The team also elected CIMMYT’s tallest and smallest staff while Martin Van Weerdenburg, Director for Corporate Services, was visiting the CIMMYT-Zimbabwe station. The party included staff from CIMMYT, CIAT and CIFOR and everybody enjoyed an excellent meal, great mood and a torrential rain – mostly above the leaking roof. In spite of the trying circumstances in Zimbabwe, the entire team proved their continued commitment and imagination to cope and succeed under the circumstances. Four NRS were recognized for their long years of service and dedication and received certificates.
During 20-21 November, 16 CIMMYT staff from diverse areas took time out from their busy year-end schedules to attend the workshop “Time Management and Organizing Skills,” offered by the company Performance Training Solutions. Comprising lectures, interactive discussions, and hands-on exercises, the workshop provided strategies, tools, and tips to help the participants get time on their side to improve the way they work and live. “You can’t manage or control time,” explained instructor Harry Peasley, “but you can manage yourself in relation to time, and control how you use it.” One key approach Peasley promotes is using a weekly calendar to order one’s work life. “A lot of effective time management consists of changing bad habits, which tend to be like a comfortable bed: easy to get into, but hard to get out of!”
Anne Wangalachi conveys heartfelt thanks to the CIMMYT-Zimbabwe team for sharing their time, experience, and expertise with her during her three-day visit this week. Wangalachi, a science writer and editor, was on a mission to orient herself about Zimbabwe operations in the region.
She said the team shows enthusiasm, dedication, competence and professionalism for both simple and complex aspects of their work. From variety development to seed shipment; leaf hopper multiplication; conservation agriculture and soil fertility management, to coordinating operations—all components seem to run like clockwork. “One feels right at home, regardless of where one is based within CIMMYT,” says Wangalachi.
A hearty Asanteni sana (thank you very much) goes to you all at CIMMYT-Zimbabwe!
This Wednesday, CIMMYT was represented at a Monsanto-sponsored informal media exchange dinner at Nairobi’s Norfolk Hotel for Kenyan and visiting South African journalists. The participants shared their respective experiences, challenges, and opportunities in reporting on developments in agricultural biotechnology over the years. While appreciating that much more needs to be done in Kenya, it emerged that fostering farmer-to-farmer technology transfers; working with agricultural biotechnology experts, and rewarding agricultural science journalists would greatly enhance developments in this area.
Other noteworthy recommendations were devising indigenous, low cost, and home-grown strategies for communicating developments to key end-users—the farmers themselves; likened to the age-old African custom of having discussions “around the fire.” The power of effective communication about innovations in science and technology, including agricultural biotechnology, is crucial to socioeconomic development for food and livelihood security and should be applied effectively in Africa.
Former CIMMYT wheat agronomist (1986-91) Bill Raun has been named the 2007 recipient of the Sarkeys Distinguished Professor Award by the Oklahoma State University (OSU) Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. The Sarkeys award is based on outstanding contributions to agriculture through teaching, research or extension efforts. The award was established by the Sarkeys Foundation in 1980 to honor Elmo Baumann, an agronomist who worked with the foundation after his retirement from OSU. Raun was named a Fellow of the Soil Science of America and American Society of Agronomy and has received many prestigious honors, including the ASA Werner L. Nelson Award, the Robert E. Wagner Award, the OSU Regents Distinguished Research Award and the OSU James A. Whatley Award for Meritorious Service in Agricultural Sciences.
CIMMYT’s Director of Resource Mobilization, Rodomiro Ortiz, has been elected by peers as Chair of the CGIAR Alliance Deputy Executive (ADE). The ADE deals with common, cross-center issues of research strategy, implementation and quality, as well as financial, audit and administrative compliance with the CGIAR system demands. Ortiz will serve for one year, beginning in January 2.
Takashi Kumashiro (Director, Biological Resources Division) and Kazuo Nakashima (Senior Scientist, Biotechnology Lab of Dr. Yamaguchi-Shinozaki) from the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS) visited CIMMYT during 29-30th November for the first mid-year year review meeting of a new five year project funded by the Japanese Ministry of Fisheries and Food (MAFF).
The project is the second phase of a JIRCAS-CGIAR collaborative initiative to develop transgenic drought tolerance in a range of tropical staple crops—an initiative launched by Masa Iwanaga when he was Director of the Biological Resources Division of JIRCAS. The current project involves the use of a second generation of drought responsive elements (DREB genes) generated by JIRCAS scientists and other transgenes (especially transcription factors) generated by the Gene Discovery Research Team of the Plant Science Center of the RIKEN Yokohama Institute. Led by GREU director Jonathan Crouch, the current project is a joint wheat and rice initiative through collaborations between CIMMYT, CIAT and IRRI.
