The tricot approach: an agile framework for decentralized on-farm testing supported by citizen science. A retrospective.

Matching crop varieties to their target use context and user preferences is a challenge faced by many plant breeding programs serving smallholder agriculture. Numerous participatory approaches proposed by CGIAR and other research teams over the last four decades have attempted to capture farmers' priorities/preferences and crop variety field performance in representative growing environments through experimental trials with higher external validity. Yet none have overcome the challenges of scalability, data validity and reliability, and difficulties in capturing socio-economic and environmental heterogeneity.

Crop variety management for climate adaptation supported by citizen science.

Crop adaptation to climate change requires accelerated crop variety introduction accompanied by recommendations to help farmers match the best variety with their field contexts. Existing approaches to generate these recommendations lack scalability and predictivity in marginal production environments. We tested if crowdsourced citizen science can address this challenge, producing empirical data across geographic space that, in aggregate, can characterize varietal climatic responses.

Reducing progoitrin and enriching glucoraphanin in Brassica napus seeds through silencing of the GSL-ALK gene family.

The hydrolytic products of glucosinolates in brassica crops are bioactive compounds. Some glucosinolate derivatives such as oxazolidine-2-thione from progoitrin in brassica oilseed meal are toxic and detrimental to animals, but some isothiocyanates such as sulforaphane are potent anti-carcinogens that have preventive effects on several human cancers. In most B.

A physical map of Brassica oleracea shows complexity of chromosomal changes following recursive paleopolyploidizations.

Background: Evolution of the Brassica species has been recursively affected by polyploidy events, and comparison to their relative, Arabidopsis thaliana, provides means to explore their genomic complexity.

Results: A genome-wide physical map of a rapid-cycling strain of B. oleracea was constructed by integrating high-information-content fingerprinting (HICF) of Bacterial Artificial Chromosome (BAC) clones with hybridization to sequence-tagged probes.

Polymorphic chloroplast microsatellite markers in the octoploid Lepidium meyenii (Brassicaceae) and cross-species amplification in Lepidium.

Premise Of The Study: As a crop and medicinal plant, the octoploid Andean endemic Lepidium meyenii suffers from taxonomic uncertainty. Few molecular markers are available to genotype individuals or track gene flow in wild and cultivated material. •

Methods And Results: Using available sequence data, eight cpSSR primer pairs were developed for L.

Comparative analysis of methylthioalkylmalate synthase (MAM) gene family and flanking DNA sequences in Brassica oleracea and Arabidopsis thaliana.

Gene BoGSL-PRO is associated with presence of 3-carbon side-chain glucosinolates (GSL). This gene is a member of the methylthioalkylmalate synthase (MAM) gene family. A BAC clone of Brassica oleracea, B21F5, containing this gene, was sequenced, annotated and compared to its corresponding region in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Comparative analysis of a transposon-rich Brassica oleracea BAC clone with its corresponding sequence in A. thaliana.

We compared the sequence of a 96.7 Kb-long BAC clone (B 19 N 3) from Brassica oleracea (broccoli) with its corresponding regions in Arabidopsis thaliana. B 19 N 3 contains eight genes and 15 transposable elements (TEs).

Comparative analysis of a Brassica BAC clone containing several major aliphatic glucosinolate genes with its corresponding Arabidopsis sequence.

We compared the sequence of a 101-kb-long bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) clone (B21H13) from Brassica oleracea with its homologous region in Arabidopsis thaliana. This clone contains a gene family involved in the synthesis of aliphatic glucosinolates. The A.

Genetic analysis, expression and molecular characterization of BoGSL-ELONG, a major gene involved in the aliphatic glucosinolate pathway of Brassica species.

We cloned a major aliphatic glucosinolate (GSL) gene, BoGSL-ELONG in Brassica oleracea, using the Arabidopsis sequence database. We based our work on an Arabidopsis candidate gene forming part of a gene family coding for isopropyl malate synthetase-like enzymes (IPMS). This gene is presumably responsible for synthesis of GSL possessing side chains consisting of four carbons (4C).

Survey of aliphatic glucosinolates in Sicilian wild and cultivated Brassicaceae.

In the frame of the activities carried out to exploit Sicilian local cultivars of brassicas, we focused our attention on some of the potential health compounds of various local cruciferous crops. These compounds are of interest to improve the quality of the produce with the aim to develop new cultivars capable of providing functional foods able to prevent disease. In this context, we surveyed for the presence of specific glucosinolates in local cultivars of broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and in some wild species widespread in Sicily, using as control various commercial cultivars.

Inheritance of Resistance to Celery mosaic virus in Celery.

Screening of the Apium germ plasm collection for resistance to Celery mosaic virus (CeMV) revealed four resistant accessions: a celeriac, a feral celery line, and two wild celery species. The feral celery, which is genetically closest to cultivated celery, A. graveolens var.