Blogs – Page 207

Saving Mexican maize farmers’ soil

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features.

CIMMYT E-News, vol 4 no. 10, October 2007

Resource-conserving practices introduced by a CIMMYT project are taking root among farmers in the central Mexican Highlands.

In the fields above the community of San Felipe del Progreso, in the central Mexican Highlands, smallholder farmers grow maize year after year in conventionally-plowed fields. Feliciano Cruz says his neighbors think he’s crazy for trying new resource-conserving practices and other crops, but nonetheless many are interested. While he’s showing a group of visiting researchers his fields, a neighboring farmer comes along and asks if Cruz can help him to try the new system. “I want to get involved,” he explains. “My fields are getting too dry, and when that happens the soil becomes really hard.” Cruz enthusiastically explains the benefits of keeping crop residues on the soil to stop it drying out. “We’re learning step by step,” he says. It seems that farmers here are willing to take a risk on something unorthodox.

“There are two major challenges for farmers in this area: soil erosion and labor shortages,” says Bram Govaerts, CIMMYT postdoctoral fellow in crop systems management, “and we think conservation agriculture will help with both.” The region’s volcanic soils are fertile but relatively thin, and when dry and exposed are easily washed away by the heavy, irregular rains, leaving behind rocky, infertile material. This process is clearly visible in the landscape’s scanty topsoils and eroded gullies, and all too apparent to farmers. Few farmers here are able to harvest surpluses to sell, and most rely on supplementary sources of income. Meanwhile, most of the region’s young men leave to seek work in the USA, and many fields lie fallow.

In the new system, introduced by a collaborative project between CIMMYT and local institutions involving local farmers, maize is sown directly into permanent raised beds, and the stalks and leaves, or “residues” of the crop are retained on the fields. These innovations protect the structure of the soil, retain soil moisture, and prevent erosion. Direct seeding is also less labor-intensive; conventional tillage requires several plowings and harrowings, whereas fields with permanent beds require only a single surface pass each year to reshape the beds. CIMMYT has also introduced new crops for farmers to try in rotation with maize.

The project is based on CIMMYT science and involves a number of Mexican partners: ICAMEX, the agricultural research institute for the state of Mexico (providing funding and receiving training), Mexico’s Research and Advanced Studies Center (Cinvestav), and the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico (UAEM), with funding from the Flemish Interuniversity Council – University Development Cooperation (VLIR-UDC). CIMMYT has several long-term conservation agriculture trial plots on its research stations in Mexico. These provide valuable scientific data about management practices, but they are also being used for training and capacity building. The project began with a field day at the Toluca station, where Fernando Delgado, station manager and local conservation agriculture champion, demonstrated resource-conserving practices to farmers from partner communities. CIMMYT is now working to test these in farmers’ fields. “This is a mutual learning process,” says Govaerts. “We’re trying to extend the technology to farmers’ fields; at the same time we are developing on-farm research modules and we’re bringing back what we learn—both from successes and failures.” Next year will be the project’s third planting year, and Govaerts anticipates real success, with good crops under the new system.

The two systems are being tested side by side: on one half of his test plot Olegario Gonzalez has planted conventionally-tilled maize (foreground), on the other he is growing a wheat crop in rotation with maize using resource-conserving practices.

Farmers see the benefits of the system and are as determined as the scientists to stick with it, even where things haven’t gone according to plan. For example, the residues of the first year’s maize crop were left on the fields, but other locals took it for fuel and fodder. In Cruz’s test maize field, this meant that in the second year the soil was too dry for zero-tillage planting (which is shallower than conventional planting) and the maize crop failed. However, in a few places where the residues remained the seedlings grew well, convincing Cruz and other participating farmers that residue retention could work. They themselves decided to replant the field with maize, even though it was too late in the season to yield any grain, just to grow plenty of biomass to retain as residues for the following year. The project will assist the farmers to fence their plots to protect this year’s residues.

“I will definitely continue with the new system,” says Cruz, who is in no doubt as to its advantages. “Firstly, it is less work. There is no plowing or harrowing, which saves a lot on costs. Secondly, it conserves the soil—water filters in and doesn’t run off. Finally, the maize doesn’t fall over as much, as it grows less and the roots go deeper.”

Olegario Gonzalez (second from right) discusses his wheat crop; his neighbors are already asking to buy his grain.

Cruz is also enthusiastic about the alternative crops that project members planted with the farmers. “It’s important that we have the option to try new things,” he says. “The land gets tired if we just plant maize, maize, maize.” Oats and triticale are his favorites so far, growing well enough to be used for fodder and still leave good residues. In the neighboring community of San Pablo, farmer Olegario Gonzalez is growing wheat, and he has found that there is a local demand. “My neighbors are already asking to buy my wheat to add to tortillas [the staple Mexican flatbread] and for seed,” he says, indicating the rows of ripening grain.

“Now that we’ve seen that farmers like the system, the next stage is to scale it up,” says Govaerts. “Farmers need zero-tillage machinery suitable for small tractors, so we’re working with companies to commercialize a multi-use, multi-crop machine. We’ll also be helping farmers to find and develop local markets.” The project is currently working with a few farmers who are respected in their communities, and next year plans to invite more farmers to the test plots to see and learn about the system in action.

CIMMYT has been involved in testing conservation agriculture and testing it with farmers all over the world. This project is one of several throughout Mexico developed together with local partners. Govaerts hopes that CIMMYT’s long-term trial plots will act as hubs for farmer visits, sowing the seeds for resource conservation in many more local communities.

For more information: Bram Govaerts, postdoctoral fellow, crop systems management (b.govaerts@cgiar.org)

Farmers get their yield back and more

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features.

CIMMYT E-News, vol 4 no. 3, March 2007

mar06 Solving a major disease problem in durum wheat was not enough to satisfy farmers. They need and will get quality too.

Karim Ammar, a durum wheat breeder with CIMMYT, is proud of his new wheat lines growing green and disease-free this season in the Yaqui valley of northern Mexico. Even with the efficiency of a shuttle system between the Yaqui valley and the highland research station at Toluca, Mexico which allows wheat breeders to plant and select wheat twice a year, it still takes six years to get to where Karim is now.

“Between preliminary yield trials and elite yield trials we’ve got about 2500 lines and they are all resistant to leaf rust,” he says.

This is good news for the durum wheat farmers of the world. Durum wheat is the kind used for pasta, couscous and semolina. Today, 85% of spring durum wheat grown in developing countries traces its origins to the durum wheat program at CIMMYT in Mexico. The Center regularly sends out seed samples to national breeding programs around the developing world, and the most suitable in each region are used to breed local varieties. When mutations in the leaf rust fungus allowed it to bypass the resistance mechanisms in durum wheats, the breeding team at CIMMYT was faced with a serious problem.

