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Wheat grains prepared for placement in a Thousand Grain Weight machine. (Photo: Marcia MacNeil/CIMMYT)

A fresh look at the genes behind grain weight in spring bread wheat

Written by Marcia MacNeil on . Posted in News.

Guillermo Garcia Barrios, a co-author of the study and student at Colegio de Postgraduados in Montecillo, Mexico, with a PHERAstar machine used to validate genetic markers. (Photo: Marcia MacNeil/CIMMYT)
Guillermo Garcia Barrios, a co-author of the study and student at Colegio de Postgraduados in Montecillo, Mexico, with a PHERAstar machine used to validate genetic markers. (Photo: Marcia MacNeil/CIMMYT)

To meet the demand for wheat from a rising and quickly urbanizing population, wheat yields in farmers’ fields must increase by an estimated 1.5% each year through 2030.

Of all the factors that influence yield, grain weight is the trait that is most stable and heritable for use in breeding improved wheat varieties. Breeders measure this by thousand grain weight (TGW).

Over the years, molecular scientists have made efforts to identify genes related to increased TGW, in order to speed up breeding through marker-assisted selection (MAS). Using MAS, breeders can select parents that contain genes related to the traits they are looking for, increasing the likelihood they will be passed on and incorporated in a new variety.

There have been some limited successes in these efforts: in the past years, a few genes related to increased TGW have been cloned, and a set of genetic markers have been determined to be used for MAS. However, the effects of most of these candidate genes have not yet been validated in diverse sets of wheat germplasm throughout the world that represent the full range of global wheat growing environments.

A group of wheat geneticists and molecular breeders from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has recently conducted a thorough study to confirm the effects of the favorable alleles reported for these genes on TGW in CIMMYT wheat, and to identify new genetic determinants of this desired trait.

They found some good news and some bad news.

First, the good news: focusing on more than 4,000 lines of CIMMYT wheat germplasm they found 15 haplotype blocks significantly associated with TGW. Four haplotype blocks associated with TGW were also associated with grain yield — a grand prize for breeders, because in general the positive association of grain yield with TGW is less profound and sometimes even negative. However, of the 14 genes that had been previously reported to increase TGW, only one in CIMMYT’s 2015-2016 Elite Yield Trial and two in Wheat Associative Mapping Initiative panel were shown to have significant TGW associations.

Wheat grains prepared for placement in a Thousand Grain Weight machine. (Photo: Marcia MacNeil/CIMMYT)
Wheat grains prepared for placement in a Thousand Grain Weight machine. (Photo: Marcia MacNeil/CIMMYT)

The scientists also found that the alleles — pairs of genes on a chromosome that determine heredity — that were supposedly favorable to TGW actually decreased it.  These candidate genes also appear to vary in their TGW effects with genetic background and/or environment.

Thus, these findings also provide a foundation for more detailed investigations, opening the door for more studies on the genetic background dependence and environment sensitivity of the known candidate genes for TGW.

“Our findings indicate that it will be challenging to use MAS based on these existing markers across individual breeding programs,” said Deepmala Sehgal, CIMMYT wheat geneticist and the primary author of the study.

However, efforts to identify new genetic determinants of TGW were promising. The authors’ study of CIMMYT germplasm found one locus on chromosome 6A that showed increases of up to 2.60 grams in TGW and up to 258 kilograms per hectare in grain yield.

Thousand Grain Weight is measured in this machine at CIMMYT’s global headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. (Photo: Marcia MacNeil/CIMMYT)
Thousand Grain Weight is measured in this machine at CIMMYT’s global headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. (Photo: Marcia MacNeil/CIMMYT)

This discovery expands opportunities for developing diagnostic markers to assist in multi-gene pyramiding — a process that can derive new and complementary allele combinations for enhanced wheat TGW and grain yield.

Most of all, the study highlights the strong need for better and more validation of the genes related to this and other traits, so that breeders can be sure they are using material that is confirmed to increase wheat grain weight and genetic yield.

“Our findings are very promising for future efforts to efficiently develop more productive wheat in both grain weight and grain yield,” said Sehgal. “This ultimately means more bread on household tables throughout the world.”

