Alinda Sarah shows a maize cob due for harvest on the farm she owns with her husband in Masindi, mid-western Uganda. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
The ultimate challenge for crop breeders is to increase genetic gain of a crop: literally, to increase the crop’s yield on farmers’ fields. Wheat and maize breeders from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and partner institutions are working to achieve this in record time, developing new varieties tailored for farmers’ needs that are also pest- and disease-resistant, climate-resilient, and nutritious.
This work is part of the Accelerating Genetic Gain in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (AGG) project. Among other methods, breeders are using state-of-the-art novel tools such as genomic selection to achieve this ambitious goal.
In genomic selection, breeders use information about a plant’s genetic makeup along with data on its visible and measurable traits, known as phenotypic data, to “train” a model to predict how a cross will turn out — information known as “genomic estimated breeding values (GEBV)” — without having to plant seeds, wait for them to grow, and physically measure their traits. In this way, they save time and costs by reducing the number of selection cycles.
However, research is still ongoing about the best way to use genomic selection that results in the most accurate predictions and ultimately reduces selection cycle time. A recent publication by CIMMYT scientist Sikiru Atanda and colleagues has identified an optimal genomic selection strategy that maximizes the efficiency of this novel technology. Although this research studied CIMMYT’s maize breeding programs, AGG scientists working on wheat genetic gain and zinc nutritional content see cross-crop impacts.
Shortening a lengthy process
In the typical breeding stages, breeders evaluate parental lines to create new crosses, and advance these lines through preliminary and elite yield trials. In the process, thousands of lines are sown, grown and analyzed, requiring considerable resources. In the traditional CIMMYT maize breeding scheme, for example, breeders conduct five stages of testing to identify parental lines for the next breeding cycle and develop high yielding hybrids that meet farmers’ needs.
In the current scheme using genomic selection, breeders phenotype 50% of a bi-parental population to predict the GEBVs of the remaining un-tested 50%. Though this reduces the cost of phenotyping, Atanda and his co-authors suggest it is not optimal because the breeder has to wait three to four months for the plant to grow before collecting the phenotypic data needed to calibrate the predictive model for the un-tested 50%.
Atanda and his colleagues’ findings specify how to calibrate a model based on existing historical phenotypic and genotypic data. They also offer a method for creating “experimental” sets to generate phenotypic information when the models don’t work due to low genetic connectedness between the new population and historical data.
This presents a way forward for breeders to accelerate the early yield testing stage based on genomic information, reduce the breeding cycle time and budget, and ultimately increase genetic gain.
Regional maize breeding coordinator for Africa Yoseph Beyene explained the leap forward this approach represents for CIMMYT’s maize breeding in Africa.
“For the last 5 years, CIMMYT’s African maize breeding program has applied genomic selection using the ‘test-half-and-predict-half’ strategy,” he said. “This has already reduced operational costs by 32% compared to the traditional phenotypic selection.”
“The prediction approach shown in this paper — using historical data alone to predict untested lines that go directly to stage-two trials — could reduce the breeding cycle by a year and save the cost of testcross formation and multi-location evaluation of stage-one testing. This research contributes to our efforts in the AGG project to mainstream genomic selection in all the product profiles.”
Effective for maize and wheat
Atanda, who now works on the use of novel breeding methods to enhance grain zinc content in CIMMYT’s wheat breeding program, believes these findings apply to wheat breeding as well.
“The implications of the research in maize are the same in wheat: accelerating early testing stage and reducing the breeding budget, which ultimately results in increasing genetic gain,” he said.
CIMMYT Global Wheat Program director Alison Bentley is optimistic about the crossover potential. “It is fantastic to welcome Atanda to the global wheat program, bringing skills in the use of quantitative genetic approaches,” she said. “The use of new breeding methods such as genomic selection is part of a portfolio of approaches we are using to accelerate breeding.”
CIMMYT’s wheat breeding relies heavily on a time-tested and validated method using managed environments to test lines for a range of growing environments — from drought to full irrigation, heat tolerance and more — in CIMMYT’s wheat experimental station in Ciudad Obregón, in Mexico’s state of Sonora.
According to CIMMYT senior scientist and wheat breeder Velu Govindan, using the approaches tested by Sikiru can make this even more efficient. As a specialist in biofortification — using traditional breeding techniques to develop crops with high levels of micronutrients — Govindan is taking the lead mainstreaming high zinc into all CIMMYT improved wheat varieties.
“This process could help us identify best lines to share with partners one year earlier — and it can be done for zinc content as easily as for grain yield.”
If this study seems like an excellent fit for the AGG project’s joint focus on accelerating genetic gain for both maize and wheat, that is no accident.
“The goal of the AGG project was the focus of my research,” Atanda said. “My study has shown that this goal is doable and achievable.”
Sanjaya Rajaram, a University of Sydney alumnus recognized with the World Food Prize, was a world-renowned wheat breeder and scientist. One of the world’s leading food scientists, he died on February 17 from COVID-19 in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico.
Global thought leader, philanthropist and one of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and CGIAR’s most vocal and generous supporters, Bill Gates, wrote a book about climate change and is now taking it around the world on a virtual book tour to share a message of urgency and hope.
With How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, Gates sets out a holistic and well-researched plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate catastrophe. Part of this plan is to green everything from how we make things, move around, keep cool and stay warm, while also considering how we grow things and what can be done to innovate agriculture to lower its environmental impact.
Interviewed by actor and producer Rashida Jones, Gates explained his passion for action against climate change: “Avoiding a climate disaster will be one of the greatest challenges us humans have taken on. Greater than landing on the moon, greater than eradicating smallpox, even greater than putting a computer on every desk.”
“The world needs many breakthroughs. We need to get from 51 billion tons [of greenhouse gases] to zero while still meeting the planet’s basic needs. That means we need to transform the way we do almost everything.”
Bill Gates (left) talks to Rashida Jones during one of the events to present his new book.
