An update on the global strategy for the conservation and utilisation of tropical and subtropical forage genetic resources

Tropical and sub-tropical forages (TSTF) are critically important for supplying livestock feed and environmental benefits in extensive and intensive livestock systems of developed and developing countries. There has been focused collection and conservation of forage genetic resources (FGR), and research on their diversity, adaptation and use for the past 60 years. This laid the foundations for the impacts TSTF have had, and continue to have. However, since about 1995 there has been significant reduction in forage science investment, and capability globally, and that has strangely coincided with the accelerated demand for livestock products. The status of TSTF germplasm conservation, capability and capacity are now at risk, and the decline must be reversed if the tropical and subtropical farming systems are to access the best genetic material and knowledge to meet the growing food/environmental needs. A strategy to reduce barriers to TSTF conservation, research and utilisation was developed under the Global Crop Diversity Trust in 2015 with input from across the TSTF-genetic resources community. Its aim was to build a functional network of national, regional and international genetic resource centres, introduce operational efficiencies, and enable genebanks to improve their role as knowledge managers and advisors for research and development programs. The strategy’s main objectives are: 1) Rebuild the community of TSTF genebanks and genebank users to develop closer collaboration and trust; 2) Ensure more efficient and rationalized conservation within and among genebanks; and 3) Actively support utilisation by anticipating germplasm needs and responding to users’ requests for information and seeds. Implementation of the strategy commenced in 2016, with the first aim being to win buy-in and cooperation of international and national genebanks. A new Newsletter, ‘Forages for the Future’, has >600 recipients and reports key implementation activities and the roles of forages across the tropics and subtropics. Making recent impacts more widely known indirectly helps build the body of evidence that improved forages deliver impacts and is the basis for growth in financial and human resources invested in TSTF. The CGIAR genebanks of ILRI and CIAT play key roles in TSTF research and use. In recognition of the need for greater efficiencies and better utilisation of the germplasm, ILRI and CIAT have undertaken an ambitious program to align collections to provide a one stop portal, with prioritised species/accessions for conservation and research, and a simplified germplasm request process. This change is occurring simultaneously with a TSTF strategy initiative encouraging some key national TSTF centres to work more closely together and with the CGIAR centres and with the update of the widely used TSTF database and selection tool, SoFT, with new content and ability to be used on smart phones. That new version will be released in 2019. Reversing the past downward trend requires the commitment and long-term engagement of partner countries and the donor community. The alternative is that 60 years of knowledge and expertise will have to be rebuilt, and generations of farmers and other users will not realize the production and environmental benefits that well-adapted and sustainably managed improved forages can attain

Geology of the Llanidloes district : British Geological Survey Sheet 164

This Sheet Explanation provides a summary of the geology of the district covered by Geological 1:50 000 Series Map Sheet 164 (Llanidloes), published in 2010 as a Bedrock and Superficial Deposits edition. The district mostly lies within the county of Powys, but includes small parts of Ceredigion in the extreme west and south-west. Much of the western part of the district is occupied by the deeply dissected uplands of the Cambrian Mountains, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. In this area the land rises to 740 m on the flanks of Plynlimon (Pumlumon Fawr), the highest summit in the range. It falls away towards the eastern part of the district into rolling countryside that includes the important catchment of the River Severn (Afon Hafren) and its tributaries, the largest of which are the rivers Carno, Trannon, Cerist, Clywedog and Dulas. A major reservoir (Llyn Clywedog) occupies the upper reaches of the Clywedog valley, its purpose being to regulate river discharge and groundwater levels within the catchment. The south-western part of the district is drained by the River Wye (Afon Gwy) and its tributaries, that flow south-eastwards via Llangurig. The sources of both the Severn and Wye are situated on the eastern flanks of Plynlimon within the western part of the district. The town of Llanidloes is the main centre of population, with smaller settlements at Llangurig, Carno, Trefeglwys, Caersws and Staylittle; the Newtown conurbation impinges on the eastern part of the district. Much of the district is given over to beef and dairy farming, although sheep are reared in the remote upland areas in the west and extensive forestry plantations have been developed in places. The Ordovician and Silurian rocks of the district have been exploited locally, in the past, as a source of building material and, recently, commercial quantities of sandstone aggregate have been excavated at Penstrowed Quarry [SO 0680 9100]. The district includes part of the Central Wales Mining Field from which substantial volumes of lead and zinc ore were extracted during the 19th and early 20th centuries. A number of former mine sites are still visible, notably along the Van, Nant-y-ricket, Dylife, Dyfngwm and Llanerchyraur lodes (Jones, 1922[1]; IGS, 1974), and the historic Bryntail Mine, below the Clywedog Dam has been restored as a site of industrial archaeological interest. The district is underlain by a succession of Late Ordovician (Ashgill) to Silurian sedimentary rocks, over 5 km thick, deposited between 450 and 420 million years ago in the Early Palaeozoic Welsh Basin (Figure P930911). The basin developed on a fragment of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, known as Eastern Avalonia (e.g. Pickering et al., 1988[2]), that drifted northwards to collide with the continents of Baltica and Laurentia during the Late Ordovician and Silurian (Soper and Hutton, 1984[3]; Soper and Woodcock, 1990[4]; Woodcock and Strachan, 2000[5]). To the east and the south of the basin lay the Midland Platform, a relatively stable shallow marine shelf that was subject to periodic emergence. The basinal sediments are predominantly deep marine turbiditic facies that were introduced into the district by density currents from southerly, south-easterly and north-westerly quadrants. Coeval shallower-water ‘shelfal’ sediments were deposited north and east of the district, and locally impinge on its northern margins. Thickness variations within the major sedimentary units suggest that, at times, syndepositional fault movements were an important control on their distribution. During late Silurian (Ludlow) times, shallowing of the basin occurred, and sandstones, variably interpreted as a turbiditic (Cave and Hains, 2001[6]) or storm-generated facies (Tyler and Woodcock, 1987[7]), were laid down over the eastern part of the district and adjacent areas. The shallowing was a result of tectonic reconfiguration of the basin, a precursor to the late Caledonian (Acadian) Orogeny that affected the region during the late Early Devonian, around 400 million years ag