“Validation of Candidate Gene-Based Markers and Identification of Novel Loci for Thousand-Grain Weight in Spring Bread Wheat” in Frontiers in Plant Science by Deepmala Sehgal, Suchismita Mondal, Carlos Guzman, Guillermo Garcia Barrios, Carolina Franco, Ravi Singh and Susanne Dreisigacker was supported by funding from the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT), the Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat (DGGW) project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Department for International Development (DFID), and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Applied Wheat Genomics.

Read the full article here: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2019.01189

Mexico City to host Interdrought 2020

Written by Mary Donovan on . Posted in News.

Droughts affect crop production across the world. A central challenge for researchers and policymakers is to devise technologies that lend greater resilience to agricultural production under this particular environmental stress.

Interdrought 2020 aims to facilitate the development of concepts, methods and technologies associated with plant production in water-limited environments.

The congress will take place from March 9 to 13, 2020, in Mexico City. Early-bird registration is open until October 31, 2019 and abstract submissions will be accepted until November 15, 2019.

The conference will focus on:

  • Optimizing dryland crop production – crop design
  • Water capture, transpiration, transpiration efficiency
  • Vegetative and reproductive growth
  • Breeding for water-limited environments
  • Managing cropping systems for adaptation to water-limited environments

This will be the 6th edition of Interdrought, which builds on the successful series of conferences in Montpellier (1995), Rome (2005), Shanghai (2009), Perth (2013) and Hyderabad (2017).

It will continue the philosophy of presenting, discussing and integrating results of both applied and basic research towards the development of solutions for improving crop production under drought-prone conditions.

To register, and for more information, visit www.interdrought2020.com.

If you encounter any difficulties in registration, or are interested in sponsoring the conference, please send an email to cimmyt-interdrought2020@cgiar.org.

Winners of 2019 MAIZE Youth Innovators Awards – Latin America announced

Written by Jennifer Johnson on . Posted in Features.

The CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) is pleased to announce the winners of the 2019 MAIZE Youth Innovators Awards – Latin America. These awards recognize the contributions of young women and men under 35 who are implementing innovations in Latin American maize-based agri-food systems, including research for development, seed systems, agribusiness, and sustainable intensification.

The winners will attend the 23rd Latin American Maize Reunion (XXIII Reunión Latinoamericana del Maíz) in Monteria, Colombia, where they will receive their awards and present their work. Award recipients may also get the opportunity to collaborate with MAIZE and its partner scientists in Latin America on implementing or furthering their innovations.

This is the third instalment of the awards, following Asia in October 2018 and Africa in May 2019.

Congratulations to this year’s winners, seven exceptional young people working in Latin American maize-based systems:

Eduardo Cruz Rojo.
Eduardo Cruz Rojo.

Eduardo Cruz Rojo (Mexico) – Farmer category

Eduardo Cruz Rojo is a young agricultural entrepreneur, worried about rural out-migration in his region and about the poor agricultural practices that have led farming to cease to be profitable. He has a degree in logistics, and is originally from Alfajayucan, in Mexico’s state of Hidalgo. For the past four years he has been working on maize research and production, with a focus on improved agronomic practices that help farmers increase their yields. This includes soil improvement, organic fertilizers, earthworm compost and biological pest control. Through research and testing, he has shown smallholder farmers the cost-benefit of improved agricultural practices. This has been reflected in local farmers achieving improved soils and yields in an environmentally friendly manner.

 

Yésica Chazarreta.
Yésica Chazarreta.

Yésica Chazarreta (Argentina) – Researcher category

Yésica Chazarreta has a degree in genetics and is currently a doctoral fellow at the Scientific and Technologic Fund, working with the Crop Ecophysiology group at the National Agricultural Technology Institute (INTA) Pergamino in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her work centers on understanding the genetic and environmental control of the physiological determinants of filling, drying and quality of maize grains in genotypes destined for grain or silage. The objective is to generate knowledge to continue advancing in maize production improvement and to open the possibility of establishing improvement programs differentiated by planting times for her region, as well as to provide valuable information for the creation of mechanistic models to predict the evolution of humidity in maize grains. This information can help farmers make more informed decisions about the best time to harvest. In addition, Chazarreta hopes to deepen understanding of maize biomass quality for animal feed, a practice that has increased in her native country, Argentina, due to changes in crop management practices related to delays in planting dates.

 

Omar Garcilazo Rahme.
Omar Garcilazo Rahme.

Omar Garcilazo Rahme (Mexico) – Researcher category

Omar Garcilazo Rahme is a postgraduate student researching sustainable management of agro-ecosystems at the Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla (BUAP).