Innovations in agriculture
When a book tour event attendee asked about the role of agriculture research in improving farmers’ livelihoods, Gates linked today’s challenge to that of the Green Revolution more than half a century ago. “There’s nothing more impactful to reduce the impacts of climate change than working on help for farmers. What we can do this time is even bigger than that. […] The most unfunded thing in this whole area is the seed research that has so much potential,” he said.
One such innovation and one of Gates’ favorite examples of CGIAR’s work is featured in Chapter 9 of his climate book – “Adapting to a warmer world” – and has been the source of generous funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: drought-tolerant maize. “[…] as weather patterns have become more erratic, farmers are at greater risk of having smaller maize harvests, and sometimes no harvest at all. So, experts at CGIAR developed dozens of new maize varieties that could withstand drought conditions, each adapted to grow in specific regions of Africa. At first, many smallholder farmers were afraid to try new crop varieties. Understandably so. If you’re eking out a living, you won’t be eager to take a risk on seeds you’ve never planted before, because if they die, you have nothing to fall back on. But as experts worked with local farmers and seed dealers to explain the benefits of these new varieties, more and more people adopted them,” writes Gates.
We at CIMMYT are very proud and humbled by this mention as in collaboration with countless partners, CIMMYT and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) developed and promoted these varieties across 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and contributed to lifting millions of people above the poverty line across the continent.
For example, in Zimbabwe, farmers who used drought-tolerant maize varieties in dry years were able to harvest up to 600 kilograms more maize per hectare — enough for nine months for an average family of six — than farmers who sowed conventional varieties.
The world as we know it is over and, finally, humanity’s fight against climate change is becoming more and more mainstream. CIMMYT and its scientists, staff, partners and farmers across the globe are working hard to contribute to a transformation that responds to the climate challenge. We have a unique opportunity to make a difference. It is in this context that CGIAR has launched an ambitious new 10-year strategy that echoes Gates’s hopes for a better environment and food security for the generations to come. Let’s make sure that it ticks the boxes of smallholder farmers’ checklists.
Haploids — which are produced naturally in maize — were first identified in the crop about a century ago. Today they are used widely in different breeding programs, particularly in the development of doubled haploids, which are highly uniform, genetically pure and stable. Doubled-haploid technology has simplified logistics to make the maize breeding process more efficient and intuitive, facilitated studies at the molecular and genomic level, and increased genetic gains in different breeding programs.
In a recent review article, scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) examine strategies for haploid induction and identification, chromosome doubling and production of doubled haploid seed through self-fertilization. They also discuss the potential applications and key challenges linked with doubled haploid technology in maize, and suggest future research directionsfor people involved in fast-track maize breeding, the seed industry, and academia.
Extensive studies of haploids and doubled haploids have increased our understanding of the genetic basis and mechanisms involved in haploid induction, the factors that affect haploid induction, different markers to identify putative haploids, and different chemicals agents that can be used for chromosome doubling.
The technology is useful because the resulting plants are free from different social issues and legal regulations associated with transgenic crops. It maximizes genetic gains in breeding programs, is one of the fastest tools available for developing large numbers of inbred lines quickly and reduces the cost of breeding programs.
“Deployment of doubled haploid technology is much needed for commercial hybrid maize breeding programs to make them more efficient and economical,” says article co-author Abdurahman Beshir, a maize seed systems specialist based in Nepal. “The technology is also useful to have accelerated varietal turnover and a higher maize seed replacement rate in different market segments.”
Many multinational seed companies have adopted doubled haploid technology for the wide-scale production of inbred lines. The development of novel techniques for haploid induction and the subsequent production of doubled haploid plants holds significant potential for the management of genetic resources, germplasm enhancement and the development of novel plant populations.Researchers at CIMMYT have also made significant efforts to help national breeding programs adopt this technology, especially in South Asia, where the organisation has shared haploid inducers with numerous partners in Pakistan.
But, while this technology can accelerate maize breeding, it still faces challenges at each step of doubled haploid line development and the authors argue there is a need to extensively explore the genetic potential of this technology to continue increasing the genetic gains associated with different breeding programs.
Cover image: A mixture ofdoubledhaploidmaizekernelsseen in close-up at CIMMYT’s Agua Fria experimental station in Mexico. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)
Read more new publications from CIMMYT researchers:
Water pumped from a deep irrigation well, called a tube well, at a wheat farm in west India’s Gujarat state. (Photo: Meha Jain)
India is the world’s second-largest producer of wheat and rice and is home to more than 600 million farmers. The country has achieved impressive food-production gains since the 1960s, due in part to an increased reliance on irrigation wells, which allowed Indian farmers to expand production into the mostly dry winter and summer seasons.
But those gains have come at a cost: The country that produces 10% of the world’s crops is now the world’s largest consumer of groundwater, and aquifers are rapidly becoming depleted across much of India. Indian government officials have suggested that switching from groundwater-depleting wells to irrigation canals, which divert surface water from lakes and rivers, is one way to overcome projected shortfalls.
The authors estimate that if Indian farmers lose all access to groundwater in overexploited regions, and if that irrigation water is not replaced with water from other sources, then winter cropped acreage could be reduced by up to 20% nationwide. However, that scenario seems highly unlikely and was included in the study only as an upper-bound estimate.
It seems more likely that any future groundwater shortfalls would be at least partially offset by increases in canal irrigation. But even if all Indian regions currently using depleted groundwater switch to canal irrigation, winter cropped acreage could still decline by 7% nationwide and by 24% in the most severely affected locations, according to the researchers.
Water alternatives needed
“Our results highlight the critical importance of groundwater for Indian agriculture and rural livelihoods, and we were able to show that simply providing canal irrigation as a substitute irrigation source will likely not be enough to maintain current production levels in the face of groundwater depletion,” said study lead author Meha Jain, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability.
“We need coordinated efforts to solve this water availability and food security issue, which should be supported by science-led policy decisions on what strategies and technology solutions to scale out to improve irrigation efficiency,” said co-author Balwinder Singh, a Cropping Systems Simulation Modeler at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
The study analyzed high-resolution satellite imagery and village-level census data and focused on winter cropped acreage. While nearly all Indian farmers plant crops during the monsoon to take advantage of seasonal rains, winter agriculture is mainly reliant on groundwater irrigation and now accounts for 44% of the country’s annual cropped acreage for food grains.
