By Imtiaz Muhammad/CIMMYT

International and Pakistani scientists are expanding efforts to accelerate access to climate-resilient maize and rust-resistant wheat varieties in Pakistan, as well as to improve farmers’ access to quality seeds, as part of the Agricultural Innovation Program (AIP). Project partners discussed these priorities during a cereals and cereal systems meeting at the National Agricultural Research Center (NARC) in Islamabad from 29 to 30 August. AIP is a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)- funded project focusing on cereals, vegetables and livestock in Pakistan, a country challenged by rapid population growth and climate change.

CIMMYT is working with the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and other partners to increase agricultural productivity and the value of agricultural commodities in the country. The program is supporting Pakistan in agricultural research for development, which includes building partnerships between research and those it serves; increasing investments; generating, sharing and making use of agricultural knowledge for development; and demonstrating and building awareness of the development impact and returns from agricultural innovation. Farmers throughout the world face similar problems from increasing production costs, fluctuating market prices, water and soil degradation and potential implications of climate change, said Ken Sayre, a CIMMYT consultant on conservation agriculture. Sayre also described the benefits of conservation agriculture crop management technologies and their main principles.

These include seeding systems that allow major reductions in tillage, retaining adequate levels of crop residues on the soil surface and using diversified crop rotations. There are many challenges AIP can address. Maize yields in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province are low due to a lack of technology. Most maize farmers in Pakistan use manual sowing, which is not cost or time-effective, and farmers need more confidence in hybrid seeds before they will pay a premium for them. Meeting participants discussed several options for commissioned projects in wheat, including rapid diffusion of high-yielding, rust-resistant wheat; introducing fungicides for wheat management; and generating a durum wheat value chain in Pakistan. Participants also discussed potential projects and goals related to climate-resilient wheat, the cultivation of durum wheat in Balochistan province, the standardization of fungicides to combat yield losses and strengthening communication.

For the rice work plan, top priority areas include developing tolerance to submergence and heat in locally adapted varieties such as super basmati, basmati 515, IR-6 and IR 9, in addition to bacterial leaf blight resistance and superior grain quality. Abdul Rehman and Surapong Sarkarung represented IRRI, where some of the activities have already begun. Priorities for the maize work plan include introducing climateresilient maize hybrids, developing biofortified maize, developing cultivars with resistance to biotic stresses and strengthening the maize seed sector. CIMMYT maize expert R. Sadananda and national partners joined to refine the maize work plan. Kay Simmons from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)-Agricultural Research Service and Ian C. Winborne, plant health advisor for the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, also attended the meeting to discuss wheat productivity enhancement in Pakistan.

By Nirmal Gadal/CIMMYT

A three-day travelling seminar organized by CIMMYT’s Hill Maize Research Project (HMRP) and partners gave policy makers a first-hand look at the status of maize varietal development, source seed production, agronomic interventions and seed multiplication and marketing in 20 districts of Nepal. In close partnership with the Nepal Agriculture Research Council (NARC) and the Department of Agriculture (DoA), HRMP hosted this third annual seminar from 27 to 30 August for 25 officials representing donors such as the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), as well as organizations including the National Planning Commission, Ministry of Agriculture Development (MoAD), Ministry of Finance, non-government organizations, private companies and the media.

Participants visited a variety of sites. At the Agriculture Research Station (ARS) in the district of Dailekh, attendees interacted with scientists and observed maize research activities and conservation agriculture trials. In this area, the project is promoting intercropping white quality protein maize (Poshilo Makai-1) and off-season vegetables such as bitter gourd, tomatoes and radishes. HIV/AIDS infected women farmers in Rakam village of Dailekh were also invited to participate. “Our main resource is land,” said 30-year-old farmer Mana Sara Sijapati during a group discussion. “We must increase our production from this land to have food security in our households during the entire year.” She asked the participants for a program targeted toward farmers affected by HIV/AIDS. Ram Prasad Pulami, joint secretary at the MoAD, asked NARC and DoA representatives to respond to the request immediately.

The group then participated in an interactive program with farmers, observed seed production activities and assessed on-farm trials and demonstration plots at the Basnatamala and Jeevanjyoti Women Community Based Seed Production (CBSP) Group. Dr. G. Ortiz-Ferrara, team leader for HMRP/CIMMYT, and Pulami jointly inaugurated an HMRPfunded seed store house that was built for the CBSP group. The team also visited the Sambriddhi Agriculture Cooperative, Ltd., as well as a quality protein maize village, where conservation agriculture trials will soon be established. Ortiz-Ferrara thanked all the participants, including the HMRP team, for their active participation and support in making the seminar successful. Pulami said during his closing remarks that he appreciated HMRP’s efforts and progress, especially the partnerships between the project and a number of diverse stakeholders. He said the government of Nepal is implementing a “Mid-hill Mega Maize Production Program” focused on 40 hill districts and will utilize HMRP’s experiences and research innovations.