“We had to rebuild the program, because you can no longer use something that becomes susceptible to a disease. That’s no service to the national programs or farmers in developing countries,” says Ammar, who comes from Tunisia. He is acutely aware that the work he is doing will have a major impact in developing countries where durum wheat is grown.

It might have been easy to look this as a single problem—producing disease-resistant plants or plants that can produce more grain—but the team realized the challenge was much more complicated. Farmers in developing countries need more than grain if their livelihoods are to improve. They need grain that is high in quality and for which there is a market.

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Breeding itself is a process of combination and then elimination—selecting potentially good parent seeds with desirable characteristics and crossing them, then eliminating the offspring plants that don’t measure up. The process is cyclical and repeated until the breeder is satisfied that all required characteristics have been incorporated into the new wheat plants.

Leaf rust reduces yields enough to make growing susceptible varieties a losing proposition for farmers. Their needs were at the heart of the breeding strategy devised by the breeding team.

“So their priority becomes ours and once objectives are defined with our clients and their respective markets in mind, then I start thinking about the plants—how would a plant or a certain cross or combination of genes achieve that objective in the most efficient, fastest way possible,” Ammar says.

The breeders knew that disease resistance was vital but quality that was acceptable to farmers and their markets was equally essential. At the same time they thought they could enhance the performance of the wheats under drought stress and incorporate resistance to other diseases. In the beginning they had to sacrifice yield and other key characteristics to be sure they had resistance to the leaf rust, the biggest problem durum wheat growers were facing. But once that was done, the team focused on making the best possible wheats from all other perspectives.

“Now we’re back to the point where we can address yield, drought tolerance and quality very effectively because we know we have enough variability for rust resistance. It’s no longer the critical trait,” says Ammar.

The most critical trait now might well be the color or the quality of the gluten in durum wheat grains. Last year farmers in the Yaqui Valley of Mexico grew close to 150 000 ha of a durum wheat variety that yielded well and stood up to leaf rust. Unfortunately, because its grain did not have enough yellow pigment, desired by the export market, there was little market for the wheat except as pig feed. Many of the 2500 new lines that Ammar is testing outperform that variety in yield and in the most important quality traits

The best of the lines at the CIMMYT breeding station will be sent to national programs for evaluation. Mexico has already begun to evaluate in parallel so it will be ready as soon as possible to release new varieties based on the CIMMYT lines to the national production system .

For more information Karim Ammar, Wheat Breeder (k.ammar@cgiar.org)

People of the Clouds

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features.

CIMMYT E-News, vol 3 no. 9, September 2006

sep02 The Nepal Hill Maize Research Project, supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), reaches out to Nepal’s poorest farmers with new varieties and farming practices selected by the farmers themselves.

Coca Cola, arguably the world’s most ubiquitous commercial beverage, has not yet reached the villagers and farmers who live on top of the cloud-shrouded hills of eastern Nepal. That’s how remote they are. There is a road, but it is 600 meters below in the valley and the only way in and out of the village is via a precarious, rubble-strewn and sometimes terrifyingly steep foot-path. Everything must be carried up and down this track on people’s backs. Here the staple food for centuries has been maize but many farmers in the region cannot grow enough maize to last the year. Their needs have provided a focus for work in which CIMMYT, the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC), SDC, and other partners, reach these “unreached” people.

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One of them is Bishnu Maya. She is a single mother of three who farms 0.6 hectares of terraced land on the steep slopes. She is a very good farmer but it takes every penny she earns to make sure her children can go to school. “With education they can get jobs and have a better life,” she says. Bishnu Maya is a ‘dalit’; the poorest of the poor in Nepal, an untouchable often shunned by better-born villagers. Nevertheless, her tiny farm is a marvel. She grows maize, millet, tomatoes, and cucumbers on her land. She has a water buffalo, two cows, some chickens, and goats. A year ago electricity came to the village and now she has a small radio and a light bulb. What she has not had until now is enough maize to last the year. The traditional varieties have small ears, one per plant, and the maize plants themselves grow very tall and often fall down in the wind, not only reducing the maize yield but also damaging the intercropped plants below them.

Maya agreed to help in participatory evaluations of maize varieties developed with material from CIMMYT and NARC that could overcome the main barriers to production on her land. She uses some of her land for a demonstration plot of the variety she has selected as the best replacement for her traditional maize. It is shorter with a sturdier stalk, has two large ears per plant and matures earlier than the maize she has been used to growing. On top of that the new variety stays green after the maize is mature, so it makes a better feed for her livestock.

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The project has intentionally focused on women farmers and those who cannot produce enough food to feed their families, testing and promoting technologies that can be implemented by the farmers themselves. While the initial trials are conduced at the NARC research station at Pakhribas, an hour’s drive away once you reach the road in the valley, vital research work is conducted with farmers like Maya on their farms. In the past recommendations about varieties and agricultural practices were based on trials conducted exclusively at research stations, rarely taking into account the real world in which the hill farmers like Maya live and work. “Even on-farm research tended to try to create conditions on farms that matched the research stations, rather than finding solutions to existing farm problems,” says CIMMYT’s Memo Ortiz-Ferrara, who leads the project.

The new approach has helped farmers choose more appropriate varieties based on their own criteria from a “basket of choices” (5-10 varieties are offered in one season). It has also helped to expand areas growing new varieties on one hand, and improve crop management practices on the other. Depending on the location, farmers have observed 20-50% higher grain yield with the new varieties.

“Now I have enough and can sell some surplus to pay for my children’s education,” Bishnu says.

The second phase of the project is just coming to an end and an evaluation team has begun a series of in depth interviews with participating researchers and farmers to determine the overall impact.

Participatory research is a vital part of many CIMMYT projects around the world (see the companion story: CIMMYT researchers say participatory research supports their achievements).

For information contact Memo Ortiz-Ferrara (g.ortiz-ferrara@cgiar.org)

Nutrition Better but Maize Diversity Down in Chiapas

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features.

March, 2005

noticias1 Farmer Juan Castillejos Castro of the village Dolores, Jaltenango, state of Chiapas, in southeastern Mexico, leaned forward in the humid, mid-morning heat and pondered the question: had household nutrition improved in the last 10 years? “From the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, even I was malnourished to the point I couldn’t work,” he says. “Now things have gotten better, and the credits have helped a lot.”

Like many farmers in the “La Frailesca” region of Chiapas, Castillejos has been growing improved, hybrid maize, through a state-sponsored program that offers seed plus other inputs (fertilizer, pesticides, among them) and services (technical advice, crop loss insurance, to name two) on credit, to be repaid at harvest. For the last decade, government policy has also discouraged the burning of crop residues. Burning helped farmers control weeds and pests, but bared often steep, hillside plots to eroding winds and rain and deprived soils of organic matter. Castillejos and most peers now practice a more resource-conserving style of agriculture, sowing with a stick directly into the last year’s crop residues, without plowing or burning.