A food engineer by training, he has a profound interest in Mexico’s bio-cultural heritage and maize as a staple food in his native country, as well as the various methods to produce and conserve the crop. His research project seeks to improve the economic, nutritious and sociocultural benefits associated with the production of maize.

He is currently collaborating in a technology transfer and innovation agency on the topics of nutritional labeling, big data and applied technology solutions for the agri-food industry.

 

Lucio Reinoso.
Lucio Reinoso.

Lucio Reinoso (Argentina) – Researcher category

Lucio Reinoso is an agronomist with a master’s degree in agricultural sciences from the National Southern University, Argentina. He has worked as a professor at the National University of Rio Negro since 2019. Reinoso was a fellow and researcher for 12 years at the National Institute for Agricultural Technology (INTA).

He works on sustainable models of maize production under irrigation in the irrigated valleys of Northern Patagonia, Argentina. Reinoso is specifically investigating the adaptation of maize to the soil and climatic conditions of the region, highlighting the water and nutritional needs to maximize production while also caring for the environment.

He works with local farmers to adapt no-till farming to scale and adjust irrigation management to improve water use efficiency while preserving the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of soil, increasing resilience.

 

Viviana López Ramírez.
Viviana López Ramírez.

Viviana López Ramírez (Colombia) – Researcher category

Viviana López Ramírez is a biological engineer with a master’s degree in environmental studies from the National University of Colombia in Medellin.

She is currently a doctoral student in biological sciences at the National University in Río Cuarto, Argentina, studying the application of bacteriocins for the biological control of phytopathogens.

This work on bacteriosis in maize is conducted by a multidisciplinary team and focuses on the identification of pathogenic bacteria isolated from a diverse maize population.

 

José Esteban Sotelo Mariche.
José Esteban Sotelo Mariche.

José Esteban Sotelo Mariche (Mexico) – Change Agent category

José Esteban Sotelo Mariche is an agronomist from the coastal region of Oaxaca, Mexico. He studied at Chapingo Autonomous University and is certified in rural development and food security.

Since 2012 he has offered capacity building to smallholder maize farmers in his region. In 2014 he formed Integradora Agroempresarial del Rio Verde to promote the production and commercialization of agricultural products. The group now has 80 members, including indigenous and Afro-Mexican farmers. In 2016 he began working with tortilla company Masienda to help local farmers export native maize to gourmet restaurants in the United States.

Most recently he has worked on the integration of the Center for Rural Technology Transfer and Validation (Centro de Validación y Transferencia de Tecnología Rural) to evaluate conservation agriculture systems, efficient water use and agroforestry. This space also serves to provide training activities and technical assistance to local farmers.

 

Carlos Barragan.
Carlos Barragan.

Carlos Barragan (Mexico) – Change Agent category

Carlos Barragan has a degree in agroecological engineering from Chapingo Autonomous University.

He collaborates with the MasAgro project in Mexico’s state of Oaxaca, helping to adapt small-scale production systems to climate change.

He also contributes to work on soil fertility as well as inclusive business models for smallholder farmers working in agri-food value chains.

 

 

A young man uses a precision spreader to distribute fertilizer in a field. (Photo: Mahesh Maske/CIMMYT)

Microsatellite data can help double impact of agricultural interventions

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on . Posted in Press releases.

A young man uses a precision spreader to distribute fertilizer in a field. (Photo: Mahesh Maske/CIMMYT)
A young man uses a precision spreader to distribute fertilizer in a field. (Photo: Mahesh Maske/CIMMYT)

Data from microsatellites can be used to detect and double the impact of sustainable interventions in agriculture at large scales, according to a new study led by the University of Michigan (U-M).

By being able to detect the impact and target interventions to locations where they will lead to the greatest increase of yield gains, satellite data can help increase food production in a low-cost and sustainable way.

According to the team of researchers from U-M, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), and Stanford and Cornell universities, finding low-cost ways to increase food production is critical, given that feeding a growing population and increasing the yields of crops in a changing climate are some of the greatest challenges of the coming decades.

“Being able to use microsatellite data, to precisely target an intervention to the fields that would benefit the most at large scales will help us increase the efficacy of agricultural interventions,” said lead author Meha Jain, assistant professor at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability.

Microsatellites are small, inexpensive, low-orbiting satellites that typically weigh 100 kilograms or less.

