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…
Tag: genetics
Water stress and spring wheat – genetics and Pakistan
TS. Noorka IR, Schwarzacher T. 2013. Water a response factor to screen suitable genotypes to fight and traverse periodic onslaughts of water scarcity in spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). International Journal of Water Resources and Arid Environments 3(1): 37-44. ISSN 2079-7079 Pakistan lies in a semi arid to arid region with neither sufficient nor reliable rainfall….
Haploid callus from a diploid Musa accession for genome analysis
303. Nair AS, Heslop-Harrison P, Schwarzacher T. 2013. Production of haploid tissues and SNP analysis of the genome in Musa acuminata cv.‘Matti’ (AA). Plant Mutation Reports 3(1): 18-24. Haploid and doubled haploid plants are of considerable value in genetic studies, genomics and plant breeding, allowing characterization and exploitation of genes where only one allele is present. Inbred banana…
Discussing diversity, genes and the future of bananas on the BBC Food Programme
Pat Heslop-Harrison was interviewed for BBC Radio 4 “The Food Programme”. I have posted some of the points I wanted to make on AoBBlog.com, and a link to the whole interesting programme including my interview is here after broadcast of the longer version of the programme. http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/foodprog
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…
Worku Mhiret: Biodiversity and its exploitation in Ethiopian Linseed
Worku Mhiret from the University of Gondar, Ethiopia and Pat Heslop-Harrison (University of Leicester, UK) are working on linseed or flax: measuring the diversity of accessions from Ethiopia and comparing this with varieties from Ireland, Canada and elsewhere. We are also making crosses between lines and between cultivars and wild species of Linum; these are…
Superdomestication, feed-forward breeding and climate proofing crops
Climate Proofing of Food Crops, through genetic improvement for adaptation, is an important, medium-term, objective to ensure food-security and increase production while enhancing the sustainability of agriculture. The IAEA has a Coordinated Research Project discussing this topic (archive version). In the YouTube video here, I discuss some of the challenges plant researchers are addressing, and…
Traits with ecological functions
298. Heslop-Harrison JS. 2012. Traits with ecological functions. Annals of Botany, 110 (1), 139-140. URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcs139 (free access) Individual plant species thrive in specific environments, some growing well across a wide area, others being restricted to survival in very narrow ecological niches. Within a niche, a species must compete for space, light and other resources with the same and other…
Molecular cytogenetics, genome evolution and agricultural genomics 