhD in Leicester in 2012 with Dr Trude Schwarzacher. He presented his PhD work at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Experimental Biology (SEB http://www.sebiology.org/meetings /Valencia/Programmes.html) in the session on Exploiting genetic diversity for…
9th European Cytogenetics Conference to discuss chromosomes, polyploidy and nuclear architecture
I was at ECA2013 in Dublin to discuss chromosomes. Workshops on molecular cytogenetics, array CGH, and “Plant, animal and comparative cytogenetics” were included (as well as many parallel ones on prenatal diagnostics, cancers, mutagenesis and ethics, which I could not attend), and started writing this after the opening talk by Orsetta Zaffardi from Pavia on…
Preserving genetic resources in agriculture: saffron and other EU projects
Maintaining and developing sustainable uses for agricultural genetic resources is essential for ensuring food security in a sustainable manner. In this report, the outcomes of 17 EU projects on genetic resources in animals, arable crops, forest trees and “fruits, vegetables and spices” is discussed. We were involved with the project on the Saffron Crocus, reported on pages…
Repetitive DNA in the edible button mushroom
I have a mental picture of the structure of a typical plant genome and typical animal genome, with their transposons (DNA and RNA), tandemly-repeated satellite sequences, minisatellites, microsatellites and other repeats. From this paper, I have a view of repeats in the second most important edible fungus (after yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae), the button mushroom Agaricus bisporus. Its genome, with n=13 chromosomes,…
Dr Ijaz Rasool Noorka – Collaborator from University of Sargodha, Pakistan and Visiting Research Fellow
Dr Ijaz Rasool Noorka has broad interests in the development of productive and sustainable agriculture for Pakistan and developing countries. His interests complement those of the Molecular Cytogenetics Group, and have enabled us to extend our consideration of the outcomes and impact of our work on exploitation of biodiversity by chromosome engineering. Ijaz has been…
Molecular cytogenetics, genome evolution and agricultural genomics 