“About 60-70% of total world food production comes from smallholders, and they have the largest field-level yield gaps,” said Balwinder Singh, senior researcher at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

To show that the low-cost microsatellite imagery can quantify and enhance yield gains, the researchers conducted their study in smallholder wheat fields in the Eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains in India.

They ran an experiment on 127 farms using a split-plot design over multiple years. In one half of the field, the farmers applied nitrogen fertilizer using hand broadcasting, the typical fertilizer spreading method in this region. In the other half of the field, the farmers applied fertilizer using a new and low-cost fertilizer spreader.

To measure the impact of the intervention, the researchers then collected the crop-cut measures of yield, where the crop is harvested and weighed in field, often considered the gold standard for measuring crop yields. They also mapped field and regional yields using microsatellite and Landsat satellite data.

They found that without any increase in input, the spreader resulted in 4.5% yield gain across all fields, sites and years, closing about one-third of the existing yield gap. They also found that if they used microsatellite data to target the lowest yielding fields, they were able to double yield gains for the same intervention cost and effort.

“Being able to bring solutions to the farmers that will benefit most from them can greatly increase uptake and impact,” said David Lobell, professor of earth system science at Stanford University. “Too often, we’ve relied on blanket recommendations that only make sense for a small fraction of farmers. Hopefully, this study will generate more interest and investment in matching farmers to technologies that best suit their needs.”

The study also shows that the average profit from the gains was more than the amount of the spreader and 100% of the farmers were willing to pay for the technology again.

Jain said that many researchers are working on finding ways to close yield gaps and increase the production of low-yielding regions.

“A tool like satellite data that is scalable and low-cost and can be applied across regions to map and increase yields of crops at large scale,” she said.

Read the full study:
The impact of agricultural interventions can be doubled by using satellite data

The study is published in the October issue of Nature Sustainability. Other researchers include Amit Srivastava and Shishpal Poonia of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in New Delhi; Preeti Rao and Jennifer Blesh of the U-M School of Environment and Sustainability; Andrew McDonald of Cornell; and George Azzari and David Lobell of Stanford. 

For more information, or to arrange interviews, please contact CIMMYT’s media team.

Maize ears and seed of the Mexican "Jala" landrace, native to the town of Jala, in the state of Nayarit. It is dent in type and white in color. This landrace is famous for producing the longest maize ears in the world. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Saving the giant

Written by Carolyn Cowan on . Posted in Features.

Mexican and international researchers have joined with farmers and specialists from Jala, a scenic valley near the Pacific Coast of Mexico’s state of Nayarit, in a critical strategy to save and study an endangered, legendary maize race whose ears once grew longer than a man’s forearm.

Specialists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) are analyzing the race’s genetic diversity, in hopes of preserving its qualities and, in concert with Jala farmers, safeguarding its future and merits.

Efforts include a new maize festival that reprises a yearly contest begun in 1981 to honor the community’s largest maize ear, but the outsize Jala maize race faces myriad hurdles to survive, according to Carolina Camacho, CIMMYT socioeconomics researcher and festival collaborator.

“The Jala maize landrace is unsuited to mechanization due to its size and agronomic requirements,” said Camacho. “It must be sown by hand and, because the plant can grow to several meters or taller, the ears must be harvested on horseback.”

Jala maize is also losing out to more competitive and profitable improved varieties, Camacho added. It is prized locally for its floury texture, but many farmers favor varieties more suited to milling and which yield more husks — in high demand as tamale wraps — as well as fodder and feed. The floury texture also means the grain is less dense and so fetches a lower price on external markets, where grain is sold by weight.

Youth panel discussion at the Feria de la Mazorca del Maize Nativo with Carolina Camacho, CIMMYT (third from right). (Photo: Denise Costich/CIMMYT)
Youth panel discussion at the Feria de la Mazorca del Maize Nativo with Carolina Camacho, CIMMYT (third from right). (Photo: Denise Costich/CIMMYT)

A fair fight for preservation

The most recent “Feria de la Mazorca del Maíz Nativo,” or Landrace Maize Ear Festival, was held in December 2018. Under the boughs of a giant guanacaste tree in the town square of Coapan, Jala Valley, children, elders, cooks and dancers celebrated maize and its associated traditions. The festival culminated in the contest for the largest maize ear, with the winning farmer’s submission measuring nearly 38 centimeters in length.

