On 9 August CIMMYT-El Batán welcomed a group of 22 students and three teachers from the University of Wisconsin for a week-long stay. The students are enrolled in the university’s course for a Global Health Certificate, which introduces students to a preventive, population-level, interdisciplinary approach to health promotion. According to organizers, the trip to CIMMYT served to “open the eyes of the students to the importance of agriculture and nutrition.”

During the last six years, Dr. Sherry A. Tanumihardjo has visited CIMMYT with students to expose them to the realities of Mexican maize and wheat production systems, as well as how the Center’s research is helping smallholder farmers increase their productivity and improve their livelihoods. During the program’s first day, CIMMYT specialists presented the work being done at the Wellhausen-Anderson Plant Genetic Resources Center and the Seeds of Discovery initiative, as well as the objectives and strategies being pursued by the Maize, Wheat and Conservation Agriculture programs.

Genetic Resources Director Dr. Kevin Pixley led a discussion to help the students make sense of the different areas seen during the day and how they all work together to fulfill CIMMYT’s mission. On their second day, the group traveled to the Tlaltizapán experiment station, where Dr. Oscar Bañuelos explained the work being done in the Tripsacum ex situ conservation garden, while Thanda Dhliwayo described in detail the work that is being conducted with biofortified maize.

Later, the group travelled to Cuernavaca to learn about the work being done to reduce Mexico’s obesity and malnutrition problems by Dr. Salvador Villalpando, director of the National Institute of Public Health. On Wednesday, the group continued their cultural tour, visiting the National Museum of Anthropology and the Mexico City Historic Center. Previously, María Elena Campos had taken them to the pyramids in Teotihuacán so the visitors could get a better sense of Mexico, its origins and its rich history. The day ended at the Palace of Fine Arts (Palacio de Bellas Artes), where everyone had a chance to relax and enjoy a production of the Ballet Folklórico de México.

On Thursday, the students visited the Toluca experiment station and were welcomed by Fernando Delgado, senior station superintendent. After briefly explaining what CIMMYT does in Toluca, Delgado took them to meet local farmers, where the students had the opportunity to watch, listen and talk to some of the people that CIMMYT serves, and to gain a better understanding of their problems and needs.

On their last day, the group visited the Santa Catarina field with Arturo Reyes Ramírez and learned about the nixtamalization process from Estela Flores. The experience had a strong impact on the students, who learned first-hand about Mexican maize production and consumption processes, from the fields to the dining table. They left with a greater understanding of how important maize is, not only as food, but also as a cultural phenomenon. Visits like this raise awareness about the importance of the research and work being done at CIMMYT. The students from the University of Wisconsin take home a powerful memory of the work that CIMMYT does to help the world’s poor farmers.

Dr. Nora Lapitan, the new science advisor in the Bureau for Food Security of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and lead of USAID’s Climate-Resilient Cereals portfolio, visited the maize field trials being conducted in India as part of Heat Stress Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) during 17-21 June.

Lapitan is the project manager and provides technical oversight. Supported by USAID under the Feed the Future (FTF) initiative, the HTMA project is led by CIMMYT-Hyderabad. HTMA is a public-private alliance that targets resource-poor people of South Asia prone to face weather extremes and climate-change effects. The project connects several public sector agricultural research institutions in South Asia such as the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute; Maize & Millets Research Institute, Pakistan; National Maize Research Program, Nepal; Bhutan National Maize Program; and two Indian state agriculture universities – Bihar Agricultural University, Sabor and University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Raichur, as well as Purdue University in the U.S. Additional participants include seed companies DuPont Pioneer, Vibha Agritech, Kaveri Seeds and Ajeet Seeds. This was Lapitan’s first trip to India, which she chose to start with HTMA maize field activity visits. She visited maize trials under managed heat stress at different sites in India, starting with the trials at the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), Ludhiana on 17 June.

