Blogs – Page 130

Three major commercial maize seed exporting countries in southern Africa found free from maize lethal necrosis

Written by on November 25, 2016. Posted in News.

brenda_2 — Maimouna Abass, a plant health inspector at Zambia Agriculture Research Institute collects leave samples to test for MCMV in a practical session during the MLN surveillance and diagnostic workshop held in Harare, Zimbabwe. Photo: D. Hodson/CIMMYT

NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) – Three major commercial maize-growing and seed exporting countries in southern Africa were found to be so far free from the deadly maize lethal necrosis (MLN) disease. MLN surveillance efforts undertaken by national plant protection organizations (NPPOs) in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe in 2016 have so far revealed no incidence of MLN, including the most important causative agent, maize chlorotic mottle virus (MCMV).

The three countries export an estimated 7,000 metric tons of maize seed to Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Swaziland and Tanzania for commercial cultivation by millions of smallholder farmers whose households rely on maize as a staple food.

MLN surveys were conducted as part of ongoing efforts through a project on MLN Diagnostics and Management, funded by U.S. Department for International Development (USAID) East Africa Mission, to strengthen the capacity of NPPOs on surveillance and diagnostics. A total of 12 officers were equipped with knowledge on modern sampling and diagnostics techniques to test plants and seed lots for MLN causing viruses; this was done through a training workshop held in Harare, Zimbabwe on March 3 and 4, 2016 facilitated by scientists working with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

The NPPO teams from Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe then undertook surveys of farmers’ and commercial maize seed production fields, including testing (through MCMV immunostrips) for possible presence of the virus.

“When CIMMYT called the first stakeholders awareness meeting we realised we needed to do this surveillance as soon as possible to ascertain MLN status in the country – and so the training was very important and extremely useful,” said Maimouna Abass, a plant health inspector at Zambia Agriculture Research Institute (ZARI). “The fact that we went to the field and successfully conducted the surveys using the MLN diagnostics and sampling techniques learnt was great.”

Abass and three colleagues who participated in the training, trained 10 other inspectors who took part in the surveillance work.

The results from farmers’ fields, commercial seed production fields and agri-seed dealers, showed negative results for the presence of MCMV and MLN. The MLN surveillance techniques and protocols used across all the three countries were similar, making it possible to effectively compare the results.

“The harmonization of the protocols, across the teams from Malawi and Zambia, was important for me, since this meant that the three countries were able to do the same surveillance using the same protocols and applying the same design across all the countries,” said Nhamo Mudada, chief research officer from the Plant Quarantine Station in Zimbabwe.

Participants recieve instructions from L.M Suresh, a maize pathologist at CIMMYT, during the MLN surveillance and diagnostic workshop. Photo: D.Hodson/CIMMYT

Although the MLN disease has not been detected in the southern Africa region, the risk of incidence still remains high through various means, including insect vectors, contaminated seed, and cross-border grain transfers. Therefore, continued caution and stringent surveillance, monitoring and diagnostic measures are required to prevent the possible incidence and spread of MLN into the non-endemic countries.

Further surveillance work will be conducted in 2017, so that each team can cover other targeted areas within their respective countries. MLN surveillance using harmonized protocols will also be undertaken in the MLN-endemic countries, namely Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Through systematic surveillance efforts, NPPOs, seed companies and policymakers can clearly understand the prevalence of MLN in specific areas in an endemic country for targeted management. Also, seed companies will be able to target production of commercial seed in MLN-free areas.

As this work progresses, B. M. Prasanna, director of the CGIAR Research Program on MAIZE and CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program as well as Leader for the MLN Diagnostics and Management Project, emphasized the need to intensively deploy MLN-tolerant and resistant varieties, not only in the MLN-endemic countries in eastern Africa, but also in the non-endemic countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

“We have about 22 new, high-yielding, MLN-tolerant or resistant hybridsthat are presently under national performance trials in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. We actively encourage seed companies operating in southern Africa to take up promising pre-commercial hybrids with MLN tolerance or resistance from CIMMYT, for release, scale up and deployment to the farmers,” Prasanna said. “Diagnostics and surveillance have to go hand in hand with deployment of new improved varieties that can effectively respond to the MLN challenge.”

In the East African countries of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, seed companies have already released MLN-tolerant varieties. While one hybrid is already being commercialized in Uganda, three more are expected to reach farmers in Kenya and Tanzania from 2017.

“There is also now a very urgent need to deploy MLN resistant varieties in Rwanda and Ethiopia. We need to convey this message to the government and seed companies and work closely to get the seed of MLN resistant varieties to the farmers as soon as possible,” Prasanna added.

The MLN diagnostics and management project, which is funded by the U.S. Department for International Development (USAID), supports work aimed at preventing the spread of MCMV from MLN-endemic to non-endemic areas in sub-Saharan Africa. USAID also supports the commercial seed sector and phytosanitary systems in targeted countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe), in the production of MCMV-free commercial seed, and promotes the use of clean hybrid seed by the farmers.

Agricultural biodiversity key to future crop improvement

Written by on November 25, 2016. Posted in Features.

The CGIAR is one of the biggest suppliers and conservers of crop genetic diversity. CIMMYT's genebank contains around 28,000 unique samples of maize seed—including more than 24,000 landraces; traditional, locally-adapted varieties that are rich in diversity—and 150,000 of wheat, including related species for both crops. Photo: X. Fonseca/CIMMYT. — The CGIAR is one of the biggest suppliers and conservers of crop genetic diversity. CIMMYT’s genebank contains around 28,000 unique samples of maize seed—including more than 24,000 landraces; traditional, locally-adapted varieties that are rich in diversity—and 150,000 of wheat, including related species for both crops. Photo: X. Fonseca/CIMMYT.

NEW DELHI — Conserving and using agricultural biodiversity to create better crops can help meet several sustainable development goals and stave off further species extinctions, according to scientists at the first International Agrobiodiversity Congress.

About 75 percent of plant genetic diversity worldwide has been lost since the beginning of the 20th century and 30 percent of livestock breeds are at risk of extinction, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. Meanwhile, humans only consume about 1.5 percent of edible plants and only three of these – rice, maize and wheat – contribute nearly 60 percent of calories and proteins obtained by humans from plants. This huge loss in biodiversity due to environmental degradation caused by humans – what many scientists refer to as earth’s “sixth extinction”– is detrimental to global food security and the environment.

“Just a 7-10 percent loss of any major food crop would result in prices quadrupling,” says Howarth Bouis, founder of HarvestPlus and 2016 World Food Prize winner. “Non-staple food prices in India have [already] risen by 50 percent over the past 30 years.” A lack of agricultural diversity puts the world’s entire food chain at risk if a shock – such as increased instances of drought or crop diseases due to rising temperatures from climate change – were to destroy a particular type of crop.