The competition typically takes place in August as part of Jala’s two-week “Feria del Elote,” or green ear festival, first established to foster the appreciation and preservation of the native maize.

CIMMYT scientists helped the community set up a local genebank to store Jala landrace seed, according to Denise Costich, head of the CIMMYT maize germplasm bank and festival collaborator.

“This enhances the community’s role as custodians of landrace diversity and their access to the seed,” said Costich, adding that Jala seed from as far back as the early 1980s forms part of CIMMYT’s maize collections, which comprise 28,000 unique samples.

Under CIMMYT’s Seeds of Discovery project, scientists are analyzing the remaining genetic potential in the Jala maize population, particularly to understand the extent and effects of both inbreeding and outcrossing.

On the one hand, Costich said, Jala’s unique genetic pedigree appears to be diluted from mixing with other varieties in the valley whose pollen lands on Jala silks. At the same time, she worries about possible inbreeding in some small and isolated valley pockets where Jala is grown.

Finally, the yearly contest, for which maize ears are harvested in the green stage before maturity, precludes use of the grain as seed and so may also remove inheritable potential for large ears from the local maize gene pool.

Farewell to small-scale farmers?

Setting up the contest entries in Coapan: (l-r) Cristian Zavala of the CIMMYT maize genebank recording data; Rafael Mier from Fundacion Tortillas de Maiz Mexicana; Victor Vidal, INIFAP collaborator and judge of the contest; and Alfredo Segundo of the CIMMYT maize genebank. (Photo: Denise Costich/CIMMYT)
Setting up the contest entries in Coapan: (l-r) Cristian Zavala of the CIMMYT maize genebank recording data; Rafael Mier from Fundacion Tortillas de Maiz Mexicana; Victor Vidal, INIFAP collaborator and judge of the contest; and Alfredo Segundo of the CIMMYT maize genebank. (Photo: Denise Costich/CIMMYT)

Whatever the causes, Jala maize isn’t what it used to be. In 1924, a visiting scientist observed maize plants over 6 meters in height and with ears more than 60 centimeters long — far longer than today’s samples.

One grave challenge to the landrace’s continued existence is the steady disappearance of older farmers who grow it. As throughout rural Mexico, many youths are leaving farm communities like Jala in search of better opportunities and livelihoods in cities.

Camacho believes the festival and contest encourage farmers to continue growing Jala maize but cannot alone ensure the landrace’s preservation.

“The solutions need to encompass all aspects of Jala maize and be supported by the entire community, particularly young people,” said Camacho.

The festival in Coapan included a panel discussion with local youths, among them graduate students from the Autonomous University of Nayarit.

“The panelists highlighted the lack of opportunities in rural areas and the need for an economically secure future; things that Jala maize doesn’t offer,” Camacho said.

The festival is a collaboration among Costich, Camacho, Victor Vidal of INIFAP-Nayarit, and local partners including Gilberto González, Ricardo Cambero, Alondra Maldonado, Ismael Elías, Renato Olmedo (CIMMYT), and Miguel González Lomelí.

A multi-crop, multi-use zero-tillage seeder at work on a conservation agriculture trial plot, left, at CIMMYT's headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. The residues retained on the soil surface and the permanent raised beds are in clear contrast with the conventional plot on the right. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Scientists propose a low-cost, reliable system to measure soil organic carbon

Written by Alison Doody on . Posted in News.

A multi-crop, multi-use zero-tillage seeder at work on a conservation agriculture trial plot, left, at CIMMYT's headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. The residues retained on the soil surface and the permanent raised beds are in clear contrast with the conventional plot on the right. (Photo: CIMMYT)
A multi-crop, multi-use zero-tillage seeder at work on a conservation agriculture trial plot, left, at CIMMYT’s headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. The residues retained on the soil surface and the permanent raised beds are in clear contrast with the conventional plot on the right. (Photo: CIMMYT)

New research by an international team of scientists, including International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) Director for the Integrated Development Program, Bram Govaerts, outlines a proposed accounting system for organic carbon in soils that could encourage farmers to adopt better land management practices and increase levels of organic carbon in their soil.

Reported this month in the journal Carbon Management, the study highlights how increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) would build agricultural resilience and fertility and reduce greenhouse gas emissions — but we need to be able to measure it.