Folk Varieties Fading in La Frailesca

Unlike many farmers adopting the hybrids, Castillejos still grows small plots of the local maize varieties developed through selection by millennia of predecessors. The local varieties feature a better grain type for tortillas and other preferred foods. Their weaknesses include tallness and a tendency to topple easily. This and their relatively low yields have put them on the road to extinction, according to Dagoberto Flores, research assistant in CIMMYT’s Impacts Assessment and Targeting Program.

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“We still need a systematic study on this,” says Flores, “but I would guess that half the local varieties have disappeared, and only 30% of farmers are growing any local materials.” Flores and an associate, Alejandro Ramírez López, just spent a month surveying 120 farm households in 4 communities in the region. With funding from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), they are comparing the costs to farmers of obtaining seed through formal versus informal supply systems and evaluating farmers’ risks, from village to village.

The village of Dolores Jaltenango lies in the mountainous countryside that bred the Zapatista uprising and is a gateway for undocumented immigrants from Central America. Nine-tenths of maize is relegated to steep hillsides—cattle raising and plantation agriculture claim the choice lowlands. “Dolores is one of the poorer communities in the area,” says Flores. “Dwellings are adobe with dirt floors. There’s normally one large sleeping quarters for an average 10 people, including parents, children, and married children’s spouses.”

Flores and Ramírez are concerned about La Frailesca’s farmers. The prices of the seed technology packages are rising steadily, and subsidies are being reduced. They fear that if farmers lose their native seed, they may have no fallback position. “Farmers look at their neighbor’s yields or the size of the ears, but most haven’t done the math on all the costs and benefits of the new technology,” Ramírez says. He cites the results of last year’s serious drought as an example: “Many farmers had poor crops. But some didn’t qualify for crop loss insurance benefits. Now they’re having trouble paying back their credit debts.”

CIMMYT’s Role: Conserving and Replenishing Diversity

According to Flores, CIMMYT staff have collected and preserved important samples of the Frailesca’s farmer varieties in the center’s germplasm bank. The bank contains seed collections for an estimated 80% of all Latin American maize diversity, including many varieties no longer sown by farmers. The seed is kept in trust for humanity, under a 1994 agreement with FAO. Working with partners in 13 countries in the Americas, center staff have coordinated the rescue, regeneration, and back-up storage of more than 10,000 seed samples of unique maize varieties from this hemisphere. CIMMYT and partners from the Mexican National Institute of Agriculture, Forestry, and Livestock Research (INIFAP) recently restored seed of local varieties to farmers in Oaxaca, Mexico, and could do the same for Chiapas farmers, should this become necessary, Flores says.

Fitting into FAO Research Efforts

Environmental economist Leslie Lipper at FAO will draw on the survey and its results in an emerging, multi-country study on how market access to crop genetic resources affects farmers’ welfare and on-farm crop biological diversity, according to Kostas Stamoulis, Chief of the FAO Agricultural Sector in Economic Development Service (ESAE). “CIMMYT’s work will provide unique data on farmer seed sourcing choices,” says Stamoulis. “Among other things, we’ll get a better read on how those choices are affected by the transaction costs of market participation and farmer’s perceptions of risk.” The study is one of three major ESAE efforts to understand the role of markets in rural livelihoods and environmental sustainability.

Good-bye Good Friend

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features.

CIMMYT E-News, vol 2 no. 8, August 2005

RHavener Remembering the life of Dr. Robert Havener, former Director General of CIMMYT.

August 3rd was a sad day in the life of CIMMYT and for the world of agricultural research for development. Former Director General Robert D. Havener died in California at the age of 75. The Chair of the CIMMYT Board of Trustees, Dr. Alex McCalla, represented the center at the memorial service, held on August 20th in Los Olivos, California.

Dr. Havener was one of the true pioneers in the global agricultural research system, working for the world’s rural poor for more than five decades. He led CIMMYT from 1978 to 1985 as the center’s third Director General, bringing our center recognition as one of the leading international agricultural research organizations in the world. When he came, Dr. Norman Borlaug was director of the wheat program and Dr. Earnest Sprague the director of the maize program. During his leadership CIMMYT expanded its regional presence and strengthened the economics program. Dr. Havener believed that the program should not work in isolation but in tight integration with the main crop programs. Around CIMMYT he was known for his ability to make quick but sound judgments and for his office that was open to all, even the most junior scientist. With donors he was a forceful and successful advocate for CIMMYT and CIMMYT’s mission. He stewarded the center through a financial crisis in the 1980s and by the end of his term as Director General had increased dramatically the number of core donors.

Of course Robert Havener was more than just the former DG of CIMMYT. For 14 years he worked as a senior agricultural program officer for the Ford Foundation. He served as interim Director General at both CIAT (1994) and IRRI (1998) and was instrumental in the founding of ICARDA and ILRI. He served as Chair of the ICARDA Board of Trustees from 1999 to 2003. He was the founding President of the Winrock International Institute for Agricultural Development, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an advisor for the World Food Prize and sat on the Board of Directors of Sasakawa Africa Association / Global 2000 Program, whose president is Dr. Borlaug.

Dr. Havener was always a friend of CIMMYT, right to the end and could always be counted upon for wise council and sage advice. He followed with interest and passion the changes taking place at CIMMYT. Bob Havener devoted his life to making a difference for the rural poor. We are all diminished by his loss.

In Quest for Drought-Tolerant Varieties, CIMMYT Sows First Transgenic Wheat Field Trials in Mexico

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features.

March, 2004

sowing2 On 12 March 2004, CIMMYT took a modest but historic step in the development of drought tolerant wheat, when a small trial plot was sown to genetically modified (transgenic) wheat in a screenhouse at the Center’s headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. This is the first time that transgenic wheat has been planted under field-like conditions in Mexico, and rigorous biosafety procedures are being followed.

Drought is arguably the world’s most important agricultural production problem. In developing countries, millions of hectares of wheat are grown in areas that often experience drought, and the problem is projected to worsen with climate change. A plant’s ability to withstand dry conditions at critical periods in its growth can make the difference between food and famine for poor households. Developing drought-tolerant wheat and maize varieties that perform well under diverse conditions is a top priority at CIMMYT, where innovative research—conventional as well as transgenic—is pursued to meet this complex and difficult challenge.

CIMMYT researchers have well-founded hopes that the wheat they are testing will withstand serious droughts. This wheat carries the DREB1A gene from the plant Arabidopsis thaliana. The gene has been shown to confer tolerance to drought, low temperatures, and salinity in Arabidopsis, a plant species related to wild mustard (see Nature Biotechnology 17:287-291).

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Previous experiments with DREB wheat grown in pots in CIMMYT’s biosafety greenhouse provided very encouraging results. The new screenhouse trial will enable researchers to see whether the DREB wheat responds similarly under more “natural” conditions.