By Florence Sipalla/CIMMYT

CIMMYT and partner organizations are helping to build the human capacity of seed companies, which contribute to food security by ensuring farmers have access to quality seed. Certified seed is one of the most important inputs farmers need to improve their grain yields and livelihoods.

CIMMYT organizes regular training sessions for seed companies in different countries across Africa, in collaboration with the Seed Enterprise Management Institute (SEMIs) project, which is funded by the Alliance for a Green Revolution (AGRA) and hosted at the University of Nairobi College of Agriculture and Veterinary Services. “AGRA realized that many seed companies across the continent lacked knowledge on seed production, processing, marketing and aspects of seed quality,” said David Ndung’u, project manager for the SEMIs project. Both AGRA and CIMMYT receive funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In the past three years, SEMIs has trained more than 450 seed producers from 17 Sub-Saharan African countries, including Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. “This training has been identified as one of the triggers for the huge increase in production of high-quality seed by AGRA-funded seed companies all over Sub-Saharan Africa,” Ndung’u said. The seed production course, taught by John MacRobert, seed systems lead for CIMMYT, is among the most popular with seed companies, Ndung’u said.
The course focuses on challenges companies face in managing hybrid maize seed. “John brings a wealth of experience in this field,” Ndung’u continued. “He is helping seed companies plan better and improve their seed production capabilities.” MacRobert’s book, Seed Business Management in Africa, is included in the course materials. CIMMYT’s Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa project (DTMA) also utilizes MacRobert’s book in training sessions for seed company staff. CIMMYT has conducted seed production management courses in Angola, Ethiopia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe, training more than 200 personnel from the private and public sectors over the past six years.

The trainings emphasize cooperative learning while providing technical information and management tools. CIMMYT seed systems specialists also made more than 80 follow-up visits to seed company partners in 2013. Ngila Kimotho, the CEO of Dryland Seed Company, based in Machakos, Kenya, attended a 2008-09 seed course. “The course was very useful in enhancing my understanding of seed business management through the value chain – from research to the market,” Kimotho said. “My knowledge in the field has greatly improved, as I didn’t understand the business initially,” added Kimotho, whose background is in food technology. In 2011, Gloria Kimotho, Kimotho’s daughter, attended a CIMMYT course in Zimbabwe and is now actively involved in the Dryland Seeds management team. SEMIs and CIMMYT are also collaborating in field demonstrations of DTMA varieties – a way to promote adoption by farmers because seed companies are able to pick suitable products by closely watching field performance. “Having many seed varieties is good for diversity,” explained Mosisa Worku Regasa, a seed systems specialist. “With the emergence of maize lethal necrosis (MLN) disease, many maize varieties from seed companies in eastern Africa are susceptible to the disease.” An efficient seed system will contribute to the rapid scale-up and dissemination of MLN-resistant varieties.

“To be a great ‘seeds man’ you really need to understand your plants well,” said Ndung’u, who worked as a visiting scientist for DTMA under CIMMYT maize breeder Dan Makumbi. “My knowledge and understanding were greatly enhanced during my time at CIMMYT

By Miriam Shindler/CIMMYT

CIMMYT, in partnership with the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), established two major maize facilities in Kenya last week. The Maize Doubled-Haploid Facility for Africa at KARI-Kiboko aims to accelerate the development of stress-resilient and nutritionally-improved maize varieties while the Maize Lethal Necrosis Screening Facility at KARI-Naivasha will focus on tackling deadly maize lethal necrosis (MLN).

The doubled-haploid (DH) facility, established with funding support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was inaugurated on 25 September by Felix K. Koskei, Kenya’s cabinet secretary for Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries. Representatives from the ministry and country government, the CIMMYT board of trustees and management committee and the KARI director and board of management attended the inauguration. “Just as agriculture is the driver of economic growth, so is agricultural research the engine of agriculture,” Koskei said. “I take this opportunity to congratulate maize research scientists for their tireless efforts in conducting cutting-edge agricultural research directed at solving the constraints that hinder agricultural growth.”