Wheat scientists met at CIMMYT El Batán to discuss the wheat phenome pilot project on 12 and 13 November 2007. CIMMYT and the University of Queensland have been working together to develop a “wheat phenome atlas” (WPA) since 2006.
“The WPA will be a freely-available online tool for wheat scientists. It will describe which parts of the genome influence the inheritance of all economically-important traits,” says Ian Godwin, molecular geneticist from the University of Queensland. Breeders will be able to go online for detailed information on a small piece of DNA sequence that affects resistance to leaf rust, for example. “This technology could also be applied to other crops such as maize and rice,” adds Godwin. Information for the WPA is obtained through advanced statistical analyses of decades of yield trials and recent data from molecular markers. CIMMYT has 40 years of data from field experiments, and has stored the seeds from these trials in the germplasm bank. Scientists can thus link data from yield trials with genetic analysis of seeds from the trials.
“The WPA will be accessible to anyone in the international wheat community, making the process of developing cultivars faster, cheaper, and more efficient,” says Hans-Joachim Braun, Head of the Global Wheat Program. A basic version of the WPA should be up and running by late 2008, says Godwin.
Left to right: Ian Godwin, Ian de Lacy, Christopher Lambrides (back), and Kaye Basford (all from the Universify of Queensland, Australia).
Miroslav Jurena, Minister of Agriculture of the Slovak Republic, spent the day at El Batán on 15 November 2007 to learn about wheat research and related work in crop genetic resources and biotechnology. There will be follow-up communication with the Ministry to establish stronger links with CIMMYT, through the center’s office in Turkey.
On 16 October 2007, CIMMYT maize breeder and assistant director of the center’s global maize program, Kevin Pixley, was given the G.H. Stringfield Award from Ohio State University, USA, in recognition of “his outstanding contributions to the science of maize breeding and genetics.” The award was made on behalf of the OSU Department of Horticulture and Crop Science and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. “Stringfield was arguably the most important maize breeder in Ohio history,” says Pixley, who is only the second person to receive the award. “He was instrumental in early hybrid research and in leading the transition from OPVs to hybrids in Ohio.”
This past Thursday, CIMMYT’s Insect Resistant Maize for Africa (IRMA) project organized a well-attended meeting to update its stakeholders, project participants, and journalists on the past year’s progress. Held at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) National Agricultural Research Laboratories, in Nairobi, the event drew more than 100 stakeholders, project participants, and journalists, who followed the presentations keenly and contributed to the lively discussions. The IRMA project is a joint initiative of KARI, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Speaking at the event, Kenya’s Agricultural Secretary, Wilson Songa, lauded the IRMA partnership for its significant contribution to improving national food security and livelihoods, through development of maize varieties with increased borer resistance. Other notable speakers were Marianne Bänziger, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program, Jost Frei of Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, KARI’s Director Ephraim Mukisira and IRMA Project Manager, Stephen Mugo. Through their remarks, the speakers highlighted the momentous strides made by IRMA in the development of capacity, technology, and policy – notably the Biosafety Bill – as well as raising awareness on biotechnology and related biosafety aspects. All stakeholders were in agreement that IRMA had set the pace for similar initiatives in the region and that they should all strive to move the IRMA agenda forward in their individual capacities.
Norman Borlaug opened the Crop Science Society of America annual meetings in New Orleans with an inspirational speech on 5 November 2007. Also at this meeting, the Crop Science Journal awarded CIMMYT scientists Jorge Franco, José Crossa, Marilyn Warburton, and Suketoshi Taba the Crop Science C8 Outstanding Paper Award.
Their paper is titled: “Sampling strategies for conserving maize diversity when forming core subsets using genetic markers.” Tens of thousands of seed samples, known as “accessions,” are stored in CIMMYT’s maize germplasm bank. By grouping similar accessions for a particular maize race and applying advanced statistics, scientists can assemble a useful subset that contains only one-fifth of the total accessions for that race. For example, there are over 1,500 accessions in the collections for the Tuxpeño maize race. Using the techniques described in the paper, researchers can identify 300 that provide breeders close to 100% of the allelic diversity in the Tuxpeño collection. “CIMMYT leads the world in expertise and scientific rigor in the use of statistics to get a representative subset of seeds from a collection, based on data including molecular markers,” says CIMMYT molecular geneticist Warburton. Working with a smaller number of accessions facilitates breeding, testing, and germplasm bank use, according to Crossa, Head of Biometrics and Statistics at CIMMYT. “Our research aims to get the most diverse core subset possible. It can also be applied to all other crops” he says.