“These findings suggest that other adaptation strategies, in addition to canal expansion, are needed to cope with ongoing groundwater losses,” Jain said.
The possibilities include switching from winter rice to less water-intensive cereals, increased adoption of sprinklers and drip irrigation to conserve water in the fields, and policies to increase the efficiency of irrigation canals.
While groundwater depletion is becoming a global threat to food security, and the extent of current and projected groundwater depletion are well documented, the potential impacts on food production remain poorly quantified. The study is the first to use high-resolution empirical data, including census data about the irrigation methods used in more than 500,000 Indian villages, to estimate the crop production losses that may occur when overexploited groundwater is lost.
“Understanding the complex relationship between food security and water availability is crucial as we prepare for future rainfall variability due to global climate change,” said co-author Gillian Galford of the University of Vermont.
The proliferation of deep (>30 meters) irrigation wells called tube wells since the 1960s has enabled Indian farmers to increase the number of seasons when crops are planted in a given year. This increase in “cropping intensity” is credited for much of the country’s food-production gains.
Maps showing state-by-state Indian winter cropped area loss estimates due to groundwater depletion in coming decades, with and without replacement by canals. Darker shades of pink and red indicate greater projected losses. The map on the left (A) shows projected winter cropped acreage losses if all critically depleted groundwater is lost, with no replacement. The map on the right (B) shows projected winter cropped acreage losses if groundwater irrigation is replaced with canals, using national-level regression coefficients. (Graph: Jain et al. in Science Advances 2021)
Big data for food security
The researchers used satellite data to measure Indian winter cropped area, a key determinant of cropping intensity. They then linked the satellite data to census information about the three main types of irrigation infrastructure in India: shallow “dug wells,” deeper tube wells and canals that divert surface water.
Linking the two datasets allowed them to determine the relative efficacy of each irrigation method. That, in turn, enabled them to estimate potential future acreage losses and the ability of canal expansion to fill the gap.
The study’s worst-case scenario found that winter cropped area could decrease by up to 20% nationwide and by 68% in the most severely affected regions, if farmers lose all access to groundwater and if that irrigation water is not replaced from another source. The expected losses would largely occur in northwest and central India, according to the study.
The researchers also found that increased distance from existing irrigation canals is strongly associated with decreased acreage planted with winter crops. In the future, a greater reliance on canals could increase inequities related to irrigation access, according to the authors.
“This suggests that while canals may be a viable form of irrigation for those who live near canals, they may lead to more unequal access to irrigation across villages compared to wells, with negative impacts for those who live farther from canals,” the authors wrote.
In addition, the lakes and rivers that feed irrigation canals rise and fall in response to rainfall variability, unlike deep groundwater wells. So, a greater reliance on canal irrigation in the future would result in increased sensitivity to year-to-year precipitation fluctuations, as well as any long-term trends due to human-caused climate change.
The authors of the Science Advances study, in addition to Jain and Galford, are Ram Fishman of Tel Aviv University; Pinki Mondal of the University of Delaware; Nishan Bhattarai of the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability; Shahid Naeem, Upmanu Lall and Ruth DeFries of Columbia University; and Balwinder Singh of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
The work was funded by a NASA New Investigator Award to Jain and two NASA Land Cover and Land Use Change grants, one awarded to R.S. DeFries and one to Jain.
Agricultural market systems play a pivotal role in food security, livelihood development and economic growth. However, the agricultural sector in Nepal is constrained by a lack of spatially-explicit technologies and practices related to improved seed and fertilizer. Embracing these challenges, Dyutiman Choudhary, a scientist in market development with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), works to strengthen the seed and fertilizer market systems and value chains, with the ultimate goal to ensure demand-driven, inclusive and market-oriented cereal production.
Nepal’s agricultural sector is dominated by smallholder farmers. As farming is mostly semi-commercial and subsistence in nature, many smallholder farmers are isolated from markets and lack knowledge about the latest farming technologies and inputs. They are unable to upgrade their farms to increase productivity for generating marketable surplus to make profitable income. Agribusiness entities in Nepal — such as seed companies, agrodealers and importers — face market development challenges and lack the commercial and business orientation to develop and deliver new technologies to farmers. Output market linkages are weak and loosely integrated, leading to poor coordination, weak information flow and lower return to actors.
This is where Choudhary’s expertise in agribusiness management fits in to make a difference.
Born and raised in Shillong, a hill station in northeastern India with a distinctive charm, he was enrolled as an engineering student. However, his interest took a sudden turn when he got drawn towards biological sciences and ultimately decided to leave the engineering course by stepping into agribusiness management. “I realized I was walking in the right direction as I was fascinated to learn about the livelihood benefits of agroforestry and the scope of agribusiness in fostering overall economic growth.”
He joined CIMMYT in 2017 as an expert in market development, but his roles and responsibilities transitioned to working as a Lead for the Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project within four months of his appointment. His role involves leading an interdisciplinary team of scientists, partners and experts to develop a synergistic market system. The NSAF team fosters public private partnerships, improves access to support services and strengthens inclusive value chains in a supportive policy environment.
Choudhary’s research focuses on assessing crops, seed and fertilizer value chains; developing commercial and inclusive upgrading strategies with businesses and stakeholders; assessing competitiveness of seed companies; lobbying for policies to foster the growth of seed and fertilizer business; and building pathways for public and private sector services to market actors and smallholder farmers.
Dyutiman Choudhary (seventh from left) with seed producers during a field visit. (Photo: Dipak Kafle)
A roadmap to innovative market systems
Choudhary introduced the vision of a market system approach and put together a strategic roadmap in collaboration with a team from CIMMYT researchers from the Global Maize program, the Sustainable Intensification program and the Socioeconomics program. The roadmap addressed the concerns of low crop productivity, poor private sector growth and a less supportive policy environment inhibiting agricultural innovations in Nepal.