Soil is a huge carbon reservoir — in fact, soils contain one of the largest organic carbon stocks on the planet. With proper land management, soils have the potential to store even more. Improved SOC levels have also been connected with improved soil quality, reduced susceptibility to erosion and greater agricultural yields and yield stability, particularly under drought. This makes them a crucial player in climate change mitigation and agricultural resilience.

Policy makers and environmental groups are becoming increasingly interested in soil health and its effect on climate change. The 4 per 1000 initiative, launched at the COP 21 climate talks in Paris in 2015, argues that an annual growth rate of 0.4% in soil carbon stocks would significantly reduce human activity-related CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment highlights carbon sequestration as one of the options, alongside massive fossil fuel reduction, to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius, in accordance with the Paris Climate Agreement.

Increasing organic carbon content in soils also has another very important function: crop nutrition. Last year, researchers from CIMMYT and the Nature Conservancy found that wheat grown on soils rich in organic matter had more essential nutrients like zinc and protein.

However, increasing levels of organic carbon in the soil can be costly in the short term, so farmers need to see improvements in the performance of their soils as a result of their efforts.

Quantifying soil carbon

That’s where a global soil information system comes in. By integrating empirical models, expanded measurement and monitoring networks, remote sensing and crowdsourced management data, SOC stocks can be assessed efficiently and reliably. Farmers and policy makers would get a clear picture of how much soil organic carbon is increasing and at what rate.

The global soil information system would work by pulling different sources of existing information together to provide a comprehensive account of soil organic carbon stocks worldwide.

As SOC content can vary over time, an important component of the system would involve using monitoring networks at precise locations which can then be resampled regularly. Alongside this information, empirical models would be used to predict SOC changes based on already observed results from lab- and field-based experiments, and to predict the impacts of different soil and climate conditions. Remote sensing data can provide information on land cover, crop species and land management practices at a very low cost, to supplement and verify management activity data reported by land users.

The international team of scientists pointed out that greater coordination and transparency among scientists, remote sensing specialists and land managers is crucial to the success of a global soil information system.

Incentivizing carbon sequestration among land managers is no mean task. The authors argue that existing approaches like direct compensation to farmers for CO2 removal and storage, government subsidies such as the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the option of earning a premium price for producing sustainable agricultural products, need a reliable carbon accounting system to ensure their success. A global soil information system might just hold the key.

Read the full article:
“Quantifying carbon for agricultural soil management: from the current status toward a global soil information system” in Carbon Management, DOI: 10.1080/17583004.2019.1633231

This study was made possible through the support provided by the TomKat Foundation. Additional support was provided by the NASA Harvest Consortium (www.nasaharvest.org), a multi-disciplinary program that empowers informed agricultural decisions through the use of Earth observations.

Breaking Ground: P.H. Zaidi helps Asian farmers get healthy harvests despite climate variability

Written by Matthew O'Leary on . Posted in Features.

Growing up on a rainfed farm in India, P.H. Zaidi learned how smallholder family farmers adapted their farming practices to meet weather challenges, such as dry spells or excessive rain. For the most part, small changes to their crop selection and timing of field operations maintained a wholesome harvest.

As time passed Zaidi witnessed farmers in his hometown and beyond struggling against increasingly extreme and erratic weather events. The Asian tropics have now become hotspots for climate change effects and associated variabilities, said the maize physiologist who works with the Global Maize Program of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), based in Hyderabad.

“Rainfed farmers produce most of the food for people in Asia, but without sufficient supplemental irrigation systems they are heavily dependent on monsoon rains,” Zaidi said. “Climate variability can be devastating for family farmers who are unable to foresee erratic changes in weather patterns.”

“An extreme weather event can negatively affect household food security and income, which in turn results in a deterioration of capacity to deal with future shocks,” he explained.

Nearly half a billion people in Asia lack access to nourishing food. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) finds climate change-related disasters and a lack of clean water are the main causes of persistent hunger in the region.

Zaidi believes farmers are born innovators and, with the right tools and know-how, they can ensure a healthy harvest despite year-to-year climate variability. He has dedicated his lifework to researching new agricultural technologies that help resource-poor farmers to protect their food and income security.