A team of scientists from BISA, including Dr. H.S. Sidhu, Parvider Romana and Manish Koth showed her HTMA trials and explained the activities. The next day she visited the HTMA trials at DuPont Pioneer sites in Jalandhar, Punjab, where Dr. S.K. Kaushik explained project activities, including various types of hybrid trials, heat stress symptoms in the field and promising heattolerant hybrids. After visiting the maize trials in Punjab, Lapitan traveled to southern India, visiting HTMA trials in Hyderabad and Baijenki, Karimnagar. In Hyderabad, she visited the trials planted at a CIMMYT site within the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) campus, where Dr. P.H. Zaidi, CIMMYT senior maize physiologist and HTMA project leader, explained ongoing HTMA field trials across sites in South Asia in collaboration with partners. M.T. Vinayan, CIMMYT India maize stress specialist, discussed trials planted at the Hyderabad site.

The presentation was followed by a field tour, where Lapitan could see the performance of some of the most promising heat-tolerant maize hybrids. In the afternoon, Lapitan met with CIMMYT-Hyderabad staff, where Zaidi presented the office’s overall program and various ongoing projects. The next day, she and Zaidi visited HTMA trials at the Kaveri Seeds site at Baijenki, Telangana. Dr. N.P. Sarma, director of research; Dr. B.S. Dahiya, senior advisor; and Dr. Ramesh Chaurasia, maize breeder at Kaveri Seeds, explained the HTMA field trials at their site.

Lapitan took a field tour, where Chaurasia explained the details of the ongoing trials and showed her a number of promising heat-tolerant hybrids. “This is very exciting for our company; to see unique products like heat-tolerant hybrids identified within two years of the project start, which we are ready to take forward in largescale testing,” said Sarma. He further explained that there are very few options for such types of maize hybrids, and that this is a newly emerging market. It is certainly a unique option for resource-poor farmers to provide food during those hot and dry months and also feed for their livestock.

After completion of the field visits, Lapitan expressed her strong satisfaction with HTMA project activities, saying “it is exciting to see that partners are ready with first wave of products for deployment within two years. This is remarkable and I congratulate the HTMA team.”

The Agricultural Innovation Project (AIP) for Pakistan, led by CIMMYT and funded by USAID, has accomplished a great deal since its inception in March 2013. Among this year’s most notable AIP achievements by partner institutions were numerous training sessions and workshops, important vaccine developments, progress in baseline surveys and advances in seed improvement and distribution.

In May, 25 stakeholders involved in dairy production received training on the seven rapid assessment (RA) tools developed and modified by the International Livestock Research Institute (IRLI). Another 25 stakeholders involved in small ruminant production were given training on the small ruminant value chain rapid assessment (SRVC RA) tools by scientists from the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). On 4 June, a wheat seed value chain workshop organized by CIMMYT in collaboration with the Cereal Crops Research Institute (CCRI) and the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) was held at CCRI in Nowshera, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (KPP).

Nearly 50 actors in the wheat seed value chain participated in the workshop, in order to analyze gaps and identify opportunities in the KPP wheat seed system. A “training of trainers” was organized by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) on developing and validating a local rice crop check system at Engro Eximp, Muridke, Sheikhupura for seven field staff of the private sector on 24 June.

The World Vegetable Center held a series of customized training workshops with its partners in order to identify gaps, exchange experiences and to further streamline the Center’s activities among public and private partners. Advances have also been made in improved maize seed under the AIP maize component, which evaluated the performance of about 220 recently introduced maize varieties against locally available checks in spring 2014. Preliminary results from the harvested sites show the good selection potential of introduced maize varieties, which consisted of early to intermediate maturity, climate-resilient and bio-fortified white and yellow kernel hybrids and open pollinated varieties.

Best or comparable varieties identified will be further tested to fulfill variety release procedures. With the help of ILRI, the production of the Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR) vaccine in Pakistan will soon be improved. The version of the vaccine currently produced in Pakistan is thermo-stable at 35˚C, while the version of the vaccine produced by IRLI is thermo-stable at 45˚C and is therefore more resistant to damage and able to be kept at a wider variety of temperatures.

Dr. Jeff Mariner, a former ILRI employee, visited Pakistan in June and conducted a technical audit of the production process in the two laboratories that produce the PPR vaccine. An action plan that includes training and production of a first batch of vaccine based on ILRI’s vaccine composition was created based on this audit, and will be implemented in August in order to help Pakistan create a more heat-resistant variety of the PPR vaccine.