The facility will help serve African agriculture for years to come, said CIMMYT Director General Thomas Lumpkin. “The Maize DH Facility will be key to fast-tracking the development and delivery of drought tolerant, disease and insectpest resistant and nutritionally enriched maize varieties for the benefit of Kenyan and African farmers at large,” he said. The MLN screening facility will address another challenge: while maize is Africa’s most important food crop, the 2011 drought in East Africa – combined with the emergence of MLN in eastern Africa in 2012 – resulted in significant crop losses and severe food shortages across the region. The accelerated development and delivery of MLNresistant maize varieties with other important adaptive traits is an urgent priority for CIMMYT and its partners in the region. The MLN Screening Facility at KARI-Naivasha is central to achieving this goal and was made possible with funding support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture.

Inaugurating the MLN Screening Facility at KARI-Naivasha, Kenya’s Principal Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture Sicily Kariuki commended CIMMYT and KARI for their rapid response to MLN and for establishing a screening facility that will benefit the entire region. The facility aims to provide MLN phenotyping services and effectively manage the risk of MLN on maize production through screening and identifying MLNresistant maize germplasm. It will make use of public and private sector research partners in Africa to contribute to food security and to the livelihoods of farming communities in Eastern Africa. Through the KARI-CIMMYT partnership, several promising maize inbred lines and hybrids with resistance to MLN have Photo: Florence Sipalla already been identified and are being further validated and used in breeding strategies to develop MLN-resistant maize hybrids. Prasanna Boddupalli, director of the CIMMYT Global Maize Program, emphasized the facility “will serve not only CIMMYT and KARI, but other interested public and private sector institutions that are engaged in developing and delivering improved maize varieties to farmers in Africa.”

By Brenna Goth/CIMMYT

Students from 13 Mexican universities learned about CIMMYT’s work and mission during the 7th annual Open Door event at El Batán on 20 September. Organized by the Training Office, the event hosted 285 students from seven Mexican states. It introduces students to CIMMYT through visits to the maize and wheat demonstration plots, the germplasm bank and laboratories, as well as through presentations about various CIMMYT programs.

The Training Office said the event was well received and thanked everyone involved for the help. Staff and speakers from various areas of CIMMYT, including the bioscience building, the canteen and security, contributed to Open Door’s success. For most students, Open Door was their first opportunity to learn about and visit CIMMYT. “Basically, it’s new to us,” said Alejandro García Ochoa, a 23-year-old sustainable agriculture engineering student at the Instituto Tecnológico Superior de Los Reyes Michoacán. García, who plans on pursuing a master’s degree after graduation, said he was interested by the visits to the germplasm bank and laboratories. “I learned the importance of saving the genetic heritage in our country,” García said.

For Lisbeth Bautista Salazar, a 27-year-old master’s student at the Universidad Autonoma de Querétaro, the 2013 Open Door event was her second visit to CIMMYT. She first came to CIMMYT more than two years ago with other students from her university. Bautista said she enjoyed the tour this year and learned how crucial it is to improve maize for the benefit of society. “It’s a really important mission,” Bautista said. “It’s so challenging with all the social, political and climate problems we’re facing.” Bautista wants to work in Oaxaca after graduation. She explained her grandparents live in an area of the state that could benefit from CIMMYT initiatives as well as from what she is learning in school. “They need this knowledge and the opportunity to apply this knowledge” Bautista said.

Other students indicated they are considering CIMMYT for future career opportunities. Jaime Cesar Vallejo Galván, a 25-year-old agricultural engineering student at the Instituto Tecnológico Superior de Los Reyes Michoacán, said his first visit to CIMMYT taught him about improving maize and wheat varieties. He said he wants to pursue a master’s degree after graduation or “work in a place like this.”

Retired CIMMYT scientist Alejandro Ortega y Corona was honored for his 59 years of maize research at the Meeting for the Coordination of Investigation of Drought Tolerance in Maize from 5 to 6 August. Ortega received recognition for his work with CIMMYT and Mexico’s National Forestry, Agricultural, and Livestock Research Institute (INIFAP) at a special meeting of the Biodiversity Project of Mexico and CIMMYT’s Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) initiative in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora State, Mexico.

Kevin Pixley, director of CIMMYT’s Genetic Resources Program, extended thanks and gratitude for the 23 years Ortega served in the organization’s maize program in the areas of entomology, physiology, breeding and pathology. Pixley read letters sent by former CIMMYT maize physiologist Greg Edmeades and Marianne Bänziger, deputy director general for research and partnerships, who worked closely with Ortega in developing drought and heat tolerant maize varieties. A Yaqui dancer statue was presented to Ortega to honor his years of hard work, dedication and leadership at CIMMYT. INIFAP’s Salvador Fernandez and Rafael Ariza congratulated Ortega for his service and dedication.