As part of a global response to these challenges, researchers in collaboration with farmers are gathering seed to conserve and protect in genebanks across the world for future generations. These banks are the foundation of agriculture, food security and dietary diversity.

“We don’t know what scientists will need in 30 years,” says Marie Haga, executive director of the Crop Trust. “We need to conserve the entire spectrum [of seeds]. If it’s not being used right now, that does not mean it won’t be critically important in the future.”

New advancements in DNA-sequencing and phenotyping technologies have also created an opportunity to actively use the genetic information of these seeds that did not exist just a few years ago. Crop breeders can now more rapidly and effectively identify seeds that have traits like enhanced nutritional qualities, drought or heat tolerance, or disease resistances to create better crops that withstand challenges related to malnutrition, climate change, disease and more.

For example, in 2012 approximately 23 percent of Kenya’s maize production was lost due to an outbreak of the disease Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN). Thanks to the efforts of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and other partners, there are now 13 hybrid varieties with tolerance to MLN – created in just four years.

Delegates to the congress also tackled issues regarding the effective and efficient management of genebanks, biosafety and biosecurity, intellectual property rights, access to germplasm, benefit sharing from use of germplasm, and farmers’ role in conservation of genetic resources and other related themes.

The Congress culminated with the adoption of “The Delhi Declaration on Agrobiodiversity Management” that recommended harmonizing multiple legal systems across countries to facilitate the safe transfer of genetic resources, developing and implementing an Agrobiodiversity Index to help monitor the conservation and use of agrobiodiversity in breeding programs, promoting conservation strategies for crop wild relatives and other strategies to strengthen agricultural biodiversity’s role in agricultural development.

Target for 10 million more climate-smart farmers in southern Africa amid rising cost of El Niño

Written by on November 23, 2016. Posted in Features.

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – El Niño may have passed, but food security in southern Africa will continue to deteriorate until next year, as farmers struggle to find the resources to rebuild their livelihoods. Currently, around 30 million people in southern Africa require food aid, expected to rise to 50 million people by the end of February 2017.

Two Zimbabwe-based scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) highlighted predictions that El Niño will become more frequent and severe under climate change, and that heat stress will reduce maize yields in southern Africa by 2050. Research centers, development agencies and governments must work together to respond to climate predictions before food crises develop, they said.

Q: What do climate predictions say and how do they inform CIMMYT’s work?

Comparing a new heat and drought-tolerant maize variety in Zimbabwe. CIMMYT/Johnson Siamachira — A new stress-tolerant maize variety compared in Zimbabwe. CIMMYT/Johnson Siamachira

Jill Cairns: Using climate projections we identified what future maize growing environments are going to be like, what traits will be needed for these environments and where the hotspots of vulnerability will be in terms of maize production.

We identified that heat stress is going to become a more important issue for maize in southern Zimbabwe, and southern Africa generally.

Previously we had no heat screening in the whole of Africa for maize breeding, and four years ago we set up heat screening networks. Through that we are starting to get maize varieties that do well under heat and drought.

This was meant to be for 2050, but now we have seen in this last El Niño that heat stress is a real problem. We actually have varieties now, thanks to the identification of the problem and the pre-emptive work towards it.

Q: What can be done for farmers in drought-stricken areas?

Drought in southern Africa caused by El Niño. CIMMYT/GIS Lab — Drought in southern Africa during El Niño. CIMMYT/GIS Lab

Christian Thierfelder: We have systems with adaptation qualities. For example, conservation agriculture increases water infiltration and maintains higher levels of soil moisture. So in times of dry spells, these systems can produce more, and live from the residual moisture in the soil.

Stress-tolerant maize is selected under drought and heat stress besides other biotic and abiotic stresses, and specifically adapted to such circumstances. We know that the varieties themselves can help farmers’ yields by 30 to 50 percent, but if you combine that with other technologies, and we have seen that this last year, you can have yield gains of over 100 percent with conservation agriculture and improved seed for example under drought conditions.

We have seen this year in Malawi, in communities that were heavily affected by El Niño, that we harvested almost two tons more maize per hectare in comparison to the conventional systems. I think this is a huge benefit that we really have to roll out.

Q: What can be achieved over the next five to seven years?

Christian Thierfelder: Our biggest aim is to improve and increase the resilience of farming systems. We are not looking at a single technology like drought tolerant maize or conservation agriculture in isolation, but looking at it more from livelihoods perspective and a farming systems perspective.

One option: crop index insurance for farmers

Besides technologies, we also need other climate-smart options and approaches that support farmers to respond to a changing climate. Farmers also need cash if they have failed in a drought year, and small loans or microfinancing will be critical to buy things from scratch and re-initiate farming.

We have the technologies, we have researched them and we know their impact on a small scale. What we want to do now is encourage public and private organizations, including seed companies, that work in that space to come together with us and jointly find solutions.

We as CIMMYT can only tackle a certain proportion of the farming system with our technologies and approaches. We have other CGIAR centers that specialize in legumes, cassava and livestock, and we partner a lot with international NGOs like Concern, Catholic Relief Services, CARE, World Vision, Total LandCare and the national agriculture research and extension systems to help us with scaling.

If we really come together now, if we have a coherent and joint multidisciplinary approach, I think in seven years’ time we will have reached many more farmers. We will target 10 million farmers practicing climate-smart agriculture in the next five to seven years.

New Publications: Durum wheat is becoming more susceptible to rust globally

Written by on November 23, 2016. Posted in Publications.

CIMMYT scientist Ravi Singh inspects wheat at the quarantined UG99 wheat stem rust screening nursery in Njoro, Kenya. Photo: D. Hansen/University of Minnesota

EL BATAN, Mexico — Leaf rust is increasingly having an impact on durum wheat production evidenced by the appearance of races with virulence to widely grown cultivars in many durum producing areas worldwide, according to a recent study published by researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the United States Department of Agriculture, North Dakota State University and University of Minnesota Twin Cities.

Durum wheat is a major staple food used for pasta, couscous, bread and more across the globe, especially in developing countries. It is particularly important in developing countries where it often represents a large portion of total wheat planted as well as a major staple food. It is also attractive to farmers due to its adaptability to arid climate conditions, marginal soils and relatively low water requirements.

Despite this broad adaptability, durum wheat production is often limited by various fungal diseases including rusts. And while durum wheat is considered generally more resistant to rust than other types of wheat, new races of the leaf rust pathogen, virulent to widely grown durum cultivars in several production areas, are increasingly impacting production.