This trial is the first time that a food crop carrying the DREB gene has advanced to this level of testing. If the results are positive, there are major implications for its use in other cereal crops, such as rice, maize, and barley. CIMMYT is considering testing the DREB gene in the drought-tolerant wheat it has developed through conventional breeding, to see if the resulting plants can use water even more efficiently.

A comparison of DREB and control wheat plants (DREB plants on the left, control plants on the right in both of the above photographs), after 10 days without water.

The promising work with the DREB wheat would not have been possible without the generosity of the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS), which provided the gene construct, and funding from Australia’s Molecular Plant Breeding-Cooperative Research Centre.

The transgenic wheat trials were approved in December 2003 by Mexican authorities under strict biosafety provisions to ensure that the plants do not inadvertently cross with conventional wheat plants:

Access to the enclosed screenhouse trial is tightly restricted.
No wheat plants are grown within 10 meters of the screenhouse trial.
The spikes (flowers) of the plants are covered and isolated from the environment by glassine bags.
Plant materials are destroyed in an autoclave at the end of the trial.
The trial is monitored by Mexican authorities and the CIMMYT Biosafety Officer.

But the greatest biosafety measures are provided by the wheat plant itself. Wheat is a “perfectly self-pollinated crop,” with 99% of fertilization occurring within the sheathed spike of the plant, where male and female plant components share the same floret. Even in conventional breeding, researchers have to resort to a series of carefully executed, laborious procedures to cross one wheat plant with another. This makes wheat very different from maize, which freely pollinates and thus exchanges genes with other maize plants. Cross-pollination is further limited because wheat pollen is heavy and does not travel far, and because the pollen remains viable for only 20-30 minutes.

Details
CIMMYT Research Team
Alessandro Pellegrineschi, Matthew Reynolds, Richard Trethowan, Mario Pacheco, Rosa Maria Brito, Rosaura Almeraya, Scott McLean, and David Hoisington.

Trial Purpose
To evaluate the performance under water-stress and normal irrigation conditions of transgenic bread wheat lines containing the Arabidopsis thaliana DREB1A under the control of the stress inducible promoter rd29a.

Trial Design
MPB-Bobwhite26 lines, each containing the DREB1A gene driven by the rd29A promoter are planted in a randomized lattice design. The non-transformed MPB-Bobwhite26 line is used as a control and 10 drought tolerant lines are used for comparison purposes. Two water regimes are being evaluated: full irrigation versus no irrigation, except one at planting.

For further information, contact Dr. Alessandro Pellegrineschi

Download pdf version (170 KB)

CIMMYT Scientists Recognized For Contributions to Agriculture

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features.

August, 2004

CIMMYT scientists Guillermo Ortiz Ferrara, Craig Meisner, and Mujeeb Kazi have recently been recognized for contributions they have made to agriculture and science over the years.

The government of the Mexican state of Coahuila awarded Dr. Guillermo Ortiz Ferrara with the Medal of Agronomic Merit in research in June 2004. This year the medals honored graduates of the Universidad Autonoma Agraria Antonio Narro in Coahuila, where Ortiz Ferrara studied from 1966 to 1971 and majored in agronomy. He was one of six agronomists selected by former university presidents and government representatives for carrying out work that produced significant developments in their respective fields. In July 2004, Ortiz Ferrara also received the Presea Saltillo award, which recognizes native citizens of the Mexican city of Saltillo who have distinguished careers. Ortiz Ferrara is a principal scientist in CIMMYT’s South Asia regional office and CIMMYT’s country representative in Nepal.
Dr. Craig Meisner accepted an international adjunct professorship with the International Agriculture Program at Cornell University in February 2004. This position recognizes Meisner’s collaboration with Cornell in Bangladesh, including work on their Soil Management CRSP with USAID, the Bangladesh Country Almanac, rickets research, arsenic in the environment, and virus-free transgenic papaya. “Together we have made and are continuing to make impacts in growers’ fields,” says Meisner, a Bangladesh-based agronomist in CIMMYT’s Intensive Agroecosystems Program.
Dr. Mujeeb Kazi was awarded the Kansas State University Gamma Sigma Delta Eta Chapter Outstanding Alumnus Award for 2004. The award recognizes Kazi’s contributions to science as an alumnus of KSU’s College of Agriculture, where he received a Ph.D. in plant breeding in 1970. Kazi, a principal scientist, began working at CIMMYT in 1979 and became head of the Wheat Wide Crosses Unit in 1980. His research in crossing wheat with its wild relatives has made a great impact and expanded the pool of genetic diversity available for wheat improvement. Kazi received the 2003 CGIAR Outstanding Scientist Award for this work.

Kernels with a kick: Quality protein maize improves child nutrition

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features. 1 Comment on Kernels with a kick: Quality protein maize improves child nutrition

Throughout the developing world, 32% of children under the age of five are stunted and 20% are underweight. Improving the quality of protein in maize can help alleviate this problem in areas where people eat a lot of maize. Here a mother feeds her child QPM during a QPM feeding program hosted by Self-Help International in Ghana.

It looks and tastes like any other maize, but hidden inside each bite of quality protein maize (QPM) are specialized natural molecules waiting to give the diner an extra boost. A new study evaluates the nutritional impact of QPM on target populations.

Eating quality protein maize (QPM) increases the growth rate of moderately malnourished children who survive on a maize-dominated diet, according to a new study co-authored by five scientists, including two CIMMYT maize experts.

QPM grain is a biofortified, non-transgenic food that provides improved protein quality to consumers. It looks and tastes like normal maize, but QPM contains a naturally-occurring mutant maize gene that increases the amount of two amino acids—lysine and tryptophan—necessary for protein synthesis in humans. The total amount of protein in QPM is not actually increased, but rather the protein is enhanced so that it delivers a higher benefit when consumed by monogastric beings, like humans and pigs. Drawing on three decades of previous studies on QPM and using sophisticated statistical analysis, the paper “A meta-analysis of community-based studies on quality protein maize,” published in Food Policy, shows that when children suffering from malnutrition in maize-dependent areas consume QPM instead of conventional maize, they benefit from a 12% increased growth rate for weight and a 9% increased growth rate for height.

“We tried to bring together all the relevant work we could find on QPM and analyze and discuss it as transparently as possible,” said Nilupa Gunaratna, statistician at the International Nutrition Foundation and the paper’s lead author. “We discussed all the strengths and weaknesses of past studies, and took these into account in our evaluation. We also proceeded very conservatively, trying different methods, studying the effects of individual studies and outliers. In every approach, we came to the same conclusion: QPM has a positive effect on the growth of undernourished infants and young children for whom maize is a staple food.”

Scientists use a light box to select maize seed expressing the quality protein trait. Light is projected through the seed, and kernels that appear dark at the base but translucent elsewhere are prime QPM candidates.