The CSA also recognized the ongoing contributions of Ravi Singh to develop rust resistant wheat. Singh, a CIMMYT distinguished scientist, was awarded the prestigious International Service in Crop Science Award. Wheat germplasm deriving from his work is part of the pedigrees of 170 cultivars sown on an estimated 26 million hectares or more in developing countries. Singh has developed some of the highest-yielding and widely-adapted CIMMYT-spring wheat germplasm that also features high levels of durable resistance to both leaf and yellow rusts.
Following the release of the World Development Report 2008, its Director, Derek Byerlee, was in Nairobi to discuss its implications with the Kenya-based CGIAR centres. Convened jointly by CIMMYT, ILRI and ICRAF, Byerlee’s seminar was themed “The World Development Report 2008 – Agriculture for Development – Implications for the CGIAR,” and was held on Friday, 2 November at the ICRAF campus. The presentation drew a lot of interest and discussions centred on the three key functions of agriculture in development: driving economic growth, poverty reduction, and fostering food security together with better natural resource management. These were in turn linked to the relevant Millennium Development Goals that touch on gender, health, poverty reduction, and the environment.
The main emerging challenge for the CGIAR, as outlined in the Report, is generating technologies that will ensure that there is enough grain and other high value food products to meet the twin competing demands of the world’s populations for food and biofuels. This is to be achieved against a backdrop of climate vulnerability, declining water and land availability, as well as increasing demand for research and development by diverse funding sources.
After the afternoon’s seminar, the participants were hosted to a colorful cocktail, in the spirit of overall optimism that the CGIAR can do it! The Report can be downloaded from this link: www.worldbank.org/WDR2008.
Maize breeders in the Mexican highlands are increasingly looking to farmers for input on how to improve crops, after decades of having little impact in these areas. It is estimated that only 7-15% of maize seed planted in the highlands of Mexico State is of improved varieties. “Considering that the Mexican highlands represent 10% of the 6.3 million hectares of highland maize grown globally, this constitutes a glaring discrepancy between those who have benefited from maize breeding programs and those who have not,” says Brian Love, a consultant working with CIMMYT’s global maize program.
Now CIMMYT’s highland maize breeding program is turning to farmers in the state of Mexico for their input. As part of a joint project involving CIMMYT and the US and Mexican Departments of Agriculture, farmers are being asked to give their opinion about improved varieties currently available. Farmers from La Purificación and Tepetlaoxtoc, two villages near CIMMYT’s El Batán research station in Mexico, came to the station and voted on improved maize varieties provided by CIMMYT and other maize breeding programs in the region, including the Mexican national agricultural research program (INIFAP) and the Colegio de Postgraduados. A CIMMYT yellow maize under development and H-40 of INIFAP were clear winners. Farmers explained their desire for materials that perform well under rainfed conditions, resist ear rots, escape frosts, and have small cobs.
“One of the easiest ways for everyone to have their say is to put it to a vote,” says Love. “Democracy is allowed to rule and a CIMMYT staff member facilitates a discussion aimed at learning why selected varieties were preferred. The process allows farmers to experience new maize varieties and researchers to better understand farmers’ circumstances and preferences, both of which should help promote the adoption of improved materials.”
CIMMYT entomology lab technician, Carlos Muñoz, was instrumental in organizing the event, and INIFAP plant breeders Gustavo Valázquez and José Luis Arellano participated. Velázquez, who conducts nearly all of his trials with farmers, felt the voting technique (originally developed by researchers at IRRI in the Philippines for use with upland rice growers in Laos) was effective in highland maize trials, and that INIFAP could apply it.
The Borlaug Scholarship Committee is pleased to announce it is now accepting scholarship applications for the second semester student scholarship for 2007. Children of national staff in Mexico are eligible to apply if they are in high school and if their parents make monthly salaries of $6,000 pesos or less, (or $7,000 pesos or less for single parents). Children of staff at El Batán, Toluca, Agua Fría, Tlaltizapán and Obregón for are also eligible. The scholarship will consist of a fixed amount per semester that will help students cover the cost of transportation, books, school fees, supplies, etc. The scholarship may last for more than one year, depending on the student’s grade level when awarded the scholarship.
To qualify, students must have grades of 80 and above (on a scale of 0 to 100) and should send official transcripts from this semester or the previous one to Human Resources, who will be working with CIMMYT’s selection committee to administer the scholarship. As in the past, the Committee is asking for help from station superintendents to identify national staff with children who are eligible to apply. The deadline for the scholarship application is 9 November, when all original documents should be submitted to Human Resources. Best of luck to all applicants!