In 2001, a virulent rust race emerged in northwestern Mexico, which overcame the resistance of widely adapted durum wheat cultivars from CIMMYT which had been previously been resistant to rust for over 25 years. Throughout the early 2000s, increased susceptibility of durum wheat to rust was measured globally, including the Mediterranean basin which produces over half the world’s durum wheat, and constitutes for over 75 percent of its growing area. The United States measured a race similar to that identified in Mexico in California and then in Kansas, suggesting the likely spread of the race to the northern Great Plains where over half of durum wheat is produced in the United States.

In response to the leaf rust epidemics in Mexico, extensive screening of the CIMMYT durum germplasm, resulted in the identification of several effective leaf rust resistance genes. The study “Genome-Wide Association Mapping of Leaf Rust Response in a Durum Wheat Worldwide Germplasm Collection” also identified 14 previously uncharacterized loci associated with leaf rust response in durum wheat. This discovery is a significant step in identifying useful sources of resistance that can be used to broaden the leaf rust resistance spectrum in durum wheat germplasm globally.

Learn more about this study and more from CIMMYT scientists, below.

Dissection of heat tolerance mechanism in tropical maize. 2016. Dinesh, A.; Patil, A.; Zaidi, P.H.; Kuchanur, P.H.; Vinayan, M.T.; Seetharam, K.; Ameragouda. Research on Crops 17 (3): 462-467.
Genetic diversity, linkage disequilibrium and population structure among CIMMYT maize inbred lines, selected for heat tolerance study. 2016. Dinesh, A.; Patil, A.; Zaidi, P.H.; Kuchanur, P.H.; Vinayan, M.T.; Seetharam, K. Maydica 61 (3): M29.
Genome-wide association for plant height and flowering time across 15 tropical maize populations under managed drought stress and well-watered conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa. 2016. Wallace, J.G.; Zhang, X.; Beyene, Y.; Fentaye Kassa Semagn; Olsen, M.; Prasanna, B.M.; Buckler, E. Crop Science 56(5): 2365-2378.
Line x testers analysis of tropical maize inbred lines under heat stress for grain yield and secondary traits. 2016. Dinesh, A.; Patil, A.; Zaidi, P.H.; Kuchanur, P.H.; Vinayan, M.T.; Seetharam, K. Maydica: 59.
Genome-wide association mapping of leaf rust response in a durum wheat worldwide germplasm collection. 2016. Aoun, M.; Breiland, M.; Turner, M.K.; Loladze, A.; Shiaoman Chao; Xu, S.; Ammar, K.; Anderson, J.A.; Kolmer, J.A.; Acevedo, M. The Plant Genome 9 (3): 1-24.

Sustainable agriculture poised to save Mayan rainforests from deforestation

Written by on November 21, 2016. Posted in News.

Tour of field trials sown with MasAgro maize materials in Hopelchen, Campeche, Mexico. (Photo: CIMMYT)

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Sustainable farming practices allow smallholder farmers to improve maize yields without increasing land, which has proven to reduce deforestation in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula according to an independent report commissioned by the Mexico REDD+ Alliance and The Nature Conservancy (TNC).

Conservation agriculture, a sustainable intensification technique that includes minimal soil movement, surface cover of crop residues and crop rotations, was successfully trialed in the south east of Mexico to protect biodiversity and counter rainforest loss caused by a creeping agricultural frontier, as part of a rural development project the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro).

Over a year ago, the MasAgro project, led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and Mexico’s Secretariat of Agriculture (SAGARPA), partnered with local organization Pronatura Peninsula de Yucatan to test a sustainable intensification strategy in Hopelchen, a small community in the state of Campeche, where indigenous and Mennonite farmers grow maize following traditional farming practices.

Technician Vladimir May Tzun visits Santa Enna research platform to make fertility checks in Hopelchen, Campeche. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Decades of plowing the fields without crop rotation and applying agrochemicals to control pests have degraded the soils in Hopelchen. As a result, farmers are prone to convert rainforest areas into growing fields to address diminishing crop yields. In an effort to curb this practice, MasAgro introduced conservation agriculture to improve soil fertility and water availability on the fields of five participant farmers.

A key moment during the project was when producers saw the benefits of conservation agriculture after two months of drought. Participant farmers achieved more developed maize cobs than those who did not, according to findings in the MasAgro case study featured in the report, “Experiences on sustainable rural development and biodiversity conservation in the Yucatan Peninsula.”

The positive results have sparked the interest of farmers from adjacent communities who want to get involved in the MasAgro project, said Pronatura’s field manager of sustainable agriculture, Carlos Cecilio Zi Dzib.

Maize growing in Santa Enna demonstration module in Hopelchen, Campeche, Mexico.

“MasAgro has been very successful in the Peninsula,” said Bram Govaerts, CIMMYT’s regional representative in Latin America. “In the course of its second year of implementation, MasAgro has established a research platform and offered training to 150 farmers, who have attended events organized in collaboration with TNC and Mexico’s Agriculture, Forestry and Livestock Research Institute.”

“This work is an effort to document the experiences of some of the sustainable rural initiatives and projects that contribute to reduce deforestation in the region, and thus make their contribution to the conservation and sustainable management of the Mayan Forest in the Yucatan Peninsula,” wrote report authors Carolina Cepeda and Ariel Amoroso.

SAGARPA and CIMMYT plan to present achievements of their MasAgro partnership, including the Hopelchen farmers’ success story, during the United Nations’ thirteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 13), which will take place from December 4 to 17 in Cancun, Mexico.

Improved genetic analysis offers faster, more precise results to crop breeders

Written by on November 18, 2016. Posted in Features.

CIMMYT representatives at IAC (L-R) Prashant Vikram, Ravi Singh, Cynthia O.R, Laura Bouvet, Sukhwinder-Singh, Martin Kroff, Kevin Pixley and Gilberto Salinas. Photo: CIMMYT — CIMMYT representatives at IAC (L-R) Prashant Vikram, Ravi Singh, Cynthia O.R, Laura Bouvet, Sukhwinder-Singh, Martin Kropff, Kevin Pixley and Gilberto Salinas. Photo: CIMMYT

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Researchers gathered last week at the International Agrobiodiversity Conference in New Delhi to improve global collaboration on harnessing genes in breeding that can help wheat withstand the effects of climate change.

Wheat is the most widely cultivated staple food in the world, providing 20 percent of the protein and calories consumed worldwide and up to 50 percent in developing countries. It is also particularly vulnerable to climate change, since the crop thrives in cooler conditions. Research has shown wheat yields drop 6 percent for each 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature, and that warming is already holding back yield gains in wheat-growing mega-regions like South Asia.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center’s (CIMMYT) genebank serves as a vital source of genetic information and biodiversity. Breeders use this information to accelerate the development of wheat resilient to climate change by identifying varieties that display valuable traits like drought and heat-stress tolerance, which allow them to flourish despite stressful conditions.

