‘Goldmine’ of century-old wheat varieties could help to feed the world, scientists say

Researchers have unearthed a genetic ‘goldmine’ in a century-old collection of lost wheat samples, which could help solve the conundrum of feeding our increasingly populous planet.

A collaborative effort between scientists at the UK’s John Innes Centre (JIC) and the Agricultural Genomics Institute (AGI) in Shenzhen, China, revealed that as much as 60% of the genetic diversity found in historic wheat landraces is missing from modern varieties.

The discovery opens up opportunities for breeding new strains with better yields, lower emissions and – good news for beleaguered British farmers – improved slug resistance.

“You have to capture as much natural diversity as possible,” said the JIC’s Dr Simon Griffiths, one of the project leads. “The missing 60% discovered in this study is full of beneficial genes that we need to feed people sustainably.”

Around a fifth of calories consumed globally come from bread wheat, but in some regions the cereal accounts for as much as half. However the climate crisis and novel diseases pose a twin threat to wheat crops, with modelling predicting yields will decline in African and South Asian countries by up to 16% by the mid-century.

Record number of breeding puffins recorded on island in Gulf of Maine

From a bird blind on Seal Island, I watched as puffins zoomed in from the sea with a rainbow of fish drooping from their beaks.

They carried copper and golden juvenile haddock, redfish and white hake. Others had pink krill from massive upwellings that created magenta blotches just offshore.

Some even carried bright silver herring: juicy fish that were once key prey for puffins in Maine. Atlantic herring are also a prime commodity for humans, who have overfished the species so badly that the fishery in New England has routinely been shut down early in recent years.

To see a number of puffins bringing herring to chicks was a stirring reminder of what the ocean can still offer.

Seal Island, which sits 21 miles off Rockland, was once home to the largest Atlantic puffin colony in the Gulf of Maine. It is now managed by the Audubon Seabird Institute, and was the second island that Audubon’s Project Puffin restored puffins to after a century’s absence spurred by hunting in the late 1800s. The first was Eastern Egg Rock, 6 miles off Pemaquid Point.

Both islands were seeded with puffin chicks brought from Newfoundland. Puffins began breeding anew on Eastern Egg Rock in 1981 and Seal Island in 1992.

This summer, despite the long-term warming of the Gulf of Maine and a long-term increase in the severity of weather events, conditions were so uneventful that Seal Island set a record for breeding puffins.

The crew of Coco Faber, Amiel Hopkins, Liv Ridley, Reed Robinson and Nacho Gutierrez counted 672 active puffin burrows, about 100 more than the last census five years ago. The total number of known burrows surpassed 1,000 for the first time.

Other birds also did well. Razorbills, a larger cousin of the puffin, established a record of 101 active burrows.

Via Fix the News