“Seed and fertilizer market systems in Nepal are uncompetitive and lack influx of new knowledge and innovations that restricts agriculture growth,” Choudhary explained.
Having prior experience as a regional lead for high-value products and value chains for South Asia and an inclusive market-oriented development expert in Eastern and Southern Africa, Choudhary carries unique capabilities for putting together a winning team and working with diverse partners to bring about a change in farming practices and build a strong agribusiness sector in Nepal.
Under his leadership, Nepalese seed companies are implementing innovative and competitive marketing approaches to develop newly acquired hybrid varieties under their brands. The companies are upgrading to build business models that cater to the growth of seed business, meet market demands and offer innovative services to smallholder farmers to build a sustainable national market. Facilitating financing opportunities has enabled these enterprises to produce strategic business plans to leverage $2 million to finance seed business. Improved value chain coordination mechanisms are increasing demand of seed company’s products and enhancing smallholder farmers’ access to output markets.
There is a renewed interest and confidence beaming from the private sector to invest in fertilizer business due to improved knowledge, communication and collaborative methods. The government committed to support balanced soil fertility management and allocated $2.4 million in 2019 to initiate fertilizer blending in Nepal.
Dyutiman Choudhary (left) welcomes the Feed the Future team leader to the CIMMYT office in Nepal. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
Dyutiman Choudhary shows a demonstration plot during a field visit with USAID and project partners in Nepal. (Photo: Darbin Joshi)
Dyutiman Choudhary (left) receives a token of appreciation at an International Seed Conference organized in Nepal. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
Competitiveness fosters productivity
The results of Choudhary’s work have the potential to transform Nepalese agriculture by unleashing new investments, changes in policies and practices, and innovative business management practices. “Despite a huge change in my TOR and the challenges to deliver impactful outcomes, I was able to successfully steer the project to produce exciting results that made the donor to declare it as their flagship project in Nepal,” he explained. “At the end of the day, reflecting upon the work achieved with my team and the stakeholders in co-creating solutions for complex issues brings me immense satisfaction.”
An amiable individual, he feels close to natural science and loves interacting with farmers. “I’ve always enjoyed traveling to biodiversity-rich locations, to understand local cultures and livelihood practices, so as to gauge the drivers of innovation and adaptation to change among diverse rural populations.”
“Keeping up the momentum, I want to continue to support growth in agribusiness management in less favorable regions, helping stakeholders in the farm-to-fork continuum to leverage the potential of innovations in research, development and delivery.”
Nancy Wawira stands among ripening maize cobs of high yielding, drought-tolerant maize varieties on a demonstration farm in Embu County, Kenya. Involving young people like Wawira helps to accelerate the adoption of improved stress-tolerant maize varieties. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Since the 1980s, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) have spearheaded the development and deployment of climate-smart maize in Africa.
This game-changing work has generated massive impacts for smallholder farmers, maize consumers, and seed markets in the region. It also offers a blueprint for CGIAR’s new 2030 Research and Innovation Strategy, which proposes a systems transformation approach for food, land and water systems that puts climate change at the center of its mission.
Over the course of the 10-year run of the first iteration of this collaborative work on climate-adaptive maize, the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project, CIMMYT and IITA partnered with dozens of national, regional, and private sector partners throughout sub-Saharan Africa to release around 160 affordable maize varieties. This month, CGIAR recognizes climate-smart maize as one of the standout 50 innovations to have emerged from the institution’s first half-century of work.
Game changer
Maize’s importance as a food crop in sub-Saharan Africa is hard to overstate. So are the climate change-driven challenges it faces.
It accounts for almost one third of the region’s caloric intake. It is grown on over 38 million hectares, primarily under rainfed conditions. Around 40% of this area faces occasional drought stress. Another 25% suffers frequent drought and crop losses reaching 50%.
Drought-tolerant maize stabilized production under drought-stress conditions. Recent studies show that farmers growing drought-tolerant maize varieties in dry years produced over a half ton more maize per hectare than those growing conventional varieties — enough maize to support a family of six for nine months.
Such drastic results fed increased demand for improved, climate-adaptive maize seed in sub-Saharan Africa, thus strengthening local commercial seed markets and helping drought-tolerant maize varieties reach an increasing share of climate-vulnerable farmers.
Today, approximately 8.6 million farmers have benefitted from CIMMYT- and IITA-derived climate-adaptive maize varieties in sub-Saharan Africa. Millions have risen above the poverty line.
In addition to drought-tolerance, CIMMYT- and IITA-derived climate-adaptive maize varieties have been developed to tolerate multiple climate-driven stresses and to provide improved nutritional outcomes through biofortification with essential nutrients such as provitamin A and zinc.
The task ahead
In his recently published book, How to Avoid a Climate Catastrophe, Bill Gates says “no other organization has done more than CGIAR to ensure that families — especially the poorest — have nutritious food to eat. And no other organization is in a better position to create the innovations that will help poor farmers adapt to climate change in the years ahead.”
CGIAR’s new strategic orientation is an important step towards making good on that potential. CIMMYT and IITA’s longstanding work on climate-smart maize offers an important blueprint for the kinds of bold, comprehensive, and collaborative research for development initiatives such a strategy could empower.
As CIMMYT and IITA directors general Martin Kropff and Nteranya Sanginga note in a recent op-ed, “The global battle against climate change and all its interconnected impacts requires a multisectoral approach to formulate comprehensive responses.”
A leader of wheat breeding and later director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program, Sanjaya Rajaram passed away at the age of 78.
Recognized with the World Food Prize in 2014, he personally oversaw the development of more than 480 high-yielding, disease-resistant varieties sown on 58 million hectares in 51 countries, increasing global wheat production by more than 200 million tons during his lifetime in diverse regions across the globe.