However, all this genetic information is incredibly dense and requires filtering before breeders can efficiently use that information, according to Sukhwinder Singh, head of the wheat pre-breeding team at CIMMYT’s Seeds of Discovery (SeeD) initiative.

“Using new genes to improve wheat, or any crop, is incredibly difficult because often along with the desired traits, come numerous undesirable traits,” said Singh. “That’s where pre-breeding comes in – we essentially purify this huge pool of good and bad traits by identifying useful genes, like heat tolerance, then make these traits available in a form that’s easier for wheat breeders to access and use.”

Pre-breeding is done through cutting-edge, cost-effective technologies that characterize the genetic information of CIMMYT’s wheat genebank. Using these tools, nearly 40 percent of the 150,000 seed samples of wheat in the bank have undergone high-throughput genetic characterization, a process that allows pre-breeders to rapidly identify desirable traits in the varieties.

A recent successful example of pre-breeding was highlighted in a report that genetically characterized a collection of 8,400 centuries-old Mexican wheat landraces adapted to varied and sometimes extreme conditions, offering a treasure trove of potential genes to combat wheat’s climate-vulnerability.

“Pre-breeding helps us better understand and gather more information on what genetic traits are available in CIMMYT’s wheat genebank, so researchers can have more access to a wider variety of information than ever before,” said Prashant Vikram, wheat researcher who is also working with the pre-breeding team at CIMMYT.

However, as new genomics tools continue to develop, capacity building for researchers is necessary to ensure the potential impacts of the genebank’s biodiversity is fully realized and equitably accessible, said Kevin Pixley, SeeD project leader and program director of CIMMYT’s Genetic Resources Program.

During the IAC partners, scientists, students, and stakeholders from across the globe provided feedback on SeeD and pre-breeding initiatives, while CIMMYT led discussions on how to build genebank biodiversity for future food security and sustainable development. Increasing partnerships and multidisciplinary projects for stronger impact were identified as key needs for future initiatives.

New online learning platform offers capacity development for all

Written by on November 17, 2016. Posted in News.

Trainees work with KDSmart phenotyping technology, one of the subjects taught in the new SeeD distance learning modules. Photo: G. Salinas/CIMMYT

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — An online learning platform created in partnership with the Seeds of Discovery (SeeD) initiative will revolutionize the project’s capacity development efforts, allowing SeeD to reach more users than ever before.

Distance learning modules consisting of practical and theory modules about how to enhance the use of genetic diversity in wheat and maize, will allow anyone in the world to benefit from SeeD’s collection of knowledge and tools regardless of location or income. These new distance learning modules are free and will be available online to the public in the future.

SeeD works to unlock and utilize novel genetic diversity held in genebanks to accelerate the development of improved maize and wheat varieties. The initiative has generated massive amounts of invaluable information on the genetic diversity of maize and wheat, as well as cutting edge software tools to aid in its use and visualization.

“This information and tools have been made publicly available so that breeders and researchers around the world can develop improved crop varieties,” said Gilberto Salinas, head of capacity development at the SeeD initiative. “However, if people don’t know how to effectively utilize these datasets and software, the information is useless,” he said.

SeeD offers workshops on genetic diversity analysis, pre-breeding, and software tools will be offered free of charge several times a year, but space is limited, meaning that only a few researchers can be trained on SeeD’s data and technology each year.

“These modules will ensure that anyone can access and learn to effectively utilize our products, thus enabling the next generation of breeders and agricultural researchers in the tools that they will need to improve food security around the world,” Salinas said.

SeeD and CIMMYT’s first distance-learning module, which is hosted on the Moodle online learning platform, was developed by Laura Bouvet, a Ph.D. candidate in the department of plant science at Britain’s University of Cambridge, working with the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB). Bouvet, who participated in a three-month internship with SeeD said she is very excited about the number of people the modules will reach.

“So much information has been generated through the Seeds of Discovery project in terms of data and tools, and it’s very important that people can access and utilize this information for the greater good,” she said. “These modules will complement SeeD workshops and will allow for higher impact of everything that has been generated through SeeD.”

KDSmart, one of the subjects taught in the new SeeD distance learning modules.

The first module focuses on theory, introducing genotypic data, its importance for genetic diversity, how it is used, as well as the technologies that are used to generate and analyze the data.

The second module focuses on practice, guiding users through the process of using KDSmart, an Android based application to record phenotypic data, information on the physical traits of maize and wheat varieties. This module is being developed with the participation of several researchers from SeeD and the Genetic Resources Program led by Gilberto Salinas.

The modules also include two videos created by Bouvet in partnership with SeeD and CIMMYT, one to explain the Seeds of Discovery project, and another to introduce the platform to show how the modules can help prospective users solve problems they may face in their research.

The modules are directed at postgraduate students, crop breeders, university faculty members, and researchers. Currently, the modules and videos are available only in Spanish language, but English versions will be developed in the near future to reach even more people interested in genetic diversity.

“These distance learning modules are for everyone who wants to learn about genetic diversity, which is crucial to increase crop yields and is one of several important solutions to tackle climate change,” Bouvet said. “With distance learning modules, SeeD will be able to reach many more people, so that those without the time or financial means to physically come to CIMMYT can still benefit from their workshops and learn to utilize genetic diversity.”

SeeD is a multi-project initiative comprising: MasAgro Biodiversidad, a joint initiative of CIMMYT and the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture (SAGARPA) through the MasAgro (Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture) project; the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize (MAIZE CRP) and Wheat (WHEAT CRP); and a computation infrastructure and data analysis project supported by the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Learn more about the Seeds of Discovery project here.

Drought- and heat-tolerant maize tackles climate change in southern Africa

Written by on November 16, 2016. Posted in Features.

Appollonia Marutsvaka and Alice Chipato of Zaka District in Zimbabwe. If widely adopted, drought- and heat-tolerant maize varieties could help farmers cope with drought and heat stresses. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT — Appollonia Marutsvaka (left) and Alice Chipato of Zaka District in Zimbabwe. If widely adopted, drought- and heat-tolerant maize varieties could help farmers cope with drought and heat stresses. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT

HARARE (CIMMYT) — “We are no longer sure when to prepare the land for planting or when to start planting. It’s pretty much gambling with nature,” complains 62-year old Appollonia Marutsvaka of Zaka district, Masvingo province, Zimbabwe. “Most of the time the rains are not enough for crop production. If the situation persists, then most of us who have small farms will sink deeper into poverty, because we depend on agriculture for our livelihoods.”