Give the people what they eat
Maize is the third-most important cereal crop for direct consumption (after rice and wheat), and is particularly significant in developing areas, such as Africa, where it is the main food source for more than 300 million people. In 12 developing countries, it accounts for more than 30% of total dietary protein. And though maize alone cannot provide all the nutrients needed for a healthy diet, maize with extra essential nutrients can go a long way toward helping the nearly 200 million children in poor nations who suffer stunted growth from malnutrition and for whom a diversified diet is currently unattainable.

“Staple foods are the cheapest foods, and the poorer you are, the more you depend on them, which often does not provide a balanced diet,” said co-author Kevin Pixley, who divides his time between CIMMYT and HarvestPlus. “We would all prefer to see each and every person eating a healthy and balanced diet, but that isn’t always possible. Biofortification is one part of the strategy to help combat malnutrition.”

QPM complexities
Though QPM is more nutritious than conventional maize and many of its varieties yield as well as or better than popular conventional maize varieties, widespread acceptance of QPM remains elusive. Of the 90 million hectares of maize grown in Mexico, Central America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia, only an estimated 1% or less is QPM.

Many seed companies lack interest in QPM because of the research costs and challenges of assuring its superior nutritional quality. If QPM is grown next to fields of conventional maize, cross-pollination will dilute the QPM trait, and QPM also requires separate storage and quality testing/monitoring. This and the fact that the enhanced maize brings no market premium—largely because its quality trait is not visibly distinguishable—have often deterred seed companies from marketing QPM altogether.

Yet in areas where there has been a substantial effort to promote it and make quality seed available, QPM has gained ground. For example, in 1992 Ghana released its first QPM variety, Obatanpa. Obatanpa is an open-pollinated variety, meaning its grain can be saved by farmers and re-sown as seed without any major decline in yield. In 2005, it was calculated that Obatanpa accounted for over 90% of improved seed sales in Ghana. In 2008, Wayne Haag of the Sasakawa Africa Association estimated that 350,000 hectares of QPM were grown in Ghana, making it the world’s largest QPM grower. Strong support and effort by multidisciplinary institutions, including the Ghanaian government, made this possible. Four of the QPM studies used in the meta-analysis were based in Ghana. Obatanpa’s high and stable yields and end-use quality have made it popular not only in Ghana but in several other sub-Saharan African countries, where it has been released under other names.

Nilupa Gunaratna, the paper’s main author, helps a farmer and his daughter fill out a QPM survey in Karatu, Tanzania.

Fortifying future research

The authors of the QPM meta-analysis—two statisticians, an economist, a nutritionist, and a plant breeder—hope its clear results will finally dissuade QPM critics, many of whom have questioned whether QPM offers nutritional benefits for humans, and that the paper will lead to renewed efforts to explore improved nutrition through biofortified crops. “While there is still interesting and important nutritional research to be done on QPM, I hope the focus will start to shift from whether QPM has a benefit to how QPM can be promoted, disseminated, and used by farmers and consumers to have the most impact,” said Gunaratna. CIMMYT is currently involved in several QPM projects, including the QPM Development (QPMD) project in Africa, which is funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Launched in 2003, the project uses QPM as a key tool for improving food security, nutrition, and the incomes of resource-poor farming families in four countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda). In the project’s first five years, seven new QPM varieties were released (bringing the total in the region to 12) and education efforts resulted in 270 field days attended by over 37,000 farmers, roughly 40% of whom were women. CIDA also funds AgroSalud, a five-year project that started in 2005 to extend the benefits of nutritionally improved staple crops to Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2002, two CIMMYT scientists received the World Food Prize for their work to develop QPM.

What will Yunnan farmers do when the rain stops?

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features.

Farmers in Yunnan Province are increasingly reacting to climate change by using maize seed for drought conditions developed by CIMMYT in collaboration with the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

Forming part of southwest China’s rugged terrain, the Yunnan Province mountain chains create spectacular vistas in every direction. Unfortunately, the scenic landscapes also make life tough for farmers. Only 5% of the province is cultivated land. Still, agriculture is a pillar of the provincial economy, and maize is the most commonly grown crop.

Faced with a mean elevation of over 2,000 meters and average slopes as steep as 19 degrees, Yunnan farmers have adapted by growing maize on the hills and mountains. This so-called “down-slope cultivation” has fed Yunnan for generations, but it has drawbacks, like increased erosion. Yunnan is one of the areas in China most seriously affected by erosion.

Missing the monsoon?
Besides their tremendous ability to adapt, farmers have one other ally in the continual struggle to grow maize in this unlikely environment: the monsoon. Yunnan Province has a subtropical climate and an average annual rainfall of more than a meter—very generous for maize—and most of which normally falls during the growing season, May to October.

But today’s farmers in Yunnan have a new concern: what happens when the monsoon fails to appear? It’s not a hypothetical question. In 2010, severe weather in southwest China resulted in the region’s worst drought in a century. In the months prior, large swaths of Yunnan hadn’t received adequate rainfall. Then the rainy season ended early, temperatures rose, and drought set in, ultimately affecting more than 60 million people and destroying billions of dollars worth of crops. In 2011, drought re-occurred in eastern Yunnan, affecting a large area of maize.

Now farmers are left wondering if these phenomena are flukes or part of a larger trend. In fact, climate change models suggest the fluctuations in rainfall will continue and increase in intensity. Yunnan’s maize farmers may no longer be able to count on the monsoon.

Better maize: Part of the answer
The solution, put simply, is to change. And helping farmers to change from the only thing they’ve ever known takes patient expertise. Some of that has come from a team led by Dr. Fan Xingming, Director General, Institute of Food Crops, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences (YAAS), in partnership with CIMMYT.

Drawing on sources from CIMMYT’s maize and wheat seed bank—which conserves 27,000 unique collections of maize seed—Fan and his group have developed 22 hybrids, several of which possess improved performance under drought and multiple disease resistance. Because they produce consistently higher yields and better incomes for Yunnan farmers, the hybrids have been a hit. Today they cover approximately 200,000 hectares—15% of Yunnan’s annual maize area—and have increased farmers’ incomes by approximately USD 200 million between 2000 to 2010. One of those developed, Yunrui 47, is drought tolerant and performed well in 2011 in severely droughted areas in Yunnan, including Zhaotong, Wenshan, Xuanwei, and Huize.

Some are more resistant to insect infestation and rot than older maize varieties. Because of this, their grain can be stored longer. Instead of selling their harvest in January when prices are low, farmers can keep it until June, when prices are better. The hybrid Yunrui 88 is high-yielding and resistant to several of the region’s most damaging maize diseases, according to Dan Jeffers, a CIMMYT maize breeder based in Kunming. “Yunrui 88 has been highly resistant to maize dwarf mosaic, resistant to leaf blights, and shows intermediate resistance to ear rot,” he says. “In addition, it yields an average of around 9 tons per hectare of grain.”

Another of the hybrids, Yunrui 8, is an example of quality protein maize, a high-lysine and high-oil hybrid that is more nutritious for humans and farm animals, as well as being highly resistant to ear rots. Yunrui 8 has been recommended by the Ministry of Agriculture of China as the leading national variety in 2010. It is the most popular hybrid in Yunnan, with a cumulative coverage of 0.5 million hectares in the province.