A seed vendor near Islamabad, Pakistan. For improved crop varieties to reach the farmers who need them, they usually must first reach local vendors, who form an essential link in the chain between researchers, seed producers and farmers. (Photo: M. DeFreese/CIMMYT)
Wheat is not just an essential part of the Pakistani diet, but also absolutely critical to the country’s economy and to the farmers who cultivate it. The government of Pakistan’s goal to achieve self-sufficiency in wheat production just became more attainable with the release of five new wheat varieties. These new seeds could help the country’s 8.8 million hectares of wheat-farmed area become more productive, climate-resilient and disease-resistant — a welcome development in a region where new climate change scenarios threaten sustained wheat production.
With multiple years of on-station and on-farm testing, the Wheat Research Institute (WRI) in Faisalabad, the Arid Zone Research Institute (AZRI) in Bhakhar, and the Barani Agricultural Research Institute in Chakwal released five varieties: Subhani 2021, MH-2021, Dilkash-2021, Bhakkar-20 and MA-2020.
The varieties, drawn from germplasm from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), were developed for different production environments in the Punjab province of Pakistan.
Dilkash-2021 was developed by WRI from a cross with a locally developed wheat line and a CIMMYT wheat line. MH-2021 and MA-2020 were selected from the CIMMYT wheat breeding germplasm through international trials and nurseries.
Subhani-21 and MA-2020 were selected from special trials assembled by CIMMYT for expanded testing, early access and genomic selection under the USAID-funded Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Applied Wheat Genomics at Kansas State University, in partnership with Cornell University and four South Asian countries (Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan).
Over the course of multiple years and locations, the new varieties exhibited a yield potential that is 5 to 20% higher than current popular varieties such as Faisalabad 2008, in addition to good grain quality and attainable yields of over 7 tons per hectare. They also showed an impressive resistance to leaf and yellow rusts, compatibility with wheat-rice and wheat-cotton farming systems, and resilience to stresses.
“It is exciting to see new varieties coming out of these collaborative projects between the Pakistani breeding programs, CIMMYT and the university teams,” said Jesse Poland, associate professor at Kansas State University and director of the Wheat Genomics Innovation Lab.
Wheat breeder and WRI director Javed Ahmad (center, wearing a white cap) explains the performance of a new variety and its positive traits to visitors. (Photo: Muhammad Shahbaz Rafiq)
Closing the yield gap between research fields and smallholder fields
Despite all of these encouraging traits, releasing a new variety is just half of the battle. The other half is getting these new, quality seeds to markets quickly so that wheat growers can realize the benefits. A fast-track seed multiplication program for each of these varieties has been designed and implemented.
“Pakistan has started to multiply early-generation seeds of rust-resistant varieties. These will be available to seed companies for multiplication and provision to farmers in the shortest possible time,” agreed wheat breeder and WRI Director Javed Ahmad and the National Wheat Coordinator Atiq Rattu.
Wheat breeder and WRI director Javed Ahmad (left) discusses performance of the new varieties with a colleague. (Photo: Muhammad Shahbaz Rafiq)
However, the current seed replacement rate is still low, mainly because new, quality seeds are rarely available at the right time, location, quantity, and price for smallholders. Strengthening and diversifying seed production of newly released varieties can be done by decentralizing seed marketing and distribution systems and engaging both public and private sector actors. Additionally, marketing and training efforts need to be improved for women, who are mostly responsible for household-level seed production and seed care.
In 2020, Pakistan harvested 25.7 million tons of wheat, up from 23.3 million tons a decade ago in 2010, which roughly matches its annual consumption of the crop. Pakistan is coming close to its goal of self-sufficiency, as outlined in the Pakistan Vision 2025, Food Security Policy 2018 and Vision for Agriculture 2030. Research shows that the public sector cannot extensively disseminate seeds alone; new policies must create an attractive environment to private sector partners, so that entrepreneurs are also attracted to the seed business. With continued efforts and a bold distribution and training effort, new releases like these will contribute to narrowing the yield gap between research stations and farmers’ fields.
Wheat infected with the blast fungus in Meherpur, Bangladesh, in 2019. (Photo: PLOS Biology)
As scientists study and learn more about the complicated genetic makeup of the wheat genome, one chromosomal segment has stood out, particularly in efforts to breed high-yielding wheat varieties resistant to devastating and quickly spreading wheat diseases.
Known as the 2NvS translocation, this segment on the wheat genome has been associated with grain yield, tolerance to wheat stems bending over or lodging, and multiple-disease resistance.
Now, thanks to a new multi-institution study led by wheat scientist Liangliang Gao of Kansas State University, we have a clearer picture of the yield advantage and disease resistance conferred by this chromosomal segment for wheat farmers — and more opportunities to capitalize on these benefits for future breeding efforts.
The Aegilops ventricosa 2NvS segment in bread wheat: cytology, genomics and breeding, published in Theoretical and Applied Genetics, summarizes the collaborative effort by scientists from several scientific institutions — including International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) head of global wheat improvement Ravi Singh and wheat scientist Philomin Juliana — to conduct the first complete cytological characterization of the 2NvS translocation.
A rich background
The 2NvS translocation segment has been very valuable in disease-resistance wheat breeding since the early 1990s. Originally introduced into wheat cultivar VPM1 by the French cytogeneticist Gerard Doussinault in 1983 by crossing with a wild wheat relative called Aegilops ventricosa, the segment has been conferring resistance to diseases like eye spot (Pch1 gene), leaf rust (Lr37 gene), stem rust (Sr38 gene), stripe rust (Yr17 gene), cereal cyst (Cre5 gene), root knot (Rkn3 gene) and wheat blast.
The high-yielding blast-resistant CIMMYT-derived varieties BARI Gom 33 and WMRI#3 (equivalent to Borlaug100),released in Bangladesh to combat a devastating outbreak of wheat blast in the region, carry the 2NvS translocation segment for blast resistance.
Earlier research by Juliana and others found that the proportion of lines with the 2NvS translocation had increased by 113.8% over seven years in CIMMYT’s international bread wheat screening nurseries: from 44% in 2012 to 94.1% in 2019. It had also increased by 524.3% in the semi-arid wheat screening nurseries: from 15% in 2012 to 93.7% in 2019. This study validates these findings, further demonstrating an increasing frequency of the 2NvS translocation in spring and winter wheat breeding programs over the past two decades.