Most farmers in Zaka argue that they only get one good harvest every five to six years. Changes in weather patterns have turned agriculture into a gamble with nature for smallholder farmers.

It is estimated that maize yields in Zimbabwe and South Africa’s Limpopo Province will decrease by approximately 20-50 percent between now and 2045. This predicted decline will pose a major problem, as maize is the region’s main staple food. Low yields in this region are largely associated with drought stress, low soil fertility, weeds, pests, diseases, low input availability, low input use, and inappropriate seeds.

After years of work on maize improvements projects, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), through the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), made a bigger commitment to researching, supporting and getting drought-tolerant maize into the hands of smallholder farmers. To date, with substantial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, drought-tolerant varieties have been delivered to three million farmers across Africa.

“Given the accumulating evidence of climate change in sub-Saharan Africa, there is an urgent need to develop more climate resilient maize systems. Adaptation strategies to climate change in maize systems in sub-Saharan Africa are likely to include improved seeds with tolerance to drought and heat stress and improved management practices,” says Jill Cairns, CIMMYT senior maize physiologist.

Cosmos Magorokosho, CIMMYT senior maize breeder, with new experimental hybrid maize on display at the Chiredzi Research Station, Zimbabwe. Scientists here have developed new heat- and drought-tolerant maize varieties. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT

CIMMYT, together with partners under the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE), developed drought- and heat-tolerant maize varieties through its breeding program in sub-Saharan Africa.

Heat tolerance was not previously a trait in African breeding programs. CGIAR Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)’s work highlighted the importance of heat tolerance in future climates, and in 2011 CIMMYT started breeding for this trait. During the past year, the El Niño induced drought has demonstrated the need for maize which is also heat-tolerant. If CIMMYT had not started working on these varieties in 2011, it would have taken until 2021 to have a drought and heat tolerant maize variety.

A recent media tour of Zaka and Chiredzi districts in Zimbabwe, where CIMMYT conducted regional on-farm variety trials for the new climate-proof seed varieties, revealed that the new drought- and heat-tolerant maize is an important way of combating climate-change induced food shortages. Research carried out by CIMMYT revealed that under experimental conditions, the new varieties doubled maize yields when compared to the yields of commercial varieties.

Smallholder farmer Marutsvaka, who participated in the on-farm variety trials, says: “In the past, I harvested nothing as my crops were literally burnt by the scorching heat. During the 2015-2016 growing season, I realized almost 200 kilograms of white grain.” One of the challenges of these new maize varieties is the time taken between testing and seed availability on the market. For example, some of these new maize varieties would only be on the market during the 2018-2019 agricultural season.

The 2014 African Agriculture Status Report states that the vital food producers face a risk of being overwhelmed by the pace and severity of climate change. The authors called for the adoption of climate-smart agriculture that will help make crops more resilient to future extreme weather events.

Appollonia Marutsvaka shows off her drought- and heat-tolerant maize cobs harvested through a CIMMYT project. Photo: J. Siamachira/CIMMYT

“For our farmers to be productive and ensure food security, we need to build resilience to help them mitigate the onset of climate change,” observed Cosmos Magorokosho, CIMMYT senior maize breeder. “We are talking about a situation when the rain does not come at the right time or the length of the [growing] season is shortened as a result of drought and other stresses, such as heat.”

He added that helping small-scale farmers adopt climate-smart farming techniques would “prepare them for even more serious challenges in the future… this means we need both to adapt agriculture to climate change and to mitigate climate change itself.’’

However, getting a new strain of maize out of the research station is not the same as getting it to the fields. Creating a distribution chain in Africa has been a bigger challenge than inventing the product itself.

Gabriel Chiduku, a sales and marketing representative for Klein Karoo, a private seed company which introduced the CIMMYT developed seed of drought-tolerant varieties to Zaka farmers, told the farmers that the seed is readily available.

With the drought- and heat-tolerant maize varieties, Zaka farmers are producing three tons per hectare of maize, up from less than a ton.

Combating spread of MLN in Africa poses unique but surmountable challenges, seed health specialist says

Written by on November 14, 2016. Posted in Features.

Anne Wangui, a seed health technician at CIMMYT demonstrate DAS–ELISA method used for detecting MLN-causing viruses. B.Wawa/CIMMYT

NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) – The maize lethal necrosis (MLN) disease poses a major concern to researchers, seed companies and farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. The impact of MLN is massive in the affected countries, especially at the household level for smallholder farmers who can experience up to 100 percent yield loss.

Concerted regional efforts through a project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) over the past year have helped in prioritizing and targeting efforts to stop the spread of the disease from the endemic to the non-endemic countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The project target countries are Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda (currently MLN endemic), while Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe are MLN non-endemic but important commercial maize seed producing countries where the project implemented extensive MLN surveillance efforts.

Determining exactly how the MLN causing viruses, which include maize chlorotic mottle virus (MCMV) and sugarcane mosaic virus, are transmitted in the field through insect-vectors, infected plants and seed lots, has made diagnosis a key element in the efforts to halt the spread of the disease. If the viruses, in particular MCMV, the major causative agent, are introduced into a new area through contaminated seed and infected plants and not diagnosed and destroyed immediately, MLN can spread rapidly. Insect vectors in the field can play a significant role in transmitting viruses to the neighboring healthy maize fields.

In order to manage MLN at a regional level, partners in the project are developing harmonized diagnostic protocols to test, detect and prevent its spread through available mitigation measures. These were highlighted during the MLN Diagnostics and Management Project Review and Planning Meeting held in October, 2016 in Nairobi.

Monica Mezzalama, head of the CIMMYT Seed Health Laboratory in Mexico and a plant pathologist, shared her views on MLN testing and diagnostic methods that can be adopted to test maize plants and seed lots in the following interview.

Q: What is the role of diagnostics in managing MLN in Africa?

A: The role of sensitive, reliable, reproducible, affordable and standardized diagnostic tools is fundamental to the management of MLN in Africa. Only with an appropriate diagnosis tool, we can effectively detect and prevent further dispersal of the disease to the non-endemic areas through seed.

Q: What is the progress for detecting MLN in seed lots?

A: At the moment, detection in seed lots is still a weak link in the MLN management chain, although detection methods are available, such as ELISA and several versions of PCR, which are serological and molecular based, respectively, for the detection of MLN viruses. Extracting the pathogen from seed is more difficult than extracting it from leaf tissue, making it more time consuming to obtain clear and reliable results. Additionally, scientists are on the verge of resolving the significant issue of “sampling intensity,” which refers to the proportion of the seed sampled from the presented seed lots.