Farmers have testified to the nutritional quality of the hybrid grain. Huan Yuanmin and her husband grew Yunrui 8 on 4.6 hectares for 3 years. Utilizing the profits from their surplus harvests, they bought 200 pigs and fed them hybrid maize grain. “We noticed that with the hybrid maize, our animals grew faster and were more robust,” says Huan. “The sows gave more milk, so suckling pigs could be weaned three-to-five days ahead of the normal of 28 days.” This in turn raised the family’s profits. “Even the skin and hair of the pigs became shinier,” she added.

International partnerships bring benefits for farmers
Staff of YAAS began collaborating with CIMMYT in 1976. Over the decades, that relationship was strengthened by the personal visits of CIMMYT regional maize staff and the late Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and wheat breeder, Dr. Norman Borlaug. According to Fan, CIMMYT germplasm was the basis for Yunnan’s strong maize production and breeding program. “CIMMYT experts have helped Yunnan in many ways, including training and sharing expertise,” he said. “I really appreciate this and sincerely hope we can continue cooperating, progressing in maize breeding, and developing more hybrids that will allow farmers to contribute to the food security of people in less developed areas.”

For more information: Dan Jeffers, maize breeder (d.jeffers@cgiar.org)

Related story:

HarvestPlus-China field day exhibits maize hybrids in southwestern China

Safe in the Bank?

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in News.

CIMMYT E-News, vol 3 no. 5, May 2006

may04 Keepers of worldwide maize germplasm collections meet at CIMMYT to see how they can work together to protect and conserve these resources.

Farmers know you protect and save your seed corn (maize) to ensure the next harvest. It’s a lesson the world apparently has not learned as gene banks, which could host tomorrow’s harvest of research breakthroughs and unique traits, find themselves nearly as endangered as the maize varieties and wild relatives they seek to conserve.

The meeting of the Maize Germplasm Network, sponsored by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, the World Bank, and CIMMYT, was called to initiate a global response to this growing crisis. Experts from around the world met at CIMMYT in Mexico in early May to begin hammering out a strategy for the long-term conservation of maize genetic diversity. Neither national nor international maize collections have fared well of late, as investments in public sector agricultural research have steadily declined and fierce competition for dwindling resources in the agricultural sciences has risen.

“People recognize that these collections have unique materials and are valuable,” says meeting co-organizer Major Goodman of North Carolina State University, “but donors simply do not like to get involved with a commitment that lasts forever, and that is what we are talking about with crop genetic resources collections.”

Ironically, the reluctance to invest in these operations comes at a time when molecular genetics opens new opportunities daily to exploit genetic resources carrying resistance to plant diseases, insect pests, and threats such as drought, soil salinity, and heat stress. Collecting and preserving the basic sources of resistance traits takes on added importance.

may05

Meeting participants found “remarkable agreement” on top priorities, says Suketoshi Taba, head of the CIMMYT maize gene bank and co-organizer of the meeting. At the top of the list, he says, is rescuing landraces and adapted germplasm identified as being endangered—both of maize and its wild relative, teosinte. Also urgent is the need to create proper documentation for all collections, both from the Americas (considered “primary” diversity, being from the crop’s center of origin) and from other continents (known as “secondary” diversity). The ultimate aim is to facilitate use of the collections while reducing redundancies and their costs. Once proper documentation is achieved, it was proposed that partners would work to establish a “meta-database” of existing maize genetic databases. The essential but perpetually under-funded activities of seed regeneration and recollection must also be considered. Finally, participants agreed that CIMMYT should serve as the coordinating institution for advancing the identified priorities forward on the international scientific agenda.

The meeting co-organizers expressed the consensus of the group in stating that the challenges they face are beyond the capacity of any single institution or nation—thus the need for a broad-based solution. They also observed that clearly there are roles, such as the costly long-term maintenance of collections and distribution of seed for research, that are better assumed by large gene banks, such as those at CIMMYT or the USDA maize collection at Ames, Iowa. These banks, however, find it difficult to regenerate varieties that originated in tropical or highland areas, a role better played by national gene banks. Furthermore, the national banks, when properly resourced, can more efficiently collect new seed and distribute seed from collections to local plant breeders and biologists. But those wishing to implement such a division of tasks must first overcome barriers of plant ownership rights, nationalism, phytosanitary regulations, and a tower of database babble that hampers effective documentation and use of collections.

“I am sure that there is a role for the Trust in this work, particularly in securing unique materials, securing landraces, and helping with the backlog of materials that urgently need regeneration,” says Brigitte Laliberté of the Global Crop Diversity Trust. “But it is critical to the Trust that a global system and strategy is established whereby there are roles for international organizations and good links with national programs. This meeting was a constructive first step.”

For more information contact Suketoshi Taba (s.taba@cgiar.org)

Identifying existing varieties with improved levels of drought and water-logging tolerance

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in News.

Existing elite cultivars, including 112 hybrids and OPVs from CIMMYT, public, and private sector programs, were evaluated across locations under mid-season waterlogging (CIMMYT, Hyderabad, BARI, Bangladesh and RAU, Pusa Bihar) and flowering stage drought stress (CIMMYT, Hyderabad and MP UAT, Udaipur). The most drought tolerant private sector hybrids, including PAC-745, BH19, Samparn, PAC748, YSC-354, and C900MG, and the CIMMYT hybrid CML470/472 yielded an average of over 3.0 t/ha under severe drought at flowering. Under waterlogging stress, the highest-yielding public-sector hybrid KMH-408701 out-yielded the widely-grown Monsanto hybrid C900MG by about 1.5 t/ha. Comparison of the yields of the entries across the two stress treatments indicated that currently-availably hybrids combining waterlogging and drought stress tolerance are rare. However, two public-sector hybrids, KMH 408710 and BH-19, were tolerant to both stresses. These hybrids should be immediately useful to farmers in drought- and waterlogging-prone areas, and the results indicate that combining tolerance to both stresses is possible.

Project: Abiotic stress tolerant maize for increasing income and food security
among the poor in eastern India and Bangladesh

Maize without borders: Reforming maize seed sector policies to meet farmers’ needs in Africa

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features.

CIMMYT E-News, vol 5 no. 10, October 2008

Senior policy makers from sub-Saharan Africa have recently made recommendations for policy actions to reform operations in the maize seed sector. At stake is better access for millions of small-scale farmers to affordable, quality seed of maize, the region’s food staple. CIMMYT is closely involved.

oct01 In the 2006-07 cropping season, 82 registered maize seed companies produced the bulk of just over 100,000 tons of improved maize seed that were marketed in the major maize producing countries of eastern and southern Africa (excluding South Africa) — enough to sow 35% of the maize land in those countries.

