plant genetic News
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FAO launches new standards for plant genebanks
A new FAO publication is aimed at improving conservation of food crops, many of which are crucial to the world’s food and nutrition security. The publication, Genebank Standards for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, outlines voluntary, international standards for the many repositories – or genebanks - around the world that store seeds and other materials used to ...
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ARS helps preserve indigenous crops in Ecuador
An Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist is working with an international group of researchers on a project to improve the livelihoods of people in rural Ecuador by promoting the conservation and use of indigenous crops. People in and around Cotacachi, in the northern Andean highlands, have been farming for thousands of years, and the result is a stunning diversity of crops, some of them ...
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Ancient crops preserved for future generations in Arctic seed vault
Varieties of one of the world's most important staple crops will be stored for perpetuity deep in the Arctic ice today. José Graziano da Silva, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is joining scientific experts and delegations from Peru, Costa Rica and Norway to witness a ceremony here this afternoon that will help to preserve these vital ...
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Global wild seed hunt begins
An international project to collect seeds from the wild relatives of 23 of the world's major food crops including maize, rice, wheat and potato, has received its first funding. Last week (10 December) Norway, home to the world's largest seed bank, in Svalbard in the Arctic, pledged US$50 million towards the collection, which is expected to take ten years to complete. Research and planning will ...
By SciDev.Net
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Sub-Saharan Africa news in brief
Namibia urged to invest more in science and technology Increasing investment in science and technology could help Namibia reduce poverty, hunger, disease and unemployment, said former president Sam Nujoma last week. Launching the country"s National Science, Engineering and Technology Week, Nujoma said: "If Namibia has to turn around the slow rate of economic development, which is currently ...
By SciDev.Net
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Farmers` rights `at stake in Chile`s Monsanto law bill`
Campaigners who last month marched through more than a dozen Chilean cities against a bill dubbed the 'Monsanto law' after the giant US biotech firm, plan to protest again if the bill progresses through the country's Senate. Meanwhile, the bill's supporters - mainly associations of large-scale farmers - are lobbying senators to back it. At issue is the legal implementation in Chile of the ...
By SciDev.Net
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A worldwide network of seed information is taking root
As an increasingly bloody civil war raged around them, a team of scientists in the Syrian capital Aleppo quietly packaged and shipped a series of nondescript cardboard boxes to an island not far from the North Pole. The boxes bore no sign of the conflict that had surrounded them or the precious material they contained. The scientists, from an International Centre for Agricultural Research in the ...
By SciDev.Net
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Plant Genebanking: Investing Seeds for the Future
For many years, the agricultural sector has worked on the continuous development of sustainable practices to provide sufficient food and medicine supply for a growing population. Among the many challenges they aim to resolve are the issues inflicted by plant disease outbreaks and upsurge, pests, and climate change. The conservation and increase of diversity of plant species are recognized ...
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GM cotton genes found in wild species
Genetically modified (GM) cotton genes have been found in wild populations for the first time, making it the third plant species — after Brassica and bentgrass — in which transgenes have established in the wild. The discovery was made in Mexico by six Mexican researchers investigating the flow of genes to wild cotton populations of the species Gossypium hirsutum. They found ...
By SciDev.Net
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Genetics not enough to increase wheat production
The deep gene pool that has allowed wheat to achieve ever increasing gains in yield may be draining. Crop scientists estimate that 50% of the gain in wheat production over the past century has been due to breeding. According to a new study, however, that improvement has been slowing since the late 1980s, with little chance that future increases in yield can be met by breeding efforts alone. The ...
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GM seeds can remain in fields longer than previously thought
Despite management practices designed to reduce the risk of genetically modified (GM) volunteer plants setting seed, new research shows that rogue GM plants occur in fields which were planted with GM oil seed rape 10 years earlier. Volunteer plants (plants that have not been planted deliberately) arise because some seed is spilled during harvest and remains in the field to germinate in a ...
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Africa and India cultivate agricultural research ties
Africa and India are gearing up to further enhance cooperation in agricultural science, technology and innovation, and move beyond dialogue to a range of practical options from a virtual biotech platform to agribusiness centres, seed investments and even joint donor-aided projects. Willy Tonui, chief executive officer of Kenya’s National Biosafety Authority, said that studying how India ...
By SciDev.Net
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