Q: What are some of the practices CIMMYT has adopted to ensure MLN-free seed production across regional centers in Africa?

A: Since 2013, CIMMYT has implemented several effective measures to ensure healthy MLN-free seed production and exchange. An aggressive strategy against the disease has been adopted at the main maize breeding station at Kenya Agricultural Livestock and Research Organization in Kiboko, by introducing a maize-free period of two months annually on the station as well as in the surrounding areas in close interaction with the farming communities in the neighboring villages. All this was possible thanks to the great collaboration between KALRO staff, CIMMYT colleagues, and the local farmers. This action taken for two consecutive years reduced drastically the incidence of MLN infected plants. In addition, a very thoughtful sensitization campaign was carried out, explaining how to effectively apply insecticide to control vectors, how to avoid the spread of the pathogen from one field to another by advising workers to change their clothes and shoes after working in an infected field. Also, management of planting dates has been implemented to avoid peaks of vectors populations or physically avoiding the arrival of the insects by planting according to the wind stream direction. In Zimbabwe, CIMMYT has also invested significant resources by establishing an MLN Quarantine Facility at Mazowe, near Harare to enable safe exchange of MLN virus-free breeding materials in southern Africa.

Q: Based on your experience with various diagnostic tools, what options would work for Africa’s seed companies and regulatory agencies to help detect MLN-causing viruses?

A: For detection of MLN viruses in green leaf tissue, I think immunostrips, ELISA and PCR techniques work very well and they can be adopted according to the level of specialization of the operator, infrastructure and financial resources available. As far as detection in dry seed is concerned, I think that at the moment the ELISA technique is the most reliable and affordable. PCR methods are available, but still some improvement needs to be done in the extraction of the viral RNA from the seed matrix.

Q: What factors do the relevant actors need to consider in the process of harmonizing diagnostic protocols across MLN-endemic and non-endemic countries?

A: Harmonization of protocols and procedures are needed not only for MLN, but also for effective design and implementation of phytosanitary aspects related to the exchange of commercial seed and vegetative material across borders. Unfortunately, it is not an easy task because of the number of actors involved, including national plant protection organizations, seed companies, seed traders, farmers, and policy makers. Nevertheless, the most important factors that, in my opinion, should be taken into consideration for consensus on harmonized protocols and where the efforts should focus on are: avoid the spread of the disease from country to country, and from the endemic to non-endemic areas within the same country; implement a well-coordinated and integrated package of practices for effective management of MLN in the endemic countries; reduce as much as possible economic losses due to the restriction on seed exchange; implement serious and effective seed testing and field inspections of the seed multiplication plots to prevent the incidence of MLN and for timely detection and elimination of infected plants.

View Meeting presentations here

MLN Pathogen Diagnosis, MLN-free Seed Production and Safe Exchange to Non-Endemic Countries Brochure

Visit the MLN website for more information

The CIMMYT-led MLN Diagnostics and Management Project, funded by USAID East Africa Mission is coordinating the above work with objectives to: a) prevent the spread of MLN, especially Maize Chlorotic Mottle Virus (MCMV), from the MLN-endemic countries in eastern Africa to non-endemic countries in sub-Saharan Africa; b) support the commercial seed sector in the MLN-endemic countries in producing MCMV-free commercial seed and promote the use of clean hybrid seed by the farmers; and c) to establish and operate a MLN Phytosanitary Community of Practice in Africa, for sharing of learning, MLN diagnostic and surveillance protocols, and best management practices for MLN control in Africa.

Partners invited to apply for allocation of new CIMMYT pre-commercial hybrids

Written by on November 11, 2016. Posted in News.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is offering a new set of improved maize hybrids to partners in southern Africa and similar agroecological zones, to scale up production for farmers in these areas.

National agricultural research systems and seed companies are invited to apply for the allocation of these pre-commercial hybrids, after which they will be able to register, produce and offer the improved seed to farming communities.

The deadline for applications is 30 November 2016. The application form can be downloaded here.

The full announcement can be found here.

New Publications: With climate change, pests likely to spread to new agricultural areas

Written by on November 9, 2016. Posted in Publications.

Wheat showing the "white head" condition typically produced by stem-boring insects, in this case caused by wheat stem maggot (Meromyza americana). Photo: CIMMYT — Wheat showing the “white head” condition typically produced by stem-boring insects, in this case caused by wheat stem maggot (Meromyza americana). Photo: CIMMYT

EL BATAN, Mexico – Agriculture faces many threats from climate change – drought, heat, irregular weather among other environmental challenges. However, the spread of insects to new regions as the world’s climate changes is an additional threat to farmers globally, especially in Africa where climate-change effects are projected to be some of the most severe in the world.

Most agricultural pests are expected to respond to climate change. To predict what areas will face the greatest threat of the spread of pests, scientists from The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) modeled the current and future habitat suitability under changing climatic conditions for Tuta absoluta, Ceratitis cosyra and Bactrocera invadens, three important insect pests that are common across some parts of Africa and responsible for immense agricultural losses.

The scientists found that habitat suitability for the three insect pests is partially increasing across the continent, especially in those areas already overlapping with or close to most suitable sites under current climate conditions. The three pests are likely to have an impact on productive agricultural areas under future climatic conditions.

Read the full study “Future risks of pest species under changing climatic conditions,” and check out the other latest publications from CIMMYT scientists, below.