A recent CIMMYT study found that restrictive national policies, lack of credit opportunities, inadequate seed production capacities, insufficient numbers of recently released public sector varieties, and challenging marketing situations were the main reasons why maize seed sector growth is slow in many African countries. Worse, this situation contributes significantly to Africa’s poor food security and farm incomes.

“The good news is that we have today four times more seed companies than ten years ago and they have increased seed provision from 26% to 35% of the total planted maize area,” says CIMMYT socioeconomist Augustine Langyintuo. “Yet there is still a significant, unmet demand for seed, and this underscores the need for new policies that support efficient seed production, processing, and marketing.”

In 2007 Langyintuo led the above-mentioned study to characterize seed providers and bottlenecks to seed supplies in eastern and southern Africa. A total of 117 representatives from seed companies, national research programs, and CBOs/NGOs participated, and information was gathered on the seed sectors in Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

In July 2008, more than 60 senior policy makers from agriculture ministries, private seed companies, seed trade associations, and regional trade blocs from 13 sub-Saharan African countries met in Nairobi, Kenya and recommended ways to improve farmers’ access to seed of improved drought tolerant maize varieties through specific policy actions to enhance the production, release, and marketing of these varieties. They agreed with the findings of the 2007 seed sector study.

Understanding the hurdles

The main findings were that investment capital requirements and a shortage of qualified staff hinder the growth of small, local seed companies that have emerged over the past decade, according to Langyintuo. “The costs of setting up and running an office, recruiting and retaining qualified personnel, and procuring and operating production, processing, and storage facilities are beyond what many local businesses can afford, and access to operational credit is limited or nil,” he says.

oct02

Up to 60% of a seed company’s operational budget goes into seed production. Seed companies, therefore, need affordable credit over the mid-to-long term to produce enough seed to meet farmers’ needs. Marketing seed is also costly. “Most companies rely on third-party agents such as agro-dealers, large retail stores, NGOs, or the government to retail most of their seed,” says Langyintuo. “The majority of the agro-dealers lack funds to purchase seed, and so must take it on consignment, forcing companies to retrieve unsold seed at cost. The dealers are normally not knowledgeable enough about the seed they sell to promote it effectively, and some of them have also been known to adulterate seed with mere grain.”

Other hurdles identified include cumbersome varietal release, registration, and seed certification regulations, as well as a weak producer base, slow access to the best germplasm, uncompetitive prices in local grain markets, low adoption rates of improved varieties, restrictions on cross-border trade in seed, and poor infrastructure (such as bad roads and inadequate storage facilities).

Policy actions needed

To get farmers the seed they want will involve a range of players in the maize seed sector and calls for specific policy actions. Participants in the July 2008 meeting identified ways in which governments and international centers like CIMMYT and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) can assist and support current seed companies to improve their seed outputs and profits.

“The government is supporting the maize seed sector through initiatives such as increasing investments in agricultural research and extension, training of agro-dealers, and developing the National Seed Industry Policy,” confirms Kenya’s Assistant Minister of Agriculture, Japheth Mbiuki.

“Seed companies would benefit from access to a wider range of improved maize varieties, good seed production sites, affordable inputs, and training in effective business practices,” adds Langyintuo. CIMMYT normally distributes its experimental varieties freely to everyone, but granting companies some degree of exclusivity in their use would facilitate branding and promote sales. This would have to be tailored to specific country and company contexts, according to Langyintuo.

Maize seed without borders

No country is an island, and with increasing regional integration of economies around the world, it makes sense that the region should move as one in developing its maize seed sector. Regional trade blocs such as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) are key. “Specific actions and commitments by national governments include dedicating increased funds (at least 10% of their national budgets) for agricultural development and harmonization of regional seed regulations,” says Ambassador Nagla El-Hussainy, COMESA Assistant Secretary General. “This will improve rates of variety release, lower costs in dealing with regulatory authorities, increase trade in seed of improved varieties and, ultimately, adoption by farmers.” In East Africa, for instance, the national seed policies of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are at various stages of development and are set to be harmonized soon.

“Effective trade and risk management strategies that buffer seed supply within countries are needed to stabilize and increase maize production in the region,” says Marianne Bänziger, CIMMYT Global Maize Program Director. “These will mitigate the impact of drought and national production fluctuations, which are some of the harsh realities that farmers and consumers face.”

“Where applicable, carrying out the distinctness, uniformity and stability (DUS) tests alongside national performance trials (NPT) could speed up varietal releases,” adds Langyintuo. “Farmers’ awareness of the usefulness and availability of new varieties can be raised through improved extension message delivery, widespread demonstrations, and better retail networks.”

According to Richard Amoussou, an Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture in Benin: “The links between (community-based) seed producers and seed companies should be strengthened through contracts. This will ensure that quality seed is produced and sold to seed companies, who must finally distribute the seed to the farmers, thus improving their access.”

“Streamlining the seed sector will directly benefit the productivity and incomes of small-scale farmers and result in more and more affordable food for consumers – significant in the current global food crisis,” concludes Bänziger. She says this is crucial, given the twin challenges of the global food price crisis and more frequent droughts due to climate change.

For more information: Augustine Langyintuo, socioeconomist (a.langyintuo@cgiar.org)

Formula for success

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features.

CIMMYT E-News, vol 4 no. 2, February 2007

feb11 Breeding knowledge combined with cutting-edge laboratory analysis will produce maize rich in vital nutrients.

“The link between agriculture and nutrition is surprisingly under-explored,” says Kevin Pixley, who manages the Biofortified Maize for Improved Human Nutrition project at CIMMYT. “Agricultural approaches can contribute to alleviate micronutrient deficiencies, more cheaply and sustainably than food supplements.” The effect is potentially far-reaching: maize is the preferred staple food of more than 1.2 billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. However, maize-based diets, particularly those of the very poor, often lack essential vitamins and minerals. Over 50 million people in these regions are vitamin A deficient, which can lead to visual impairments, blindness and increased child mortality.

Pixley’s project aims to develop varieties of maize that combine high provitamins A, iron and zinc contents with superior agronomic qualities, and disseminate them in partner countries in Africa and Latin America. It is part of HarvestPlus, an international, interdisciplinary program to alleviate nutritional deficiency through breeding micronutrient-enriched staple foods.

feb10

The white maize eaten in much of sub-Saharan Africa contains no provitamins A, while standard yellow maize varieties contain about 2 micrograms per gram (µg/g)—still insufficient in a diet dominated by maize. The good news is that there is substantial genetic variation in maize for concentrations of provitamins A. The project has been screening hundreds of maize samples, looking for and then using those with the best provitamins A content. The team has now reached the HarvestPlus program’s intermediate target for maize of 8 µg/g with its current best experimental materials; scientists anticipate producing materials with the ultimate target of 15 µg/g within the next few years by using cutting edge lab tools to help select the best materials for breeding.