Erasmo Valenzuela Cornejo, director of INIFAP’s Northwest Regional Research Center of spoke about Ortega’s accomplishments and contributions, among them the mass rearing of insects for CIMMYT maize breeders, QPM maize and screening for heat and drought tolerance. Ortega produced the heat tolerant hybrid H431, which continues to be the number-one hybrid in commercial production for summer plantings in southern Sonora. More than 40 INIFAP scientists, including regional directors and research station superintendents, attended the meeting, as well as five CIMMYT scientists. Scientists working on drought or heat tolerance in maize from other institutions, including the University of Nuevo Leon, Antonio Narro Agrarian Autonomous University and the maize seed company Pioneer–Mexico, also attended the meeting.

Martha Willcox and Gilberto Salinas from MasAgro- Biodiversity organized the meeting to coordinate research evaluating maize accessions from both INIFAP and the CIMMYT germplasm bank, which were collected in arid areas under controlled drought trials to identify new sources of drought resistance. The expansion of infrastructure to conduct large-scale replicated trials on INIFAP stations was a main topic of discussion. Salinas gave an overview of the MasAgro Biodiversity project and Willcox explained the specific objectives for drought and heat phenotyping under the project.

Juan Manuel Hernández and Ariel Ruíz from INIFAP gave a history of the recent INIFAP maize collection, which Ortega coordinated on a national level, and the selection within that collection for semiarid races based on GPS and climatic data. Samuel Trachsel, maize physiologist, explained CIMMYT’s methods of evaluating drought tolerance as well as the infrastructure and equipment needed. Trachsel also spoke about site requirements and precipitation and temperature profiles provided by Kai Sonder to best select sites for development. Juan Burgueno and Willcox spoke on genetic variation within accessions and experimental design.

By Surabhi Mittal/CIMMYT

CIMMYT’s Surabhi Mittal gave a lecture and met with policymakers from Kenya, Liberia and Malawi as part of the Chaudhary Charan Singh National Institute of Agricultural Marketing, Department of Agriculture & Cooperation, Government of India training program on 23 September. The three-month program is the first in a series of three trainings funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development in cooperation with Africa and India.

The training aimed to strengthen ties between India and Africa in learning about agricultural initiatives, challenges and success stories, as well as pointing to innovative marketing and policy solutions to address food security challenges in Africa. Presenters included senior officials from the three African countries and participants from organizations involved in cereal crops, horticulture, animal husbandry, dairy, fisheries, agribusiness, financial institutions and academia engaged in agromarketing. Mittal spoke about government food security policies and modern information and communications technologybased extension policies in India. The discussion covered fertilizer policies, price policies, coping mechanisms to mitigate climate change risk, conservation agriculture and food security programs.

By P.H. Zaidi/CIMMYT

A new facility at CIMMYT-Hyderabad, India, will allow researchers to assess and quantify key root traits and their dynamics under various growing conditions. CIMMYT’s new root phenotyping facility is based on the lysimetric system, by which scientists can directly assess and quantify root traits and their dynamics under various growing conditions. It also allows high-precision phenotyping of various root traits.

The system revolutionizes the research, moving from a static assessment of roots through time-consuming extraction and scanning to a real-time measurement of water uptake, water use and an assessment of variation in roots under different growing conditions in the rhizosphere. Recent advances in high-precision weighing systems and information technology tools have greatly improved its efficiency and effectiveness as a root phenotyping system.

CIMMYT’s root phenotyping facility is specially designed for – but not restricted to – maize. The facility features 2,400 minirhizotron observation tubes placed in eight concrete pits. A wheeled stand is used to lift the rhizotrons for weighing. The weight of the cylinder, along with the entire plant, is monitored periodically and allows researchers to estimate the amount of water used and transpired as well as the transpiration efficiency of different genotypes. Roots are critically important to plants because they are the part first exposed to any soil-mediated stresses, such as drought, waterlogging, salt stress or nutrient stress. Root traits govern the overall performance of plants; however, this important hidden half is often avoided due to the complexity involved in studying root structure and functions.

In maize, the genotypic variation in root traits and variation under stresses can be carefully selected in targeted breeding for stress tolerance, which can contribute significantly to genetic gains. Root traits are often judged on the basis of related characteristics, which may not accurately explain the stress-responsive — or adaptive — structural and functional changes in roots under sub-optimal or stressed conditions. The facility is used in phenotyping root traits of mapping populations developed for various molecular breeding projects on drought and heat stress tolerance as well as other traits usually observed in field conditions, including morphological traits and grain yield. It is located under a renovated rain shelter, protecting the trials from rain at the targeted crop stage and allowing for yearround use.