Evaluation of grain yield and quality traits of bread wheat genotypes cultivated in Northwest Turkey. 2016. Bilgin, O.; Guzman, C.; Baser, I.; Crossa, J.; Kayıhan Zahit Korkut; Balkan, A. Crop Science 56 (1): 73-84.
Harnessing diversity in wheat to enhance grain yield, climate resilience, disease and insect pest resistance and nutrition through conventional and modern breeding approaches. 2016. Mondal, S.; Rutkoski, J.; Velu, G.; Singh, P.K.; Crespo-Herrera, L.A.; Guzman, C.; Bhavani, S.; Caixia Lan; Xinyao He; Singh, R.P. Frontiers in Plant Science 7 (991): 1-15.
Sources of the highly expressed wheat bread making (wbm) gene in CIMMYT spring wheat germplasm and its effect on processing and bread-making quality. 2016. Guzman, C.; Yonggui Xiao; Crossa, J.; González-Santoyo, H.; Huerta-Espino, J.; Singh, R.P.; Dreisigacker, S. Euphytica 209: 689-692.
Unlocking the genetic diversity of Creole wheats. 2016. Vikram, P.; Franco-Barrera, J.; Burgueño, J.; Huihui Li; Sehgal, D.; Saint Pierre, C.; Ortiz, C.; Sneller, C.; Tattaris, M.; Guzman, C.; Sansaloni, C.P.; Fuentes Dávila, G.; Reynolds, M.P.; Sonder, K.; Singh, P.K.; Payne, T.S.; Wenzl, P.; Sharma, A.; Bains, N.; Gyanendra Pratap Singh; Crossa, J.; Sukhwinder-Singh. Nature Scientific Reports 6: No. 23092
Wheat waxy proteins: polymorphism, molecular characterization and effects on starch properties. 2016. Guzman, C.; Alvarez, J.B. Theoretical and Applied Genetics 129 (1): 1-16.
Climate change impacts and potential benefits of heat-tolerant maize in South Asia. 2016. Kindie Tesfaye Fantaye; Zaidi, P.H.; Gbegbelegbe, S.D.; Bober, C.; Dil Bahadur Rahut; Getaneh, F.; Seetharam, K.; Erenstein, O.; Stirling, C. Theoretical and Applied Climatology. In press.
Diversity of phenotypic (plant and grain morphological) and genotypic (glutenin alleles in Glu-1 and Glu-3 loci) traits of wheat landraces (Triticum aestivum) from Andalusia (Southern Spain). 2016. Ayala, M.; Guzman, C.; Peña-Bautista, R.J.; Alvarez, J.B. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 63: 465-475.
Future risks of pest species under changing climatic conditions. 2016. iber-Freudenberger, L.; Ziemacki, J.; Tonnang, H.; Borgemeister, C. PLoS One 11 (4): e0153237.
Genomic selection for processing and end-use quality traits in the CIMMYT spring bread wheat breeding program. 2016. Battenfield, S.D.; Guzman, C.; Gaynor, C.; Singh, R.P.; Peña-Bautista, R.J.; Dreisigacker, S.; Fritz, A.K.; Poland, J. The Plant Genome 9 (2): 1-12.
Participation in rural land rental markets in Sub-Saharan Africa: who benefits and by how much? evidence from Malawi and Zambia. 2016. Chamberlin, J.; Ricker-Gilbert, J. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 98 (5): 1507-1528.

Improved drought tolerant maize varieties: a sustainable solution to climate change

Written by on November 8, 2016. Posted in News.

Rodney Lunduka speaking at the AFSC. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT — Rodney Lunduka, CIMMYT socioeconomist, speaking at the AFSC. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT

NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) — Is there too much talk and not enough action regarding food security in Africa? For two days, stakeholders in the agricultural sector met in Nairobi, Kenya, for the 4^th Africa Food Security Conference (AFSC), held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on 12 and 13 October 2016. Experts in crop production, nutrition, agricultural inputs, global development and even microfinance, chimed in on the seemingly endless task of making Africa food secure. Speakers at the event called for a lasting solution to this challenge, citing low crop productivity, food loss, and wastage from under-developed food value chains as some of the biggest impediments to food security. However, climate change and variability remain the most devastating occurrences to farmers across the globe, and sub-Sahara Africa in particular.

According to a FAO report on global food losses and food waste, the food currently lost in Africa could feed 300 million people. The report also mentions that food waste and losses in developing countries occur at early stages of the food value chain, where constraints in harvesting techniques, finances and technical know-how exist. Further, 40 percent of losses in developing countries occur at post-harvest and processing levels, translating into lost income for small farmers and higher prices for poor consumers.

While infrastructure investments in the food value chain can help reduce the amount of food lost or wasted, and in effect feed more people, achieving a truly food secure Africa means building resilience to climate change. To do so, it is critical that production technologies are developed to adapt to the changing climate, natural resources such as land and water are properly utilized, and the environment left intact.

In the last decade, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has responded swiftly to the ravages of climate change, developing responses that are accessible and affordable to smallholder farmers in sub-Sahara Africa, in whose farms the bulk of food consumed is grown.

In his presentation at the AFSC, Rodney Lunduka, socioeconomist at CIMMYT, shared that in addition to loss of yield in moderate drought, maize yield losses double when temperatures exceed 30°C, severely affecting farmers’ productivity.

The CIMMYT booth at AFSC. Photo: K. Kaimenyi/CIMMYT

“CIMMYT’s two major solutions to building farmers’ resilience to climate change are a combination of drought tolerant (DT) maize varieties, and good agronomic practices, which our studies show are being quickly adopted,” Lunduka says, adding: “this combined approach has the potential to double farmers’ yields, translating to more food and income at household level.”

Preliminary results from a household survey on the impact of DT maize in southern Africa reveal that a simple switch from non-DT maize varieties to DT maize varieties can increase farmers’ total maize production by 0.7 tons per hectare (ha) on average. The study spanned 4,700 households in Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe between 2013 and 2015. In Zimbabwe, farmers would produce 0.6 tons more yield/ha with DT maize, where the average is about 0.8 to one ton per hectare (t/ha) with non-DT maize. In Malawi, farmers were able to produce one ton more per ha – on average 1.3 to 1.5 t/ha – when DT varieties and good agronomic practices were combined.

“Good farm practices such as residue retention and intercropping with legumes are popular, the former for its simplicity, and the latter for its income potential,” says Lunduka on adopting good agronomic practices. “It is common to see maize intercropped with soya beans, cow peas, groundnuts, or pigeon peas, which most farmers can afford and have the skills to plant.”

While uptake of DT maize varieties is gradually increasing in sub-Sahara Africa, there still exist some barriers to total adoption, notably unfavorable government policies, and production and purchase of old varieties by seed producers and farmers respectively. Government policies can encourage replacement of old varieties, for instance, by offering subsidies on seed production to companies that produce improved varieties.

Read Lunduka’s presentation at the AFSC here.

Taking aim at climate change

Written by on November 7, 2016. Posted in News.

cimmyt-responding-to-climate-change — Learn how CIMMYT is responding to climate change

Climate change is already happening. Without taking immediate action to deliver innovative research findings to farmers, climate change will be devastating to food security, particularly in the developing world.

Such organizations as CIMMYT are here to help. Over 90 percent of our work is dedicated to overcoming the challenges associated with climate change in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Working with hundreds of partners, CIMMYT develops combined packages of solutions, including developing improved seeds and introducing new practices that allow smallholder farmers to adapt to climate change, mitigating environmental impact, while increasing food production.

Our research and experience working with farmers sends a clear message to policymakers: it is possible to create advanced farming systems in the developing world that meet global challenges, but only with further investment in research and by adopting new approaches on a vast scale.

