44 I EUROPEAN SEED I EUROPEAN-SEED.COM INTERNATIONAL NEWS GLOBAL SEED WATCH THE CGN WILL MAP THE GENOME OF THE LETTUCE VARIANTS AND FOURTH MILLENNIUM BCE POTTERY FRAGMENTS FOUND IN EASTERN SUDAN WITH TRACES OF DOMESTICATED SORGHUM STATUS CHINA The CGN, which is part of the Plant Sciences Group, has made an agreement with BGI (formerly Beijing Genomics Institute) in China. The institute will map the genome of the lettuce variants that are in CGN’s gene bank free of charge. The gene bank has 2500 ‘accessions’ (locations) of wild and cultivated lettuce that could have interesting properties for vegetable breeders. After sequencing at the Chinese institute, these genetic var- iations will become available to breeders and researchers around the globe. The Chinese genomics institute does ask for something in return for the free service. The CGN will wait 18 months after the conclusion of the project before allowing its clients access to the digital lettuce genomes. WUR and BGI will have that time to get a lead in the development of methods for finding interesting genes for new lettuce species. Theo van Hintum, cluster leader of CGN, is extremely pleased with the agreement. “We will acquire a huge data- set with genetic information on lettuce, allowing us to keep our services at the forefront of the field. This information will give us the possibility to much better predict which lettuce accessions will have disease immunities, for example, allow- ing us to screen fewer variants to find the required property. Additionally, we will better understand the diversity of our let- tuce collection, meaning we will be able to more effectively sample, manage and transfer the biodiversity to the following generations.” Through the agreement with BGI, CGN will be the world’s first gene bank to have such a large dataset of DNA sequences at its disposal. “That dataset will still need to be translated into rel- evant information. The methodology to achieve that has not yet been developed,” said Van Hintum. He does not mind that BGI will also have access to the huge dataset of lettuce genes. The Chinese institute could also simply have requested the lettuce vari- ants and mapped them for themselves, as the variants are publicly available. STATUS SOUTHERN AFRICA Southern African countries, including Zimbabwe, are experiencing shortages of small grain and legume seeds on formal markets due to droughts, a survey on the impact of the 2015/2016 El Nino-induced drought on seed security has said. During the 2015/2016 season, south- ern Africa experienced drought caused by one of the strongest El Nino events of the last 35 years. In most parts of the region, farm- ers had faced two consecutive years of below average rainfall, which had a cumulative effect on their production in the 2015/2016 agriculture season. Appropriate and good quality seeds are often in short supply following consecu- tive drought years. The situation is nor- mally compounded by an economic crisis and dysfunctional input markets. STATUS SUDAN Fourth Millennium BCE pottery holds clues to how Neolithic people in Sudan domesticated sorghum. Establishing the history of sorghum, Africa’s primary staple crop, has been difficult. Enter Dorian Fuller, archaeobotany professor at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, who along with his team met Frank Winchell, an American ceramics specialist who found fourth millennium BCE pottery frag- ments from the southern Atbai region in eastern Sudan with traces of the earliest evidence of domesticated sorghum used as temper, or an additive to clay. The sorghum-tempered pottery was found in the 1980s at a site called KG23 by a team of archaeologists from Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas. They carried out an archaeolog- ical survey that located sites associated with several Neolithic cultures in Sudan, one of which is called the Butana Group. The team took the pottery fragments back to SMU, where Winchell analyzed them for his PhD dissertation. One type of pottery stood out, Winchell recalls: “the paste was distinctive; you could tell the potter had thrown in chaff and sorghum seeds as temper to bind the clay together, so it would not break during firing.” Upon closer inspection, Winchell considered it could be domesticated sor- ghum, but without analysis his hunch could not be confirmed. So, Winchell waited nearly 30 years. In 2014, Winchell was introduced to Fuller, who was able to analyze sorghum impressions in pottery. The team made casts of sorghum impressions using vinyl polysiloxane dental mold and examined the seeds under a scanning electron microscope that allowed them to see very fine details, such as single hairs. The team found that roughly half of the impressions were made from domestic sorghum – provid- ing the earliest evidence of domestication for this crop. However, the other half of the plant impressions in the pottery came from wild sorghum, showing a complex picture of domestication. The results provide further proof that plant domestication was a long pro- cess. As Fuller explains, the KG23 sor- ghum is a snap shot from the middle of its domestication process. Based on Fuller’s work with other grains, the domestication process often took around two to three thousand years. “So, if it’s a similar rate with sorghum,” according to Fuller, “then I’d expect the process to start at least 1,000 up to 1,500 years earlier, meaning that if this site dates to 3,200 BCE, then we should be looking for sites, which have earlier stages of the process going back to 4,000 to 4,500 BCE.”