AIP staff members have also worked this year to address the issue of quality fodder for livestock in Pakistan by promoting the growth of spineless cactus on range-land. AIP Livestock, in collaboration with the Rangeland Research Institute (RRI) of the National Agricultural Research Council (NARC), held a farmer’s field day at NARC on 15 May to train farmers in the advantages and methodology of growing spineless cactus. Forty farmers participated, and many have since planted spineless cactus on their lands. IRRI, in collaboration with Engro Exemp, distributed 600 kilograms (kg) of certified, high-yielding Basmati-515 rice seed to 30 farmers in the Punjab region to scale up the adoption of this variety. Basmati-515 has good quality attributes and a comparatively short growing duration, and is an excellent supplement to super basmati, which has lost its yield potential and is also prone to damage by insects and diseases.

One hundred kg of high-yielding, salt-tolerant seed of low phytate rice variety NIAB IR-9 was also distributed to farmers in Usta Muhammad in Balochistan. In addition, IRRI is working to promote mechanized dry rice seeding in Pakistan; a method which uses significantly less water than rice cultivated using the conventional planting method and is much easier to harvest. IRRI scientists, with the help of local farm machinery manufacturer Greenland Engineering, have identified a proper seed drill for direct dry seeding, which they are popularizing through the creation of public and private partnerships.

In addition, AIP reports that baseline surveys for wheat and conservation agriculture as well as vegetables and mung bean value chains are in progress in Pakistan’s four provinces. A maize baseline survey will be launched in August, and will interview more than 500 maize growers. The CIMMYT socio-economics team is also preparing to initiate durum wheat value chain studies in Pakistan, which will target producers, millers, food processors, seed companies, dealers, consumers and restaurants. A total of US $82,829 in funding was awarded to 14 research and extension projects, including: three projects related to grape and mango processing from PMAS Arid Agricultural University, Rawalpindi; seven projects on citrus from a research group at Citrus Research International; and four projects focusing on mangoes from faculty at the Institute of Horticulture and Institute of Food Science and Technology at the University of Faisalabad.

UC-Davis and the AIP Perennial Horticultural Project in-country coordinator will conduct the first review of these funded projects in September. Looking to the future, AIP partners chaired by UC-Davis met in Islamabad in June and created a working group for vocational training, which collaboratively planned cross-institute vocational training activities. The top priorities are to implement a short course on proposal writing that will enable the collaborators to prepare highquality proposals for upcoming competitive grant submissions on AIP call, as well as statistics courses that cater to the specific needs of trials and breeders.

The Heat Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) project, supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Feed the Future (FTF) initiative, is a public-private alliance that targets resource-poor people of South Asia who face weather extremes and climate-change effects. HTMA aims to create stable income and food security for resource-poor maize farmers in South Asia through development and deployment of heat-resilient maize hybrids.

The project connects several public sector agricultural research institutions in South Asia, such as the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute; the Maize & Millets Research Institute, Pakistan; National Maize Research Program, Nepal; and Bhutan Maize Program. Also involved in the project are two state agriculture universities from India – Bihar Agriculture University, Sabor and University of Agriculture Sciences (UAS), Raichur – as well as seed companies in the region including DuPont Pioneer, Vibha Agritech, Kaveri Seeds and Ajeet Seeds and international institutions including Purdue University and CIMMYT.

The “2nd Annual Progress Review and Planning Meeting for the HTMA Project” was held 22-23 July at UAS, Raichur in Karnataka, India. The meeting was attended by scientists and representatives from the collaborating institutions in South Asia, Purdue University and CIMMYT. Dr. Nora Lapitan represented USAID at the meeting. To take advantage of the presence of renowned scientists at this newly established agricultural university, the inaugural session of the meeting was organized as a special seminar on “Global initiatives on climate resilient crops.”

Dr. B.V. Patil, director of education at the university, organized the seminar for UAS staff and students. In his welcome speech Dr. Patil highlighted the importance of the HTMA public-private alliance, especially for addressing such complex issues as developing and deploying heat stress-resilient maize. Dr. BM Prasanna, director of the CIMMYT Global Maize Program, lectured on “Adapting Maize to the Changing Climate,” talking about the importance of climate change effects and CIMMYT initiatives on different continents in the development and deployment of stress-resilient maize hybrids.