Learn how CIMMYT is responding to climate change

First drought tolerant and insect resistant “stacked” transgenic maize harvested in Kenya

Written by on November 4, 2016. Posted in Features.

A maize stem infested by the African stem borer that is predominant in the highlands. B.Wawa/CIMMYT

NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) – Life has become more difficult in Kenya for the intrepid stem borer. For the first time, transgenic maize hybrids that combine insect resistance and drought tolerance have been harvested from confined field trials, as part of a public-private partnership to combat the insect, which costs Kenya $90 million dollars in maize crop losses a year.

Conducted at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) centers in Kitale and Kiboko in April and May, the experiments were managed by the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project, a collaboration led by the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF). The test crop successfully weathered intense, researcher-controlled infestations of two highly-aggressive Kenyan insect pests— the spotted stem borer and African stem borer.

The maize is referred to as “stacked” because it carries more than one inserted gene for resilience; in this case, genes from the common soil microbe Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that confers resistance to certain species of stem borer, and another from Bacillus subtilis that enhances drought tolerance.

Bt hybrid maize showed better resistance to the stem borer compared to the conventional commercial maize. F. Maritim/KALRO

First time maize resists two-pest attack

WEMA partners from KALRO, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), U.S. seeds company Monsanto and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) hope that, given the successful results of this experiment, they will soon be able to test the new maize in national trials.

“This is the first planting season of the stacked materials and, from the initial data, there was a clear difference between the plants containing the stem borer resistance traits and the conventional commercial maize grown for comparison, which showed a lot of damage,” said Murenga Mwimali, WEMA coordinator at KALRO.

The maize in the Kiboko experiment was infested with the spotted stem borer (Chilo partellus, by its scientific name), a pest found mostly in the lowlands. At Kitale, the scientists besieged the crops with the African stem borer (Busseola fusca), the predominant maize pest in the highlands. This was the first time that Bt maize had been tested in the field against Busseola fusca, according to Stephen Mugo, regional representative for CIMMYT in Africa and leader of the center’s WEMA team.

“From our observations, this is the first time that stacked Bt genes provided control for both Chilo partellus and Busseola fusca in maize,” Mugo said, adding that stem borers annually chew their way through 13.5 percent of Kenya’s maize, representing a loss of 0.4 million tons of grain.

“Losses can reach 80 percent in drought years, when maize stands are weakened from a lack of water and insect infestation,” he explained. Although the impact of the stem borer in the field often goes unnoticed because the insects sometimes destroy the plant from the root, the loss is significant for a country that depends on maize for food.

The new maize was developed using lines from Monsanto and CIMMYT-led conventional breeding for drought tolerance.

A Bt hybrid maize with resistance to the African stem borer and tolerant to drought harvested at Kitale research center, Kenya. B.Wawa/CIMMYT

Seeking approval for widespread testing and use

Trial harvesting took place under close supervision by inspectors from the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services (KEPHIS) and the National Biosafety Authority (NBA), strictly in line with regulatory requirements for handling genetically modified crops in Kenya.

The NBA has given partial approval to KALRO and AATF for open cultivation of the stacked transgenic hybrid maize. Once full approval is given, the varieties can be grown in non-restricted field conditions like any other variety and the Bt maize can be tested in the official national performance trials organized by KEPHIS to test and certify varieties for eventual use by farmers.

“The data we are generating in this trial will support further applications for transgenic work in Kenya, particularly for open cultivation,” Mwimali said.

Public initiatives key to harnessing genetic diversity for food security, says genetic resources expert

Written by on November 3, 2016. Posted in News.

Maize collections held at the CIMMYT genebank in Mexico. Photo: CIMMYT

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Public initiatives to facilitate the use of genetic resources must be promoted to demonstrate the value they add to agriculture for development and food security research, says Kevin Pixley, director of the Genetic Resources Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

Pixley heads the Seeds of Discovery (SeeD) initiative at CIMMYT through which scientists are working to unlock novel, or new, genetic diversity held in germplasm banks – often popularly known as gene banks – to accelerate the development of maize and wheat varieties that grow better under environmental pressures like erratic weather and water scarcity, as well as provide increased nutritional value. CIMMYT scientists do this by identifying crop varieties that display valuable traits like drought and heat-stress tolerance that allow them to flourish despite these stresses.

Greater accessibility can also increase the breadth of impact due to research results being freely available to all, said Pixley who will speak at the International Agrobiodiversity Congress on Nov. 7, in New Delhi.

“By characterizing the genetic makeup of maize and wheat collections, SeeD has generated ‘fingerprints’ describing the diversity of two of humanity’s major food crops,” Pixley said. “To multiply the impacts of these results, SeeD has created a genetic resources utilization platform for breeders and researchers, made up of publicly available data and software tools.”

Since the project began in 2012, it has detailed the genetic makeup of over 110,000 maize and wheat samples, sharing information with institutions in Africa, Latin America and South Asia to aid in developing disease resistant, drought tolerant germplasm with improved nutritional and quality traits.

Pixley, who will discuss the importance of public initiatives in the conservation and facilitation of genetic resources in, shared some insights on the role of agrobiodiversity in the effort to achieve food security in the following interview.

Q: What do you hope to contribute by your talk?

We’ll present the SeeD initiative as a unique example and model of a public initiative to characterize and facilitate the use of genetic diversity to address agricultural production challenges of today and the future. There is tremendous value in executing such a project in the public domain; for example, 1) the benefits from a one-time investment are shared, thus saving the costs of multiple individual efforts, 2) the knowledge gained is freely available, thus reducing the likelihood that individuals will seek exclusive rights to any discovery, and 3) equitable access to the benefits of genetic diversity is actively promoted by sharing results, tools and methods with individuals and institutions large and small.

Q: What is the importance of protecting genetic resources for global food security and health?

Dozens of instances are known in which crop wild relatives or landraces have provided essential genes for disease or pest resistance, abiotic stress tolerance or quality traits in such crops as wheat, rice, tomato, potato, sunflower and maize. As world climate is changing and resources available for agriculture – such as arable land and water for irrigation – are declining, crops will be challenged by predictable – such as heat and drought – and unpredictable – such as new diseases and pests – stresses. Our future food security will undoubtedly be enhanced by, and may indeed be dependent on the use of genetic diversity conserved and made available through germplasm banks.

Q: What would you like to see come out of the conference?

I’d like to see the advancement of the conversation about the importance of conservation, sustainable and equitable use of genetic resources. There are diverse views about how humanity should share the responsibilities, costs and benefits of conserving and using genetic resources. This is a complex conversation with scientific, social, cultural, economic, and ethical dimensions. This is a conversation that may determine the very survival of future generations, and it is therefore of vital importance to society.