Stable harvests despite climate change

After getting an undergraduate degree in agricultural science, Zaidi obtained his doctorate at the University of Agriculture Science & Technology in Faizabad, India. He studied how maize physiology interacts with physical stresses, such as severe heat, drought, and excessive moisture. Maize has become an important part of Asian cropping systems, with several countries recording impressive growth rates in maize production and productivity. However, increasing demands — food, feed, and industry — and climate challenges highlight the need for international agricultural research.

In 2002, Zaidi worked as a post-doctoral fellow at CIMMYT in Mexico, where he was mentored by maize abiotic stress experts. He took those research approaches and strategies for breeding stress-resilient maize varieties back home. Working with the Indian government’s maize program, he contributed to developing high-yielding stress-resilient maize for resource-poor maize farmers living in vulnerable agro-ecologies.

With a wealth of knowledge and experience in agricultural systems in Asia, he was employed by CIMMYT as maize physiologist and breeder in 2007. He worked to develop, deploy and scale-out hardy maize varieties that increase yield potential and reduce risk, ensuring a stable harvest despite climate variability. He also developed and standardized screening phenotyping techniques and selection criteria to identify maize germplasm tolerant to stresses including heat, drought and water-logging.

“Through effective collaboration and training, national governments, private seed companies and NGOs are using the varieties with resilient traits in their breeding programs to ensure hardy varieties reach farmers throughout the region,” Zaidi noted.

From 2015 to 2018, a total of 68 such high-yielding stress-resilient maize hybrids were licensed to seed partners in the region, he explained. These partners took them forward for large-scale farmer participatory testing in their respective target ecologies. After extensive testing through the national system, nine stress-resilient maize hybrids have already been released and are being deployed in various countries in Asia. Others will be released soon.

Zaidi has received several awards for his contributions to maize research, including CIMMYT’s Outstanding Scientist Award in 2009.

A customer chooses bread in a small shop in Dinajpur, Bangladesh. (Photo: S. Mojumder/Drik/CIMMYT)

New publications: Do market shocks generate gender-differentiated impacts?

Written by Emma Orchardson on . Posted in Publications.

Female-headed households are likely to experience higher welfare losses due to commodity price hikes than their male-headed counterparts, as they tend to spend a larger percentage of their income on food items. However, the full extent of this impact of market has not been widely examined in the empirical literature.

Applying the difference-in-difference estimation procedure to data collected from more than 22,000 households in Bangladesh in 2005 and 2010, researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) set out to examine the gender-differentiated impacts of the commodity price hikes during the food price crisis of 2008 on food and non-food consumption behavior based on the sex of the household head.

They found that, in general, the commodity price hikes had more adversely affected female-headed households, which reduced their expenditure on food and non-food items such as cereals and education at a greater rate than their male-headed counterparts did.

However, their study also reveals that the welfare impacts on these households varied greatly depending on socio-economic conditions. Results showed that households headed by women who were relatively better educated, who owned larger pieces of land and received remittances were buffered to a certain extent and their expenditure was affected less.

Understanding these buffering factors, the authors argue, is crucial when designing policy interventions in developing countries. The study provides a number of recommendations for government and international donor agencies to help female-headed households better cope with market shocks. For example, they could improve the reach of general education, increase women’s access to land and agricultural assets and remove barriers to the in-flow of remittances for female-headed households. Extending the reach of social protection and microcredit programs could further complement market shock buffering capacity, as could providing targeted capital.

Read more results and recommendations in the study, “Do market shocks generate gender-differentiated impacts? Policy implications from a quasi-natural experiment in Bangladesh” in Women’s Studies International Forum, Volume 76, September–October 2019.

This study was made possible through the support provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia – Mechanization and Irrigation (CSISA-MI) project, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to the CSISA Phase II project.

See more recent publications by CIMMYT researchers:

