Potential Use of Perennial Sunflower to Reduce Blackbird Damage to Sunflower

Wildlife Conservation Sunflower Plots (WCSP) have shown potential to reduce blackbird (Icteridae) damage in commercial sunflower. Also known as lure, decoy, or trap crops, WCSP are strategically placed food plots that provide an easily available and proximate food source that entices blackbirds away from valuable commercial crops. By providing an alternative food source, WCSP reduce direct damage to commercial fields, while also lowering indirect costs that producers incur attempting to prevent blackbird damage. However, cost inefficiencies have deterred widespread use of WCSP. Cost-benefit ratios of using WCSP would be greatly improved if a perennial sunflower were used instead of the annual types currently available. Perennial sunflower would reduce seed cost and planting cost, and perhaps lower opportunity costs, if able to thrive on poorer quality soils. In the near-term, scientists are focused on producing a perennial sunflower sufficiently productive to replace annualWCSP plantings. In 2013, scientists from the University of Minnesota, USDA-Agricultural Research Service, and USDAWildlife Services National Wildlife Research Center evaluated a test plot of an open-pollinated variety of perennial sunflower resulting from genetic crossing of a domesticated annual species (Helianthus annuus) and a perennial wild species (H. tuberosus). Here, we report on results from the 2013 field test and discuss the outlook for development of perennial sunflower, which would help lessen damage to commercial sunflower when used in WCSP; provide a pesticide-free food source for beneficial insects, such as honey bees; help stabilize highly erodible lands near wetlands; and provide year-round habitat for wildlife. Lastly, we provide an initial strategy for using perennial sunflower to reduce blackbird damage in commercial sunflower

Potential Use of Perennial Sunflower to Reduce Blackbird Damage to Sunflower

Wildlife Conservation Sunflower Plots (WCSP) have shown potential to reduce blackbird (Icteridae) damage in commercial sunflower. Also known as lure, decoy, or trap crops, WCSP are strategically placed food plots that provide an easily available and proximate food source that entices blackbirds away from valuable commercial crops. By providing an alternative food source, WCSP reduce direct damage to commercial fields, while also lowering indirect costs that producers incur attempting to prevent blackbird damage. However, cost inefficiencies have deterred widespread use of WCSP. Cost-benefit ratios of using WCSP would be greatly improved if a perennial sunflower were used instead of the annual types currently available. Perennial sunflower would reduce seed cost and planting cost, and perhaps lower opportunity costs, if able to thrive on poorer quality soils. In the near-term, scientists are focused on producing a perennial sunflower sufficiently productive to replace annualWCSP plantings. In 2013, scientists from the University of Minnesota, USDA-Agricultural Research Service, and USDAWildlife Services National Wildlife Research Center evaluated a test plot of an open-pollinated variety of perennial sunflower resulting from genetic crossing of a domesticated annual species (Helianthus annuus) and a perennial wild species (H. tuberosus). Here, we report on results from the 2013 field test and discuss the outlook for development of perennial sunflower, which would help lessen damage to commercial sunflower when used in WCSP; provide a pesticide-free food source for beneficial insects, such as honey bees; help stabilize highly erodible lands near wetlands; and provide year-round habitat for wildlife. Lastly, we provide an initial strategy for using perennial sunflower to reduce blackbird damage in commercial sunflower

Conservation and Use of the North American Plant Cornucopia: The Way Forward

The pages of this extensive book document the potential of a great many North American plants to enhance the productivity, sustainability, and nutritional quality of crops or to be further developed into important cultivated species in their own right. But this potential can only be realized if the plants are adequately conserved to ensure their survival and availability for research, invested in to promote their development, and marketed so as to be attractive to producers and consumers. We outline some of the key steps needed to boost the conservation and use of our regional cornucopia. In situ and ex situ conservation of North America’s useful plants are being accomplished by a variety of institutions with different mandates, but habitat destruction and other threats to wild populations continue to negatively impact many species. Information sharing, coordinating efforts, filling research gaps for wild plants, and increasing support for conservation will be necessary to more comprehensively safeguard these plants and to make them available for use. Technologies enabling more efficient exploration of the diversity within these species are rapidly advancing and offer the potential to contribute to quick advances in improvement of cultivars, but considerable further research and partnerships are needed to generate and share the results widely. Marketing of new crops can take advantage of the increasing public interest in diverse and nutritious foods, learning from successful collaborations between producers, researchers, and consumers. As a whole, North America already possesses a strong foundation from which the conservation and use of its flora can be enhanced. This includes many protected areas, strong conservation institutions, innovative research, and the willingness to collaborate across fields, institutions, and borders. There are still many silos that need to be broken down and reorganized through innovative partnerships to better conserve and benefit from the North American cornucopia. But given the incredible diversity of interesting and useful plants in the region, the remarkable efforts for many decades by many organizations to care for these plants and share them with humanity, and the increasing public interest in more diverse, healthy, and resilient food and agricultural systems, there is reason for hope

History Taking as a Diagnostic Tool in Children With Chronic Cough

Chronic cough is a common symptom of many underlying respiratory and non-respiratory disorders and may be associated with less serious causes, such as gastroesophageal reflux and nasal diseases. Chronic cough in children differs from that in adults with respect to its etiologies and management since it can indicate a symptom of an underlying disease in children. Guidelines for managing chronic cough in children are based on recording the history, followed by physical examination, chest radiography, and spirometry. Thus, taking accurate respiratory history for coughing helps delineate the pathophysiological basis of the cause of chronic cough. Detailed history taking enhances the evaluation and treatment, and facilitates a tailored diagnostic identification of likely diagnoses. While studies have described evidence-based red flags in children with chronic cough, the value of skilled physicians regarding history taking has received less attention for the best patient care. In the present article, we outline the major questions comprising a detailed history taking for chronic cough in children