This was followed by another highprofile lecture on “Climate-Resilient Crops: A Key Strategy for Feed the Future,” which was delivered by Lapitan. She spoke about the priorities of the FTF initiative, including efforts to reduce poverty and malnutrition in children in target countries through accelerated inclusive agricultural growth and a high-quality diet. The inaugural session was followed by a series of HTMA annual review and planning technical sessions. In the first, Dr. P.H. Zaidi, HTMA project leader and CIMMYT senior maize physiologist, presented updates on the project’s execution and the progress achieved at the end of the second year. The project has met agreed milestones, and is even ahead on some fronts.

This was followed by detailed progress reports on objectives given by each collaborating partner. Professor Mitch Tuinstra of Purdue University presented on membrane lipid profiling in relation to heat stress, as well as identifying quantitative trait loci for heat stress tolerance and component traits by joint linkage analysis. The leads from each of the public and private sector partners presented the results of the HTMA trials conducted at their locations, and also shared a list of top-ranking, best-bet heat-tolerant maize hybrids to take forward for large-scale testing and deployment. During the project’s first two years, each partner identified promising and unique maize hybrids suitable for their target environment. In molecular breeding, Zaidi presented the results of the association mapping panel, and Dr. Raman Babu, CIMMYT molecular maize breeder, presented the progress made on genotyping and association analysis. Dr. M.T. Vinayan, CIMMYT maize stress specialist for South Asia, presented a progress report on genomic selection for heat stress tolerance.

Dr. K. Seetharaman, CIMMYT special project scientist in abiotic stress breeding and Dr. A.R. Sadananda, CIMMYT maize seed system specialist , presented jointly on the HTMA-product pipeline, including the promising heat stress-resilient hybrids ready for deployment, and a series of new hybrids ready for testing across locations in target environments. Dr. Christian Boeber, CIMMYT socio-economist, talked about progress in HTMA product targeting, pricing and adoption, summarizing the ongoing work on crop-modelling, reviewed work on the IMPACT model component, presented the survey tool and reviewed study sites in heat stress-prone ecologies of South Asia. Zaidi and Tuinstra presented the progress in project capacity building, including nine Ph.D. student fellowships. three workshops/training courses including in-country courses on “Precision phenotyping for heat stress tolerance” in Nepal and Pakistan, and a course on “Statistical analysis and genomic selection.” Project progress was critically reviewed by the project steering committee (PSC) headed by Prasanna, who expressed high satisfaction on its overall development. Speaking for USAID, Lapitan said: “I am highly impressed with the progress in the HTMA project. Within a period of two years there is a first wave of heat-tolerant hybrids ready for large-scale testing and deployment. This is one of the 26 projects in our climate-resilient cereals portfolio, but this project successfully demonstrated excellent balance between up-stream and down-stream research. We have made impressive progress, and are rather ahead on some milestones. I consider it a model project.”

Other PSC members also expressed their satisfaction, and agreed that HTMA has made tremendous progress in products for heat stress ecologies in the partners’ target environments. After discussing the progress in detail, project partners discussed the work plan and research activities for the third year. A parallel group discussion on objectives helped finalize the workplans and activities for each partner during the project’s third year.

Finally, the PSC met and discussed the overall progress of the project in detail. In addition to Prasanna chairing the PSC, members include Dr. Mohammda Munir, chief scientific officer, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council; Dr. Yagna Gajadhar Khadka, director, crops and horticulture, Nepal Agricultural Research Council; Dr. Khalid Sultan, research director, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute; Dr. B.V. Patil, director of education at UAS; Tuinstra; Dr. N.P. Sarma, Kaveri Seeds; and Zaidi as member secretary.

Overall, the PSC members expressed their satisfaction with ongoing activities and the progress being made by HTMA, particularly the close collaboration with partner institutions. “I sincerely hope that the same momentum is maintained for rest of the project, which is certainly going to have a strong impact on the maize farming community in stressprone agro-ecologies of South Asia,” said Munir.