The breeding work at CIMMYT is focusing on increasing the concentration of provitamins A in maize. Open-pollinated varieties (OPVs) are being developed using popular varieties grown in partner countries and source materials high in provitamins A. In addition, the project team is developing inbred lines and hybrids with high provitamins A content, based on elite African and Mexican germplasm, which will be freely available to partners for use in producing their own enriched hybrids or OPVs. Providing source materials to other programs is a key part of the project, particularly to key partners Brazil, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala and Zambia, where their performance is tested in local agro-environments.

This work to generate enhanced maize lines relies on accurate measurements of the micronutrient contents of breeding materials at every stage. Therefore, a major aspect of the project has been experimenting with techniques for analyzing carotenoids (which include provitamins A), iron, and zinc.

Carotenoids are a particular challenge to work with, as they are very sensitive to both light and oxygen, making samples vulnerable and difficult to store. Maize scientist Natalia Palacios and her team have adapted and implemented protocols for analyzing carotenoid content using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), in collaboration with others in the HarvestPlus network. HPLC is very precise, but it is also expensive and time-consuming.

The team has therefore taken delivery this month of new equipment to measure near-infrared reflectance (NIR). This infrared technique is both accurate and rapid. Collaboration with the International Potato Centre (CIP) has shown that different carotenoid compounds can successfully be differentiated using NIR. The next step for the team is a big push to build on this work. “For us it is a great challenge, and an opportunity to support and enhance the breeding work by providing more and faster information at a lower cost,” says Palacios. The team believes that NIR will multiply their screening potential dramatically: last year they worked at full capacity to analyze 2,000 samples, but with NIR they hope to analyze up to 10,000 per year.

The team will also explore the potential of NIR to measure iron and zinc. Unfortunately, natural variability for iron content in maize is very limited and may be insufficient to breed iron-rich lines, and to an extent the same is true for zinc. However, iron deficiency is an extremely important global problem: it is estimated that nearly three billion people are iron deficient. The team will therefore focus on increasing the bioavailability of iron in maize—i.e. selecting maize with greater amount of iron that can be absorbed by human consumers, rather than with greater absolute amount of iron.

The ultimate goal is to reduce micronutrient malnutrition among maize consumers by providing micronutrient-rich maize varieties that farmers will want to grow and consumers will want to eat.

We’re breaking new ground working on the biofortification of maize,” says Pixley. “This is exciting science.”

For more information, Kevin Pixley, Associate Director, Global Maize Program (k.pixley@cgiar.org)

The wheat rust threat

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features.

CIMMYT E-News, vol 3 no. 10, October 2006

oct06 Global Rust Initiative tackles a clearly present danger.

When wheat scientists and policy makers convened in Alexandria, Egypt earlier this month, one might have been forgiven for thinking that a war was afoot. And it is. Scientists are launching an offensive against wheat stem rust, an old foe of farmers that is threatening resurgence.

Words like ‘emergency’, ‘disaster’, ‘catastrophe’, and ‘devastation’, were used at the meeting to paint a picture of the havoc that epidemics of the fungal disease, also known as black rust, could precipitate on the world’s food security and economy. “This is a global threat…,” CIMMYT Director General Masa Iwanaga told the First International Workshop of the Global Rust Initiative (GRI), 9-11 October. “The risk of a stem rust epidemic in wheat in Africa, Asia and the Americas is real, and must be averted before untold damage and human suffering is caused,” said Mahmoud Solh, Director General of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). Preliminary field evidence from Kenya indicated that many more varieties of wheat could be threatened by rust than previously thought.

The GRI—a consortium coordinated by CIMMYT and ICARDA that involves agricultural research institutes from 30-plus countries—will use scientific knowledge and global cooperation as its primary ammunition to fight the disease. Tactics will include worldwide surveillance for virulent strains of the stem rust fungus Puccinia graminis (‘trap nurseries’—small fields where wheat known to be susceptible to the new disease has been planted) have been positioned in at-risk countries in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia); zeroing in on resistance genes and using these in breeding programs; and accelerated seed multiplication and dissemination of the new, resistant breeds. “We basically have to replace all the wheat in the world,” says GRI Coordinator, CIMMYT wheat scientist Rick Ward.

It is no mean task; farmers and breeders select wheat varieties for their high yield, robustness against pests and diseases, but also properties such as grain color, maturity period, and bread making quality, and the GRI’s work will have to keep these in mind. Furthermore, preferences vary by region, often depending on the form in which the wheat arrives at the table. Seed delivery will also need to be addressed.

Infection with the fungal disease first appears as deep orange pustules on young wheat stems, and without prompt intervention with fungicides, farmers’ fields are converted into a tangled mass of black stems with shriveled grain. Severe infections can lead to total crop failure. A new variant of the fungus, Ug99, has established itself in bread wheat farmers’ fields in Kenya and Ethiopia, and resource-poor smallholders who cannot afford fungicides are quickly losing the battle against stem rust.

Until new, resistant varieties are in the hands of farmers, Ward says part of the GRI’s resources will be directed towards an aggressive regimen of fungicides to suppress stem rust hot spots before they spread. “A stem rust epidemic is much like a bush fire; if it’s not contained, it becomes exceedingly difficult to stop,” he says.

oct05

Researchers at the Alexandria meeting were relieved to hear that GRI-coordinated screening of twelve thousand wheat cultivars has yielded a handful of potential Ug99-resistant candidates. This positive news came from researchers at Njoro, a high-altitude research station of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), and the Melkasa station of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR). The promising varieties are being fast-tracked for multiplication and release to farmers. Ward announced that the GRI will now use molecular breeding, which reduces the breeding process by several years, as a routine.

Even with modern breeding and communication technologies, the GRI’s success will hinge on the spirit of global cooperation to overcome blights that threaten the world’s food security.

For more information contact r.ward@cgiar.org
www.globalrust.org

CIMMYT Sows Second Field Trial of Promising Transgenic Drought Tolerant Wheat

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features.

March, 2005

noticias8 In March, CIMMYT scientists continued their pursuit of drought tolerant wheat with the second field trial of transgenic lines carrying the DREB gene, given to CIMMYT by Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS). The gene, obtained from Arabidopsis thaliana, a relative of wild mustard, exhibited considerable promise in its initial field trial in 2004, and in earlier greenhouse trials (see September 2004 E-news). The project is funded by Australia’s Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) and is led by CIMMYT cell biologist Alessandro Pellegrineschi.

noticias9 This second trial narrows the focus of investigation to four transgenic lines and uses a larger plot to ensure better control and analysis. It will also expose the experimental lines and control plants to both watered and drought conditions to determine their respective performance.

“In a few months when we get the results, we will follow the physiologists’ lead and see if this might be useful for producing hardy wheat for farmers in climates prone to drought,” says Pellegrineschi. He is particularly interested in identifying the promoter gene that switches on the drought response.

For further information, contact Alessandro Pellegrineschi (a.pellegrineschi@cgiar.org).