New discoveries
The authors of this study completed a novel assembly and functional annotation of the genes in the 2NvS translocation using the winter bread wheat cultivar Jagger. They validated it using the spring wheat cultivar CDC Stanley and estimated the actual size of the segment to be approximately 33 mega base pairs.
Their findings substantiate that the 2NvS region is rich in disease resistance genes, with more than 10% of the 535 high-confidence genes annotated in this region belonging to the nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) gene families known to be associated with disease resistance. This was a higher number of NLRs compared to the wheat segment of the Chinese Spring reference genome that was replaced by this segment, adding further evidence to its multiple-disease resistant nature.
In addition to being an invaluable region for disease resistance, the study makes a strong case that the 2NvS region also confers a yield advantage. The authors performed yield association analyses using yield data on lines from the Kansas State University wheat breeding program, the USDA Regional Performance Nursery —comprising lines from central US winter wheat breeding programs — and the CIMMYT spring bread wheat breeding program, and found a strong association between the presence of the segment and higher yield.
Global benefits
The yield and disease resistance associations of the 2NvS genetic segment have been helping farmers for years, as seen in the high proportion of the segment present in the improved wheat germplasm distributed globally through CIMMYT’s nurseries.
“The high frequency of the valuable 2NvS translocation in CIMMYT’s internationally distributed germplasm demonstrates well how CIMMYT has served as a key disseminator of lines with this translocation globally that would have likely contributed to a large impact on global wheat production,” said study co-author Juliana.
Through CIMMYT’s distribution efforts, it is likely that national breeding programs have also effectively used this translocation, in addition to releasing many 2NvS-carrying varieties selected directly from CIMMYT distributed nurseries.
With this study, we now know more about why the segment is so ubiquitous and have more tools at our disposal to use it more deliberately to raise yield and combat disease for wheat farmers into the future.
The new interactive map allows visitors to visually explore the milestones that allowed a global network of researchers to fight threats to wheat production.
In 2005, preeminent wheat breeder and Nobel Laureate Norman E. Borlaug sounded the alarm to bring the world’s attention to the outbreak of a new variant of stem rust, Ug99, that threatened to wipe out 80% of the world’s wheat.
The result was the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI), a global community that pioneered innovative ways for scientists and smallholder farmers around the globe to collaborate on meeting challenges brought about by wheat disease and climate change.
As a founding member of BGRI, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and, later, the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat, played a crucial role in the core work of the initiative. They led breeding and large-scale international testing to develop disease resistant wheat varieties, coordinated closely with longstanding national partners to facilitate the release and spread of the varieties to farmers, and contributed to critical disease monitoring and tracking initiatives.
The BGRI has documented these efforts and related resources in a newly released interactive story map: Inside the global network safeguarding the world’s wheat from disease and climate change. The map highlights the BGRI’s efforts from 2005 to 2020 to introduce climate-resilient, disease-resistant wheat to resource-constrained wheat growers around the world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
When a disease threatens to destroy the world’s most important food crop, who do you call?
The map highlights work undertaken by scientists on the front lines of the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat (DRRW) and Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat (DGGW) projects from 2005 to 2020. These achievements formed the foundation for the work that continues today under the auspices of the CIMMYT-led Accelerating Genetic Gains In Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (AGG) project.
BGRI scientists from more than 22 national and international agricultural research centers infused resilience into wheat and largely staved off large-scale rust epidemics, working with farmers in East Africa, South Asia and other important bread baskets of the world. The BGRI community improved breeding pipelines, created the world’s most sophisticated pathogen surveillance network, increased capacity in germplasm testing nurseries while conserving and sharing genetic resources, and training new generations of young scientists.
Through videos, photos, interviews, journal articles, blogs, news stories and other resources, the map allows visitors to explore the multifaceted work from hunger fighters in Australia, Canada, China, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and other countries.
Written and produced by BGRI cinematographer Chris Knight and associate director for communications Linda McCandless, the map is linked to multimedia and resources from contributors around the world.
The DRRW and DGGW projects received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, national research institutes, and Cornell University.
Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (AGG) brings together partners in the global science community and in national agricultural research and extension systems to accelerate the development of higher-yielding varieties of maize and wheat — two of the world’s most important staple crops. Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), AGG fuses innovative methods that improve breeding efficiency and precision to produce and deliver high-yielding varieties that are climate-resilient, pest- and disease-resistant, highly nutritious, and targeted to farmers’ specific needs.
Research reported in this story was supported by the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research under award number Grant ID COTF0000000001. The content of this publication is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research.
The food security and livelihoods of smallholder farming families in sub-Saharan Africa depend on maize production. The region accounts for up to two-thirds of global maize production, but is facing challenges related to extreme weather events, climate-induced stresses, pests and diseases, and deteriorating soil quality. These require swift interventions and innovations to safeguard maize yields and quality.
In this Q&A, we reflect on the results and impact of the long-term collaborative work on drought-tolerant maize innovations spearheaded by two CGIAR Research Centers: the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). This innovative work has changed guises over the years, from the early work of the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) and Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa Seed Scaling (DTMASS) projects through later iterations such as Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) and the newest project, Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat (AGG).
In this Q&A, three leaders of this collaborative research reflect on the challenges their work has faced, the innovations and impact it has generated for smallholder farmers, and possible directions for future research. They are: B.M Prasanna, director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and of the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE); Abebe Menkir, a maize breeder and maize improvement lead at IITA; and Cosmos Magorokosho, project lead for AGG-Maize at CIMMYT.
Briefly describe the challenges confronting small-scale farmers prior to the introduction of drought-tolerant maize and how CIMMYT and IITA responded to these challenges?
B.M.P.: Maize is grown on over 38 million hectares in sub-Saharan Africa, accounting for 40% of cereal production in the region and providing at least 30% of the population’s total calorie intake. The crop is predominantly grown under rainfed conditions by resource-constrained smallholder farmers who often face erratic rainfall, poor soil fertility, increasing incidence of climatic extremes — especially drought and heat — and the threat of devastating diseases and insect pests.