The meeting was also attended by special guests, including Drs. Navin Hada and Danielle Knueppel from USAID in Nepal, and Dr. Mahendra Prasad Khanal and Mr. Dilaram Bhandari from the Agricultural Ministry of Nepal. They stated their appreciation for the opportunity to participate in the meeting for the project model and noted HTMA’s fast-track progress. Khanal said, “We need to have a similar project for maize research and development in Nepal, since we are also pushing for hybrid varieties, and we should use a similar public-private partnership model for the product development and deployment.”

Research managers and scientists from CIMMYT, Limagrain and Seed Co Limited held a discussion at CIMMYT-Nairobi on 4 July to forge a partnership to effectively tackle the maize lethal necrosis (MLN) disease in Africa.

Scientists from CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program, led by BM Prasanna, and representatives of the two companies, including Thierry Rosin (Limagrain lead for global corn research), Michel Debrand (chief executive officer, Limagrain-Africa), Emmanuel Aubry (head of corn research, Limagrain-South America) and Ephrame Havazvidi (research manager, Seed Co Limited), had detailed discussions on opportunities for collaborative research on MLN, as well as training and capacity building of African partners.

The proposed partnership seeks to fast-track the breeding and release of MLN-tolerant hybrids adapted to Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) through molecular marker-assisted breeding. “Seed Co is already an important partner of CIMMYT in Africa. Limagrain has been supporting CIMMYT’s research work with maize doubled haploids at CIMMYT in Mexico, and disease resistance in Asia,” said Prasanna, adding that through this proposed partnership all parties would bring various strengths to the effort of finding effective solutions to MLN.

MLN has resulted in significant yield losses to smallholder farmers in East Africa. Therefore, it is important to identify and develop germplasm with MLN tolerance to replace the susceptible varieties in SSA as quickly as possible. “CIMMYT’s recent work on identification of trait donors for MLN tolerance, coupled with the establishment of the MLN screening facility at Naivasha, serve as an important foundation for this partnership to develop improved maize varieties for Sub-Saharan Africa with MLN tolerance and other adaptive traits,” said Prasanna.

The visitors from Limagrain and Seed Co also toured the MLN Screening Facility at Naivasha, where germplasm from public and private sector partners is being screened. “It was a very good eye-opener on the MLN disease,” said Havazvidi, who described the MLN research for development efforts of CIMMYT as “well-thought-out,” especially with respect to the investigation of screening protocols and identification of sources of resistance to the disease. “I was impressed with the size of the screening and the professionalism in developing and managing the work at the MLN screening facility,” Rosin said.

“I learned a lot about MLN which was new to me,” stated Aubry. Debrand commented that, “the research collaboration with CIMMYT will enhance the impact of Limagrain and Seed Co in Africa, especially with reference to maizebased food security.”

The International Wheat Information System (IWIS), curated by CIMMYT, contains data gathered from 1976 to the present, from multiple providers situated in countries throughout the world. International Wheat Improvement Network cooperators and partners have provided the genotypic and phenotypic data contained in IWIS.

Access to all phenotypic trait data summary tables, collected on germplasm contained in nurseries distributed by IWIN from 1998 – present, is available below. Access to data on other nurseries is available upon request. As new data is received and entered into IWIS, these phenotypic data summary tables will be updated on an approximately bi-month basis until “live” web-accessibility is available.

Data summary tables

Disclaimer
The data included herein are provided “as is.” CIMMYT makes no representation regarding the authenticity, suitability, accuracy, or completeness of any data contained herein. CIMMYT EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. In no event shall CIMMYT be liable for any actual, indirect, incidental, consequential, special, or exemplary damages arising from the use and/or reliance on such data.

Partners of the Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN) project in Africa, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA), came together to review and discuss the progress and next steps for the project at a workshop on 14-15 May.

“The primary goal of this project is to identify MLN-tolerant germplasm, including inbred lines and pre-commercial hybrids, for potential deployment of MLN-tolerant varieties (with other relevant adaptive traits) through partners in Sub-Saharan Africa. The project also seeks to gain information regarding the genetics of resistance to the disease, create awareness and build capacity for more effective MLN management.

“As the project matures, we will be screening additional promising germplasm coming out of the MLN screening facility at Naivasha and from national agricultural research institute (NARI) partners at satellite testing centers in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda under high natural disease pressure. This will help to validate the performance of the germplasm under MLN in important agro-ecologies,” said CIMMYT Global Maize Program Director and MLN-Africa project leader, BM Prasanna.