  1. Elucidating the genetic basis of biomass accumulation and radiation use efficiency in spring wheat and its role in yield potential. 2019. Molero, G., Joynson, R. , Piñera Chavez, F.J. , Gardiner, L.J. , Rivera Amado, A.C. , Hall, A.J.W. , Reynolds, M.P. In: Plant Biotechnology Journal v. 17, no. 7, p. 1276-1288.
  2. Identification of recombinants carrying stripe rust resistance gene Yr57 and adult plant stem rust resistance gene Sr2 through marker‐assisted selection. 2019. Lodhi, S., Bariana, H.S., Randhawa, M.S., Gul Kazi, A., Peter John., Bansal, U. In: Plant Breeding v. 138, no. 2, p. 148-152.
  3. Effect of different tillage and residue management practices on crop and water productivity and economics in maize (Zea mays) based rotations. 2019. Parihar M.D., Parihar, C.M., Nanwal, R.K., Singh, A.K., Jat, S.L., Hari S. Nayak, Prakash Chand Ghasal, Jewlia, H.R., Choudhary, M. , Jat, M.L. In: Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences v. 89, no. 2.
  4. A multi-scale and multi-model gridded framework for forecasting crop production, risk analysis, and climate change impact studies. 2019. Shelia, V., Hansen, J., Sharda, V., Porter, C., Aggarwal, P.K., Wilkerson, C.J., Hoogenboom, G. In: Environmental Modelling and Software v. 115, no. 144-154.
  5. Averting wheat blast by implementing a ‘wheat holiday’: in search of alternative crops in West Bengal, India. 2019. Mottaleb, K.A., Singh, P.K., Sonder, K., Kruseman, G., Erenstein, O. In: PLoS One v. 114, no. 2, art. E0211410.
  6. Estimating soil evaporation in dry seeded rice and wheat crops after wetting events. 2019. Gupta, N., Eberbach, P.L., Humphreys, E., Singh, B., Sudhir-Yadav, Kukal, S.S. In: Agricultural Water Management v. 217, p. 98-106.
  7. Dependence of temperature sensitivity of soil organic carbon decomposition on nutrient management options under conservation agriculture in a sub-tropical Inceptisol. 2019. Parihar, C.M., Singh, A.K., Jat, S.L., Ghosh, A., Dey, A., Hari S. Nayak, Parihar M.D., Mahala, D.M., Yadav, R.K., Rai, V., Satayanaryana, T., Jat, M.L. In: Soil and Tillage Research v. 190, p. 50-60.
  8. Biogas adoption and elucidating its impacts in India: implications for policy. 2019. Mottaleb, K.A., Rahut, D.B. In: Biomass and Bioenergy v. 123, p. 166-174.
  9. Reaction of Australian durum, common wheat and triticale genotypes to Karnal bunt (Tilletia indica) infection under artificial inoculation in the field. 2019. Emebiri, L. C., Singh, P.K. , Tan, M. K. , Fuentes Dávila, G., Xinyao He, Singh, R.P. In: Crop and Pasture Science v. 70, no. 2, p. 107-112.
  10. A farm-level assessment of labor and mechanization in Eastern and Southern Africa. 2019. Baudron, F., Misiko, M.T., Getnet, B., Nazare, R., Sariah, J., Kaumbutho, P. In: Agronomy for Sustainable Development v. 39, no. 2, art. 17.
Surveyors in Mexico collect data from farmers. (Photo: CIMMYT)

UN-sponsored report acknowledges CIMMYT’s use of data and technologies to promote sustainable farming in Latin America

Written by Ricardo Curiel on . Posted in News.

Surveyors in Mexico collect data from farmers. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Surveyors in Mexico collect data from farmers. (Photo: CIMMYT)

CIMMYT’s projects in Latin America feature in a new report that aims to help countries use data to design public policies and projects that help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

The Counting on The World to Act report was released on September 23, 2019, by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics (TReNDS) during the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 74) in New York City.

The report describes CIMMYT’s data management systems and tools as examples of “frontier technologies” for data gathering, management and analysis that effectively contribute to sustainable farming in Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico.

“As part of the data revolution, efficiencies are being derived from lower-tech approaches such as using citizen-generated data and smartphones to speed up existing survey-based approaches,” reads the introduction to CIMMYT’s sidebar story in Chapter 4, Incentives for Innovation.

The MasAgro Electronic Log that field technicians use to monitor crop cycles and management practices, and the AgroTutor application that offers farmers more specific and timely recommendations are some of the new affordable tools for data management that CIMMYT is successfully implementing in Latin America.

Read the full report on the TReNDS website.

Read more about MasAgro’s work for sustainable farming in Latin America here.

Toolkits to deal with Asian droughts

Written by Mary Donovan on . Posted in In the media.

In July 2019 ICIMOD, along with its partners and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre in Mexico, launched a web-based Regional Drought Monitoring and Outlook System for South Asia – an integrated information platform linking weather and climate data with agriculture practices in South Asia. The system provides multiple indices for droughts and seasonal weather outlooks, besides maps and baseline. Read more here.