Shifts in the abiotic and biotic environment of cultivated sunflower under future climate change☆

Sunflower is a unique model species for assessing crop responses and adaptation to climate change. We provide an initial assessment of how climate change may influence the abiotic and biotic environment of cultivated sunflower across the world. We find an 8% shift between current and future climate space in cultivated sunflower locations globally, and a 48% shift in Northern America, where the crop originates. Globally, the current niche occupied by sunflower crop wild relatives offer few opportunities to adapt to future climate for cultivated sunflower, but in Northern America 100% of the future climate space of cultivated sunflower is filled by the niche of primary wild relative germplasm alone (e.g. wild Helianthus annuus). Globally, we find little difference in the overlap between current and future climate space of cultivated sunflower with the niche of the important sunflower pathogen Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, but in Northern America, climate change will decrease the overlap between local populations of this pest and cultivated sunflower by 38%. Our analysis highlights the utility of multi-scale analysis for identifying candidate taxa for breeding efforts and for understanding how future climate will shift the abiotic and biotic environment of cultivated crops

Dissecting the Genetic Basis of Local Adaptation in Soybean

Soybean (Glycine max) is the most widely grown oilseed in the world and is an important source of protein for both humans and livestock. Soybean is widely adapted to both temperate and tropical regions, but a changing climate demands a better understanding of adaptation to specific environmental conditions. Here, we explore genetic variation in a collection of 3,012 georeferenced, locally adapted landraces from a broad geographical range to help elucidate the genetic basis of local adaptation. We used geographic origin, environmental data and dense genome-wide SNP data to perform an environmental association analysis and discover loci displaying steep gradients in allele frequency across geographical distance and between landrace and modern cultivars. Our combined application of methods in environmental association mapping and detection of selection targets provide a better understanding of how geography and selection may have shaped genetic variation among soybean landraces. Moreover, we identified several important candidate genes related to drought and heat stress, and revealed important genomic regions possibly involved in the geographic divergence of soybean

Wild relatives of potato may bolster its adaptation to new niches under future climate scenarios

Food production strategies and patterns are being altered in response to climate change. Enhancing the adaptation of important food crops to novel climate regimes will be critical to maintaining world food supplies. Climate change is altering the suitability of production areas for crops such as potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) making future productivity, resilience, and sustainability of this crop dependent on breeding for climate adaptation, including through the introgression of novel traits from its wild relatives. To better understand the future production climate envelopes of potatoes, and the potential of its wild relatives to contribute to adaptation to these environments, we estimated the climate of potato in four future climate scenarios and overlapped the current climate of 72 wild relative species and potato with these future climates. We discovered a shift of up to 12.5% by potato from current to novel climate by 2070 and varying magnitudes of overlap by different wild relatives with potato, primarily driven by the extent of endemism. To address the threat of novel climate on potato production and with the wealth of data available for the agrobiodiversity in potato wild relatives, we systematically developed a prioritization value inspired by the logic of the breeder's equation for locating potentially beneficial species possessing local adaptability, climatic plasticity, and interspecific crossability. In doing so, 26 unique species by discrete climate combinations are found, highlighting the presence of unique species to use in adapting potato to changing local climates. Further, the 20 highest prioritized values belong to diploid species, enforcing the drive to shift into diploid breeding by the potato research community, where introgression of the local climate adaptability traits may be more streamlined

The hidden land use cost of upscaling cover crops

Cover cropping is considered a cornerstone practice in sustainable agriculture; however, little attention has been paid to the cover crop production supply chain. In this Perspective, we estimate land use requirements to supply the United States maize production area with cover crop seed, finding that across 18 cover crops, on average 3.8% (median 2.0%) of current production area would be required, with the popular cover crops rye and hairy vetch requiring as much as 4.5% and 11.9%, respectively. The latter land requirement is comparable to the annual amount of maize grain lost to disease in the U.S. We highlight avenues for reducing these high land use costs

Interactions between breeding system and ploidy affect niche breadth in Solanum

Understanding the factors driving ecological and evolutionary interactions of economically important plant species is important for agricultural sustainability. The geography of crop wild relatives, including wild potatoes (Solanum section Petota), have received attention; however, such information has not been analysed in combination with phylogenetic histories, genomic composition and reproductive systems to identify potential species for use in breeding for abiotic stress tolerance. We used a combination of ordinary least-squares (OLS) and phylogenetic generalized least-squares (PGLM) analyses to identify the discrete climate classes that make up the climate niche that wild potato species inhabit in the context of breeding system and ploidy. Self-incompatible diploid or self-compatible polyploid species significantly increase the number of discrete climate classes within a climate niche inhabited. This result was sustained when correcting for phylogenetic non-independence in the linear model. Our results support the idea that specific breeding system and ploidy combinations increase niche breadth through the decoupling of geographical range and niche diversity, and therefore, these species may be of particular interest for crop adaptation to a changing climate

Multi-Species Genomics-Enabled Selection for Improving Agroecosystems Across Space and Time

Plant breeding has been central to global increases in crop yields. Breeding deserves praise for helping to establish better food security, but also shares the responsibility of unintended consequences. Much work has been done describing alternative agricultural systems that seek to alleviate these externalities, however, breeding methods and breeding programs have largely not focused on these systems. Here we explore breeding and selection strategies that better align with these more diverse spatial and temporal agricultural systems