Mike Robinson, chief scientific advisor at SFSA and representatives of several seed companies and NARIs in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda participated in the MLN Field Day at Naivasha on 14 May. The companies included East African Seed, Kenya Seed Company, Meru Agro, Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer and Seed Co Limited. “We hope to submit several germplasm entries for trials at the MLN screening facility in the next planting season,” said Francis Ndambuki, a maize breeder with Kenya Seed Company.

Less than a year after its opening, the MLN screening facility is now fully functional, evaluating materials from several partner organizations, including the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, NARIs and seed companies. The partners/ visitors had an opportunity to see several trials taking place at the facility, as well as promising MLN-tolerant germplasm. Scientists involved in this project are working intensively – in collaboration with national and international institutions to develop and validate virus inoculation and germplasm screening protocols. They are also testing a large array of germplasm for responses against MLN under artificial inoculation, developing diagnostic techniques and building the capacity of national partners in MLN diagnostics and management.

The CIMMYT seed systems team is working on scaling-up the identified MLN-tolerant germplasm and distributing it to interested public and private partners in Africa. The progress made on the project’s diverse fronts was presented in detail, and the next steps were discussed during the project meeting held in Nairobi on 15 May. “We are pleased that CIMMYT teamed with KARI to address this important issue for Africa,” said Joseph Mureithi, KARI deputy director. Mureithi continued, “The MLN screening facility at Naivasha is a model of partnership between CGIAR centers, NARIs and the private sector,” adding that the results of the trials at the facility would have far-reaching impact. “Stresses such as drought and poor soil fertility could potentially compound the expression of the MLN disease,” said KARI virologist Dr. Anne Wangai, a key partner in this project. “This is a great opportunity to demonstrate the confluence of technologies – breeding, pathology and entomology,” said Robinson, urging the project partners to further strengthen the scientific edge and demonstrate how the research being undertaken on the disease can quickly result in products that benefit African farmers affected by the disease.

“Policy advocacy is key,” said Wilfred Mwangi, CIMMYT’s regional representative for Africa. He emphasized the need to fast-track registration and commercialization of the MLN-tolerant hybrids, especially in the MLN-affected countries. The Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS) was commended for its commitment and support in fast-tracking the release of promising MLN-tolerant hybrids. “There is fast progress on the MLN research and the first wave of improved materials is coming now,” said Robinson, adding that he is looking forward to seeing more materials in the future. He emphasized the importance of coordination, policy clarity, communication and international synergies on MLN research and development in Africa.

CIMMYT International Wheat Improvement Network (IWIN) international nurseries are sent to cooperators with unique, paper field books for each nursery set (or occurrence). Today, many cooperators also prefer to receive field books in electronic formats. This web page enables recipients of IWIN international nurseries to download these unique recipient-specific field books in Excel™ format of Microsoft Office, version 95.

Please do not change the unique file name(s) of download field books if you wish to return data to IWIN using these electronic files. Data should be sent to Efren Rodríguez (e.rodriguez@cgiar.org), or mailed to:

Efren Rodríguez
Seed Inspection and Distribution Unit
CIMMYT, Int.
Apdo. Postal 6-641
06600 Mexico, D.F.
MEXICO

Several columns (e.g. Cross Name, Selection History, Origin, Plot) in the downloaded field book worksheets are “data protected” to prevent data change. This protection is essential if the files will be used to return to CIMMYT cooperator-collected phenotypic data. If you wish to extract data from these protected columns for manipulation in a spreadsheet, or import into a separate database, use the Edit-Copy-Paste routine in Excel.

Yield trials are sent using uniquely randomized second replications. The first replication of all yield trials is uniform, in entry order, for all sets (or occurrences). The second replication, however, is uniquely randomized per occurrence. It is therefore crucial that sets of seed and the accompanying fieldbooks are not interchanged, because each set has a specific 2nd replication randomization layout and, therefore, a specific fieldbook.

Each individual set of seed for a trial is given an “occurrence” or set number. Occurrence number refers to the number used to identify the seed set assigned or distributed to each cooperator and links to each specific randomization used. Thus if a cooperator sows more than one set at the same location, these sets will have the same location code, but a different occurrence number. Assure that the occurrence on the fieldbook matches the number on the seed envelopes. In case of a lost fieldbook, IWIN will generate a new one (on paper and electronic form) giving the same set or occurrence number that appears on the nursery seed packets.