Around 40% of maize-growing areas in sub-Saharan Africa face occasional drought stress with a yield loss of 10–25%. An additional 25% of the maize crop suffers frequent drought, with yield losses of up to 50%. Climate change is further exacerbating the situation, with devastating effects on the food security and livelihoods of the millions of smallholder farmers and their families who depend on maize in sub-Saharan Africa. Therefore, the improved maize varieties with drought tolerance, disease resistance and other farmer-preferred traits developed and deployed by CIMMYT and IITA over the last ten years in partnership with an array of national partners and seed companies across sub-Saharan Africa are critical in effectively tackling this major challenge.
A.M.: Consumption of maize as food varies considerably across sub-Saharan Africa, exceeding 100 kg per capita per year in many countries in southern Africa. In years when rainfall is adequate, virtually all maize consumed for food is grown in sub-Saharan Africa, with a minimal dependence on imported grain. Maize production, however, is highly variable from year to year due to the occurrence of drought and the dependence of national maize yields on seasonal rainfall. One consequence has been widespread famine occurring every five to ten years in sub-Saharan Africa, accompanied by large volumes of imported maize grain as food aid or direct imports.
This places a significant strain on resources of the World Food Programme and on national foreign exchange. It also disincentivizes local food production and may not prevent or address cyclical famine. It also leaves countries ill-equipped to address famine conditions in the period between the onset of the crisis and the arrival of food aid. Investment in local production, which would strengthen the resilience and self-sufficiency in food production of smallholder farming families, is a far better option to mitigate food shortages than relying on food aid and grain imports.
C.M.: Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa face innumerable natural and socioeconomic constraints. CIMMYT, in partnership with IITA and national agricultural research system partners, responded by developing and catalyzing the commercialization of new maize varieties that produce reasonable maize yields under unpredictable rainfall-dependent growing season.
Over the life of the partnership, more than 300 new climate-adaptive maize varieties were developed and released in more than 20 countries across sub-Saharan Africa where maize is a major staple food crop. Certified seed of over 100 stress-tolerant improved maize varieties have been produced by seed company partners, reaching more than 110,000 tons in 2019. The seeds of these drought-tolerant maize varieties have benefited more than 8 million households and were estimated to be grown on more than 5 million hectares in eastern, southern and west Africa in 2020.
A farmer in Mozambique stands for a photograph next to her drought-tolerant maize harvest. (Photo: CIMMYT)
In what ways did the drought-tolerant maize innovation transform small-scale farmers’ ability to respond to climate-induced risks? Are there any additional impacts on small scale farmers in addition to climate adaptation?
B.M.P.: The elite drought-tolerant maize varieties can not only provide increased yield in drought-stressed crop seasons, they also offer much needed yield stability. This means better performance than non-drought-tolerant varieties in both good years and bad years to a smallholder farmer.
Drought-tolerant maize varieties developed by CIMMYT and IITA demonstrate at least 25-30% grain yield advantage over non-drought-tolerant maize varieties in sub-Saharan Africa under drought stress at flowering. This translates into at least a 1 ton per hectare enhanced grain yield on average, as well as reduced downside risk in terms of lost income, food insecurity and other risks associated with crop yield variability. In addition to climate adaptation, smallholder farmers benefit from these varieties due to improved resistance to major diseases like maize lethal necrosis and parasitic weeds like Striga. We have also developed drought-tolerant maize varieties with enhanced protein quality — such as Quality Protein Maize or QPM — and provitamin A, which improve nutritional outcomes.
We must also note that drought risk in sub-Saharan Africa has multiple and far-reaching consequences. It reduces incentives for smallholder farmers to intensify maize-based systems and for commercial seed companies to invest and evolve due to a limited seed market.
Drought-tolerant maize is, therefore, a game changer as it reduces the downside risk for both farmers and seed companies and increases demand for improved maize seed, thus strengthening the commercial seed market in sub-Saharan Africa. Extensive public-private partnerships around drought-tolerant maize varieties supported the nascent seed sector in sub-Saharan Africa and has enabled maize-based seed companies to significantly grow over the last decade. Seed companies in turn are investing in marketing drought-tolerant maize varieties and taking the products to scale.
A.M.: The DTMA and STMA projects were jointly implemented by CIMMYT and IITA in partnership with diverse national and private sector partners in major maize producing countries in eastern, southern and western Africa to develop and deploy multiple stress-tolerant and productive maize varieties to help farmers adapt to recurrent droughts and other stresses including climate change.
These projects catalyzed the release and commercialization of numerous stress-resilient new maize varieties in target countries across Africa. Increasing the resilience of farming systems means that smallholder farmers need guaranteed access to good quality stress resilient maize seeds. To this end, the two projects worked with public and private sector partners to produce large quantities of certified seeds with a continual supply of breeder seeds from CIMMYT and IITA. The availability of considerable amount of certified seeds of resilient maize varieties has enabled partners to reach farmers producing maize under stressful conditions, thus contributing to the mitigation of food shortages that affect poor people the most in both rural and urban areas.
C.M.: The drought-tolerant maize innovation stabilized maize production under drought stress conditions in sub-Saharan Africa countries. Recent study results showed that households that grew drought-tolerant maize varieties had at least half a ton more maize harvest than the households that did not grow the drought-tolerant maize varieties, thus curbing food insecurity while simultaneously increasing farmers’ economic benefits. Besides the benefit from drought-tolerant innovation, the new maize varieties developed through the partnership also stabilized farmers’ yields under major diseases, Striga infestation, and poor soil fertility prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa.
How is the project addressing emerging challenges in breeding for drought-tolerant maize and what opportunities are available to address these challenges in the future?
