Executive representatives of more than 30 Mexican smallscale seed companies who belong to the International Maize Yield Consortium (IMIC) of the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) program attended a workshop titled “Planning the MasAgro-IMIC network of seed sector members and partners.”

Initially workshop participants were given general information on progress achieved by MasAgro. Félix San Vicente, IMIC leader at CIMMYT, then presented a list of basic and pre-commercial materials that IMIC has developed for Mexico’s main agro-ecological environments. San Vicente also described several training and capacity building activities that IMIC has prepared and which should contribute to increasing the productivity of Mexico’s seed industry.

Laura Donnet, IMIC’s Socioeconomic Studies coordinator, estimated that the companies represented at the workshop currently hold close to an 18% share of the market. For this reason, the challenge for IMIC is to collaborate with Mexican seed companies and help them to work together to sustainably increase their market share.

With this goal in mind, workshop discussions centered on identifying market information that seed companies require to successfully market IMIC’s new products. Seed producers also focused on designing commercialization and marketing strategies that would contribute to developing the improved seed market in MasAgro’s target areas. As a result, action plans were established for each agro-ecological area with the aim of promoting the adoption of improved seed by IMIC network members and partners.

Also attending the workshop were experts in plant breeding, seed markets and Mexico’s agroindustrial maize chain. During the general meetings workshop organizers were able to gather information on what the seed sector expects from MasAgro. The participants expressed great interest in having IMIC foster very close coordination between public sector development programs and their seed production activities.

15 staff members from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and CIMMYT participated in a four-day Leadership Development Program in Nairobi, Kenya, facilitated by Sharon Crabtree and Petr Kosina. The program was aimed at ensuring that leaders were aware of their individual competencies and job requirements, and focused on managerial styles which create a good organizational environment. The workshop activities included group exercises, personal reflection, coaching, and leadership theory.

Drawn from different countries, participants analyzed diverse learning and leadership styles, and the type of organizational climate they create.

Prior to the workshop, they participated in a 360-degree evaluation of leadership competencies, where they evaluated themselves and had their team members evaluate them. The emphasis was on what resonated with the team. “Even though we all have our deficiencies in leadership, we should maximize what we do better,” said Isaiah Nyagumbo, a scientist in the Conservation Agriculture Program reflecting on some of the key lessons from the program. “Often our eyes are open but we do not see,” added Arun K. Joshi, South Asia Regional Coordinator of the Global Wheat Program. “The ideas were not just cut and paste, it is based on research. Thus it is very professional using scientific methods and tools that bring to us the facts.”

Phosiso Sola, CIFOR’s Regional Coordinator for East and Southern Africa, found the program broke down the issues, making them easier to digest. “However, there is a need for follow-up coaching to support the leaders in making the changes they committed to at the end of the program,” she commented on the challenges of the program. Sridhar Bhavani, a wheat breeder based in Nairobi, found it useful to know how people perceive him as a leader: “I was glad to take it [the leadership program] early in my career and feel it will be very useful in the long run.”

The GreenSeeker handheld crop sensor, an easy-to-use measurement device designed to assess the health of a crop, was introduced by Trimble on 6 August 2012. By positioning the sensor over a plant and pulling the trigger, the GreenSeeker instantly calculates the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), which represents the health of the plant. Users can better determine the overall health and needs of a crop by gathering several readings from plants throughout a field. This can result in a more efficient use of fertilizer, which benefits both the farmer’s bottom line and the environment. Before farmers and farm advisers can apply this technology, it needs to be calibrated locally. Through the MasAgro project, the calibration of the GreenSeeker is conducted by national collaborators in 18 states in Mexico for its use in wheat and maize. CIMMYT is also involved in the calibration of the sensor in Asia and Africa.

For more information, visit the product’s website.

CIMMYT-El Batán had the privilege to host Alan Roelfs, an expert on rust research, as a visitor to the wheat program. Roelfs assisted with training as part of the “Advanced Wheat Improvement Course: Pathology Module” during 25 July – 15 August 2012. “Alan Roelfs equals rust,” said CIMMYT wheat pathologist Amor Yahyaoui, summarizing the significance of Roelfs’ expertise and fame.

Roelfs began working on wheat leaf rust as research aide for the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) at Kansas State University, and later transferred to the Cooperative Rust Lab in Minnesota. At USDA he studied stem rust resistance, helped to modernize the stem rust race survey, and monitored spore and disease movement from Mexico to Canada. Roelfs first visited CIMMYT while at Minnesota. “CIMMYT was very different. The wheat and corn programs are now more blended,” he said about his first experiences in Mexico. Roelfs commended the role of CIMMYT in helping Mexico achieve self-sufficiency in wheat production: “Back then it was about improving the crop or not eating.”

A part of Roelfs’ work in Mexico was to track diseases and compare them to CIMMYT’s collection. “Field monitoring of leaf and stem rust populations was significantly different from what it is now,” says Roelfs. “Rust research is also now more like playing with genetics―trying to find out how to turn a trait on or off, depending on what we need it to do.”

Roelfs has visited CIMMYT frequently to attend scientific meetings or offer information on rust lines, and played a key role in the beginning of rust research at CIMMYT. For training, he draws on his vast experience with students with different abilities and backgrounds: “CIMMYT trainings are a very challenging task from the instructor’s perspective because the group is very diverse. There are people with PhD degrees and little field experience, along with people with purely practical experience. Furthermore, there are language barriers, as participants come from different countries.”

Besides training and scientific meetings, Roelfs is also working with CIMMYT scientists on a new edition of Rust Diseases of Wheat: Concepts and Methods of Disease Management, which was first published by CIMMYT in 1992. The new edition will include discoveries from the last 20 years.