Yes, we'll have no bananas

This is a rather depressing report on the spread of a blight that threatens bananas, worldwide!  This may not seem particularly important to some people, but in many tropical areas bananas are a starchy staple and important part of their diets on a par with potatoes for those of us in the northern temperate zone.  The root of the problem is that bananas, at least the widely planted varieties, are based on a limited genetic base.  As the report points out, this will make it easy for this plant disease to spread.  Everyone knows that basing a crop on a limited genetic base is dangerous, but it seems it takes a disaster or near disaster to get a breeding program going.  HT to AoB blog. 

Sad news; glad news

Naked, hungry, and miserable.  That's what we'd be without plants, or at the very least fur-clad carnivores.  Dreadful thought!  Nothing contributes more to our "happiness" than caffeine, facing the start of our day with a cuppa coffee (or tea, or exchanging a CH3 for a H), hot chocolate).  A study by the famous Kew Gardens warns that wild populations of Caffea arabica, a native of Ethiopia, may go extinct in the wild, a victim of global warming and climate change.  Now of course coffee is raised in many places now so what is the problem?  All of the coffee being grown on plantations comes from a very few initial sources so it possesses very little genetic diversity, and this is why wild coffee is so important; it's our only reservoir of genetic diversity.  Low diversity crops are at risk of diseases and pests.  Such things happen slowly, so no, TPP isn't worried about his coffee tomorrow, or next year, or next decade, but by the end of the century this could be a done deal. The idea of doing without something so pleasantly comforting is profoundly sad.  Sounds like time to begin trying to save some of this diversity before it's too late.
TPP, a long time Mets and Jets fan, sort of likes supporting underdogs and takes perverse delight when the high and mighty get taken down a peg.  In this case, acording to CBS News, the Sunlight Foundation reports that only 1.29% of the $104 million mostly in dark money spent to defeat Bronco Bama and other Hemicrats had the desired result.  Most of this money came from a relatively few extremely wealthy people (e.g., Joe Ricketts, Bob Perry, Sheldon Adelson, the Kochs, Harold Simmons), people who like The Donald were clearly dumbfounded and outraged that they were unable to get their way by throwing their money at the situation.  This is not something they are used to and political con-men like Karl Rove got some splainin to do.  Even here in Lincolnland, a ton of money was spent on electing T-party favorite Joe Walsh who lost, and to add to the outrage, to a woman!  The thought of these good fellows spending so much money on a losing effort cheers TPP greatly, almost as much as a cuppa coffee.

Heritage apples

TPP wishes he'd thought of titling an article about heritage apples, Core Values.  This link shows some great old color illustrations and some nice notes about some famous varieties of apples, and TPP knew their source immediately, The Apples of New York (2 vol. 1905).  As an apple fancier TPP owns an excellent condition copy of these books that one of my best friends found in a used book store for $10 some 25 years ago and gave me for a birthday present.  What friends!  A facsimile version (sniff) now sells for $35-65 whereas the real thing sells for well upwards of $300, if you can find a copy.  This is the primary reference for heritage apple varieties grown in the USA and at the time of this publication over 1600 varieties of apple were being grown in New York state.  Wow!  Loss of this genetic heritage is a problem, and far fewer varieties are grown now.  A few people still try to maintain some of these varieties, e.g., the Tree-mendus Fruit farm in sw Michigan grows over 200 varieties of apple.  TPP had a great time discussing and tasting varieties with a patriarch of this family farm, and that included the Delicious, the apple that they ruined to breed the Red Delicious.   

Another frightening news article about wine grapes

To heck with terrorism; global warming is no worry; the world won't end this May 21st, but wine grapes are in jeopardy! Oh, no! But it's so, and for a news article this one in the New York Times is pretty good so one suspects the science writer is a oenophile. This particular problem is true for any cultivated plant that is largely if not wholly reproduced asexually. Understand that most of the diverse varieties of wine grapes appeared as "sports", somatic mutants, that are then propagated asexually. So let's get the modern version of Louis Pasteur working on the grape no-sex problem because without a decent glass of wine with dinner, nothing else really matters, nothing civilized any ways.

Islands in the sky

Islands have many biological oddities because the organisms there are isolated from those on the mainland and this can have many consequences. Unless you are a biologist you probably don't think about mountains tops and the species living there as islands yet they are. One question of interest is determining how much gene flow exists between populations on different islands, and one of my colleagues, Andrea Kramer, has been examining this by looking at bumblebee (see image) and hummingbird pollinated penstemons, and she found that the bee-pollinated species were more distinct mountain to mountain. This means as you may suspect that birds are better at moving genes greater distances than bees. Genetic diversity on mountain top islands is a particularly critical thing to study because a warming climate pushes alpine species higher, and if the mountain isn't tall enough, that population become extinct, and the islands getter smaller, fewer, and farther apart. Islands in the sky may be one of the places where climate change results in the loss of a lot biological diversity especially those that are highest, the inhabitants of alpine tundra. As a change of pace, alpine tundra will be featured in a few upcoming blogs.

Important science - Wine Grape Genetics

The research that made Louis Pasteur famous originated with a government commission to find out why wine was spoiling leading to the discovery that things like spoilage and infections, and indeed fermentation itself, were the direct result of the metabolisms of invisibly small organisms. It's good that many scientists are focused on the public good as the driving force of their research, and this report from the proceedings of the National Academy of Science is downright scary. If grape breeders don't get busy and inject some new genetic diversity into the gene pool of wine grapes, the whole industry could be in trouble. When Mrs. Phactor, a wine survivalist, hears about this, the wine cellar which now only holds 120 or so bottles will have to be greatly enlarged. You begin to worry about the end of civilization coming when and your supply of wine being only 100 bottles or so. After all it'll take a couple of years to get your own winery going. This genetic study indicates that early in the domestication of wine grapes, some 6000-8000 years ago (this study's molecular clock suggests wine grapes arose 5000 years ago) whatever stock was successful became sort of a genetic bottle neck, a small subset of the wild grape genome, and modern varieties all trace to back to this source. Various diseases resulting from their wide-spread cultivation are catching up and the only chance of the wine industry lasting another 5000 years is to breed in new disease resistance. Worries like this can ruin your sleep. And it's probably true for any number of other domesticated plants too. Even worse when the crop is propagated asexually, like the poor Cavendish banana that is so beset with disease that you may as well kiss the most popular banana of the northern temperate zone goodbye. Fortunately better bananas exist, they just aren't part of the cultivated banana industry, although a few other varieties are beginning to appear in our markets. And this is why so much more research is necessary on the origins and domestication of those plants that feed people. And why students need access to basic botanical education, which has been systematically downsized in the USA in favor of human-biomedical biology. Why should people be impressed by physicians and befuddled by botanists. Botany what? Oh, yeah, on that great scale used to decide worth in our culture, salary, physicians get paid about half of what botanists are actually worth. Doesn't the Phactor wish. Come on! Wine! This is life and death stuff here!
HT to AoB blog.