CIMMYT is grateful to the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture for its financial support of the facility and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi- Arid Tropics for providing space and other logistic support in establishing this unique facility.

By M.L. Jat/CIMMYT

Increased access to seeds better suited for local conditions and climate-smart crop management technologies are two strategies Bioversity International and CIMMYT India are using to improve the climate change resilience of resource-poor farmers. With the 14 August visit of Bioversity International Director General Ann Tutwiler to the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) Pusa site and the climate-smart villages in the Vaishali district of Bihar, this partnership has strengthened and will work to improve farmers’ coping and adaptation to climate change in eastern India. The groups are working under Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).

Agriculture is affected by variable temperatures and erratic climate events. Smallholder farmers who are impacted suffer from low production and increasing costs. Tutwiler said that CIMMYT, BISA and Bioversity have common interests and should complement each other’s work in making smallholder farmers climatesmart through local adaptation of stress-tolerant seeds and integrating them with better agronomic management. The greatest need is in multi-stakeholder partnerships and to apply collective wisdom to address these challenges for farmers’ benefits, she said.

Tutwiler and other visitors saw strategic research on conservation agriculture at the BISA farm as well as collaborative research between CIMMYT and the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI). Participants discussed the long-term benefits of conservation agriculture, such as increased productivity, improved soil fertility, cost savings and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. “At Pusa, we have established long-term research on conservation agriculture in predominant cropping systems to monitor and devise resilient future cropping systems and their component technologies for the eastern Indo Gangetic Plains,” said M.L. Jat, a CIMMYT senior cropping systems agronomist. “These work as capacity-building platforms for various stakeholders.”

The team also saw climate-smart technologies promoted by CIMMYT in collaboration with other CGIAR centers and national agricultural research and extension services under CCAFS. Mamta Kumari, a woman farmer from the climate-smart village Rajapakar said, “Rainfall has been unreliable for the last few years. Our crops and livelihoods are at risk with changing weather. But we are now getting more information about new seed, methods and technologies; we can see a change.” With access to timely information on weather, better-adapted seeds and improved crop management, women farmers are now feeling more empowered. “We are saving around 5,000 Rupees (about US$79) on the cost of production using zero tillage in wheat cultivation,” Kumari said. Tutwiler met and shared her experiences with CIMMYT Director General Thomas Lumpkin and discussed common goals of Bioversity, BISA and CIMMYT to improve lives of farmers under changing climate conditions

By Arun Joshi/CIMMYT

Women farmers in India are learning about the benefits of biofortified wheat from CIMMYT and other CGIAR researchers. Scientists met with 106 women on 8 August in the village of Pidkhir, in Mirzapur District of Uttar Pradesh, India, to advocate for the use of biofortified wheat and listen to feedback on nutrition and the impacts of nutritional deficiency on women and children.

The event was part of a program conducted in more than 50 villages in India’s Eastern Gangetic Plains. Collaborators included Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in Varanasi, Mahamana Krishak Samiti (a farmers’ cooperative in Mirzapur) and CIMMYT’s South Asia office in Kathmandu, Nepal. BHU’s Chhavi Tiwari led the meeting in Pidkhir, which was attended by women of different ages and occupations including farmers, housewives, daily wage workers, government organization workers and school teachers. Other participating scientists included B. Arun, Ramesh Chand and V.K. Mishra from the BHU HarvestPlus wheat team as well as Arun Joshi from CIMMYT.

The HarvestPlus project was started at BHU in 2005 as part of a collaborative effort with the Biofortification Challenge Program (HarvestPlus) at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, the International Food Policy Research Institute and CIMMYT to identify biofortified wheat varieties adapted in South Asia. Five of the participants at the meeting participated in the HarvestPlus trials in Pidkhir that began in 2005 and said they were happy with the wheat variety. “I cannot believe that wheat with high zinc and iron could be grown in our fields in the near future,” said Sursati, a woman working with HarvestPlus wheat throughout the course of the project. Most participants were new to the subject and learned about the importance of biofortified wheat – particularly its importance to the health of women and children. Women also answered a questionnaire on their backgrounds and interests in biofortified wheat. Most were educated through primary school and some were given help by literate peers. Four male farmers from Pidkhir, including Harbans Singh, head of the Mahamana Krishak Cooperative, also facilitated the process.

All of the women were in favor of receiving biofortified wheat developed through the HarvestPlus project. They also expressed their desire to visit and see the BHU research farm, where wheat scientists from the university are conducting research with CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program team. The farmers agreed to advocate for new biofortified wheat varieties and help the BHU team when needed.