Future Generations – Will Any Be Lacking Tropical Forage Genetic Resources?

It’s high time to stop talking about the (forage) plants and talk about the people. Three (Australia, India, USA) of the about a dozen curators of tropical and subtropical forage (TSTF) genetic resources collections involved in developing a Global Strategy on Conservation and Utilization of Tropical and Subtropical Forage Genetic Resources on behalf of the Global Crop Diversity Trust in 2015 have since retired. In all cases their replacements were not expert in this challenging commodity. Why? The commodity is highly diverse and requires understanding of a substantial body of knowledge generated over more than five decades. It requires a level of familiarity with two plant families, grasses and legumes, which comprise a plethora of genera and species. Some of these species, novel to agriculture, have been proven extremely useful for diverse livestock production systems, for environmental services and for people’s livelihoods. Others are rather ‘bycatch’ from early exploration and probably don’t deserve conservation at all, or at least at the highestgenebank standards. Why were there no mentored scientists waiting to take up the vacant positions? There is today a worldwide shortage of applied plant research capability as “–omic sciences” or modelling seem more appealing to emerging scientists. Few budding agricultural scientists want to dedicate their career to a commodity, which mostly ranks low in recognition of its science merits and funding support. At the same time forage science and forages are coming under greater scrutiny because of environmental factors, especially in relation to the impacts livestock production is having on global warming. However, there are emerging scientists wanting to build a career in tropical forage science. Unfortunately, they are often disconnected from similar work around the world, and their own work is insufficiently recognizedby aging, inward-looking institutions that still claim to lead global forage research and development despite the ever declining resources

Tropical Forage Genetic Resources -- Will Any Be Left for Future Generations?

After very active years of pasture and forage research at major institutes, interest in tropical forage genetic resources has drastically declined. Apparently, the early phases of collecting and evaluation were much more valued than conserving and keeping the germplasm available for future generations. Accumulated data are not easily accessible and, therefore, the knowledge of tropical forage genetic resources is progressively being lost. This worldwide decrease in activity and loss of knowledge is due to declining resources. It is suggested that a global database on tropical forage genetic resources should be established and also that finances be made available to at least maintain collections at their current reduced level

Rebuilding a Tropical Forages for the Future Network – A Call for Resuscitating Enthusiasm for a Commodity with Great Prospects and Innovation Potential

A series of Forages for the Future newsletters, outlining some of the latest tropical and subtropical forage (TSTF) research and development impacts and expertise, has been published since 2016. Amongst the research highlights were Brazilian scientists’ focus on grasses such as Urochloa, Megathyrsus maximus, Paspalum and Cenchrus purpureus, and on legumes, especially Arachis and Stylosanthes. Argentinian researchers are similarly targeting Acroceras macrum and Setaria sphacelata; while Indian and ILRI (East Africa) researchers are using plant breeding to overcome disease constraints in Napier grass (Cenchrus purpureus and associated hybrids). Also demonstrated were successfully using genetic resources of Desmanthus, Leucaena leucocephala and Macroptilium bracteatum to improve Australian livestock production in varying farming systems on heavy-textured soils. Amongst the most innovative forage-based development outcomes featured in the newsletters were the increasing role of Mucuna pruriens in crop-livestock systems of semi-arid Zimbabwe, and the enabling role that forage grasses and legumes play in the icipe-developed “push-pull”-system to control a range of pests in African maize farming-systems. Some common threads stand out in these impact-delivering programs: longevity and ongoing institutional support, clear end-user focus, deep understanding of species adaptation and their phenotypic diversity and, how various species and ecotypes might be used. These are just some of the successful research-for-development programs taking place across the tropics and subtropics; they provide an opportunity for strengthening TSTF research and development into the future. One missing ingredient is opportunity for teams from national, international centres and from the private sector to meet regularly to exchange results, ideas and challenges. International conferences and similar forums are expensive and too infrequent; but online options offer new communication approaches. The IGC in Nairobi is the perfect opportunity to discuss possible new collaboration forums and, if required, how they might operate to make for a better, well-informed and innovative international TSTF network

Structure of glassy lithium sulfate films sputtered in nitrogen (LISON): Insight from Raman spectroscopy and ab initio calculations

Raman spectra of thin solid electrolyte films obtained by sputtering a lithium sulfate target in nitrogen plasma are measured and compared to ab initio electronic structure calculations for clusters composed of 28 atoms. Agreement between measured and calculated spectra is obtained when oxygen atoms are replaced by nitrogen atoms and when the nitrogen atoms form bonds with each other. This suggests that the incorporation of nitrogen during the sputtering process leads to structures in the film, which prevent crystallization of these thin film salt glasses.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Spontaneous structure formation in a network of chaotic units with variable connection strengths

As a model of temporally evolving networks, we consider a globally coupled logistic map with variable connection weights. The model exhibits self-organization of network structure, reflected by the collective behavior of units. Structural order emerges even without any inter-unit synchronization of dynamics. Within this structure, units spontaneously separate into two groups whose distinguishing feature is that the first group possesses many outwardly-directed connections to the second group, while the second group possesses only few outwardly-directed connections to the first. The relevance of the results to structure formation in neural networks is briefly discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, REVTe

Eliciting contextual temporal calibration:The effect of bottom-up and top-down information in reproduction tasks

Bayesian integration assumes that a current observation is integrated with previous observations. An example in the temporal domain is the central tendency effect: when a range of durations is presented, a regression towards the mean is observed. Furthermore, a context effect emerges if a partially overlapping lower and a higher range of durations is presented in a blocked design, with the overlapping durations pulled towards the mean duration of the block. We determine under which conditions this context effect is observed, and whether explicit cues strengthen the effect. Each block contained either two or three durations, with one duration present in both blocks. We provided either no information at the start of each block about the nature of that block, provided written ("short" / "long" or "A" / "B") categorizations, or operationalized pitch (low vs high) to reflect the temporal context. We demonstrate that (1) the context effect emerges as long as sufficiently distinct durations are presented; (2) the effect is not modulated by explicit instructions or other cues; (3) just a single additional duration is sufficient to produce a context effect. Taken together, these results provide information on the most efficient operationalization to evoke the context effect, allowing for highly economical experimental designs, and highlights the automaticity by which priors are constructed