Barley fieldbooks in IWIS were included with the cooperation of the ICARDA/CIMMYT Barley Improvement Program 

CIMMYT, CIBIOGEM and the North Carolina State University (NCSU) transgenics and society group joined together at CIMMYT headquarters on 24 July for the symposium “Transgenics and Society: Towards a constructive dialogue that contributes to policies and regulatory frameworks.” The event was organized to highlight the importance of scientific and moral considerations surrounding individuals’ and hence society’s perspectives about transgenic crops and other emerging technologies.

Secretary for Information and Research Support of CIBIOGEM Dr. Laura Tovar Castillo, welcomed participants on behalf of Dr. Sol Ortiz García, Executive Secretary of CIBIOGEM, and highlighted the importance of this symposium and of achieving constructive dialogue about transgenic technologies. Nearly 1 billion people are suffering from hunger and poverty worldwide, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

Kevin Pixley, director of the CIMMYT Genetics Resources Program, opened the event with a quote from Megan Clark, CEO of Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO): “In the next 50 years we will need to produce as much food as has been consumed over our entire human history.”

Climate change, depleted natural resources and overpopulation are just a few of the problems contributing to worldwide food insecurity. Pixley noted that this requires us to make a difference worldwide. “How are we going to help these people survive?” asked CIMMYT director general Tom Lumpkin in his welcome to participants. “CIMMYT is in favor of the technology of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Though I do say that with words of caution, because we do want to support the developing world with access to this technology, but it is possible to make a bad GMO. I’ve traveled all around the world and seen lax handling of GMOs.”

The discussion was separated into two sessions. CIMMYT staff can view the presentations on InSide CIMMYT. The first session was led by Fred Gould, NCSU professor of entomology and transgenics. Gould’s presentation was titled “The Past, Present and Future of Genetic Engineering Technologies,” and discussed the past marketing of genetically engineered products, new technologies and the possibilities of many new GM technologies. Jennifer Kuzma, co-director of the Genetic Engineering and Society Program at NCSU, finished the first session with a discussion on the governance of genetically engineered organisms and how they are regulated in different countries. “We need to find a middle approach to incorporate values and science in the governance of genetically engineered organisms,” said Kuzma in a wrapup of her presentation.

The second half of the symposium presented the perspective of professionals who have deep ties in Mexican agriculture and also are concerned about the personal and moral issues that influence perceptions about GMOs. Presenters included: Concepción Rodríguez Maciel, associate researcher and professor at the Colegio de Postgraduados; Javier Becerril, professor of economics at the Universidad Autonoma de Yucatán; and Carolina Camacho, principal researcher in the CIMMYT Socioeconomics Program. The theme that ran through these presentations was the need for transgenic crops in Mexico compared with the difficulty of fully explaining the benefits and concerns of transgenic crops to small-scale farmers. Rodríguez Maciel said: “As a country, we have spent way too much time discussing biotechnology issues. It’s time to integrate all the different types of agriculture to face the challenges that climate change will bring. We do need to remember that we are talking to normal human beings and we need to speak their language.”

Jason Delborne, associate professor of science, policy and society at NCSU, rounded out the discussion with his presentation on how to conduct a productive and informative dialogue on transgenic research. He has developed a five-step process that is designed to facilitate a formal discussion regarding transgenic research and ease the general public into a conversation about transgenics that leads to productive action. Building on the foundations of this symposium, CIMMYT hopes to contribute to discussions in Mexico and elsewhere that generate better understanding of the scientific and personal perspectives that societies must acknowledge and address in developing their policies about transgenics (and next generations of technologies).

As highlighted by Jason Delborne, the most important step is often asking and addressing the right question, which in many cases during this symposium participants learned was not actually about transgenics. Instead, the right questions might be about conserving biodiversity, enhancing the ecological sustainability of agricultural practices, preserving the right to save grain for planting next crops, offering technologies that are affordable to resource-poor farmers or about how humankind will produce as much food in the next 50 years as has been consumed over the entire history of humanity.