Margaret holds an improved ear of drought-tolerant maize. Margaret’s grandmother participated in an on-farm trial in Murewa district, 75 kilometers northeast of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare. (Photo: Jill Cairns/CIMMYT)
B.M.P.: A strong pipeline of elite, multiple-stress-tolerant maize varieties — combining other relevant adaptive and farmer-preferred traits — has been built in sub-Saharan Africa through a strong germplasm base, partnerships with national research partners and small- and medium-sized seed companies, an extensive phenotyping and multi-location testing network, and engagement with farming communities through regional on-farm trials for the identification of relevant farmer-preferred products.
CGIAR maize breeding in sub-Saharan Africa continues to evolve in order to more effectively and efficiently create value for the farmers we serve. We are now intensively working on several areas: (a) increasing genetic gains (both on-station and on-farm) through maize breeding in the stress-prone environments of sub-Saharan Africa by optimizing our breeding pipelines and effectively integrating novel tools, technologies and strategies (e.g., doubled haploids, genomics-assisted breeding, high-throughput and precise phenotyping, improved breeding data management system, etc.); (b) targeted replacement of old or obsolete maize varieties in sub-Saharan Africa with climate-adaptive and new varieties; (c) developing next-generation climate-adaptive maize varieties with traits such as native genetic resistance to fall armyworm, and introgressed nutritional quality traits (e.g., provitamin A, high Zinc) to make a positive impact on the nutritional well-being of consumers; and (d) further strengthening the breeding capacity of national partners and small and medium-sized seed companies in sub-Saharan Africa for a sustainable way forward.
A.M.: The DTMA and STMA projects established effective product pipelines integrating cutting-edge phenotyping and molecular tools to develop stress-resilient maize varieties that are also resistant or tolerant to MLN disease and fall armyworm. These new varieties are awaiting release and commercialization. Increased investment in strengthening public and private sector partnerships is needed to speed up the uptake and commercialization of new multiple stress-resilient maize varieties that can replace the old ones in farmers’ fields and help achieve higher yield gains.
Farmers’ access to new multiple-stress-tolerant maize varieties will have a significant impact on productivity at the farm level. This will largely be due to new varieties’ improved response to fertilizer and favorable growing environments as well as their resilience to stressful production conditions. Studies show that the adoption of drought-tolerant maize varieties increased maize productivity, reduced exposure to farming risk among adopters and led to a decline in poverty among adopters. The availability of enough grain from highly productive and stress-resilient maize varieties can be the cheapest source of food and release land to expand the cultivation of other crops to facilitate increased access to diversified and healthy diets.
C.M.: The project is tackling emerging challenges posed by new diseases and pests by building upon the successful genetic base of drought-tolerant maize. This is being done by breeding new varieties that add tolerance to the emerging disease and pest challenges onto the existing drought-tolerant maize backgrounds. Successes have already been registered in breeding new varieties that have high levels of resistance to MLN disease and the fall armyworm pest.
Opportunities are also available to address new challenges including: pre-emptively breeding for threats to maize production challenges that exist in other regions of the world before these threats reach sub-Saharan Africa; enhancing the capacity of national partners to build strong breeding programs that can address new threats once they emerge in sub-Saharan Africa; and sharing knowledge and novel high-value breeding materials across different geographies to immediately address new threats once they emerge.
Cover photo: Alice Nasiyimu stands in front of a drought-tolerant maize plot at her family farm in Bungoma County, in western Kenya. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
A CIMMYT technician cuts a leaf sample for DNA extraction. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Wheat breeders from across the globe took a big step towards modernizing their molecular breeding skills at a recent workshop sponsored by the Wheat Initiative, with the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
The workshop focused on three open-source tools used in molecular breeding: GOBii-GDM for genomic data management, Flapjack for data visualization and breeding analysis, and Galaxy for Genomic Selection. These tools help breeders make selections more quickly and precisely, and ultimately lead to more cost effective and efficient improvement of varieties.
The Wheat Initiative — a global scientific collaboration whose goals are to create improved wheat varieties and disseminate better agronomic practices worldwide — and its Breeding Methods and Strategies expert working group had planned to host these trainings during the 2020 Borlaug Global Rust Initiative Technical Workshop in the United Kingdom. After it became obvious that in-person trainings were not possible, the course organizers — including CIMMYT molecular wheat breeder Susanne Dreisigacker and EiB Adoption Lead and former GOBii project director Elizabeth Jones — decided to come together to host online workshops.
Many of the tools will be incorporated into EiB’s Enterprise Breeding System (EBS), a new integrated data management system being developed for CGIAR breeders. Jones plans to also design training modules for these molecular breeding tools that will be accessible to anyone through the EiB Toolbox.
The first session of the workshop “Transforming Wheat Breeding Through Integrated Data Management with GOBii and Analysis in Flapjack” benefited breeders from Australia, Canada, Ethiopia, France, India, Ireland, Italy, Morocco, Pakistan, Switzerland, Tunisia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Susanne Dreisigacker presents during one of the sessions of the workshop.
Powering data analysis around the world
The workshop series, “Transforming Wheat Breeding Through Integrated Data Management with GOBii and Analysis in Flapjack,” aimed to benefit breeders from wheat producing countries all over the world, with sessions over two different time zones spread out over three days to reduce “Zoom fatigue.” Participants joined the first session from Australia, Canada, Ethiopia, France, India, Ireland, Italy, Morocco, Pakistan, Switzerland, Tunisia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
“It was wonderful to see the diversity of participants that we were able to train through an online workshop, many of whom otherwise might not have been able to travel to the UK for the original meeting,” said Jones. “Participants were very engaged, making the workshop so rewarding.”
The workshop was guided by Teresa Saavedra, Wheat Initiative coordinator. Apart from Dreisigacker and Jones, other trainers explained specific tools and approaches. Iain Milne from the James Hutton Institute in Scotland gave more details about the Flapjack genotyping visualization tool, which includes analysis for pedigree verification, marker assisted backcrossing and forward breeding. Andrew Kowalczyk, developer at Diversity Arrays Technology, spoke about the genotyping data QC tool DArTView.
A CIMMYT technician performs one of the steps to extract DNA samples from plants. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Clay Sneller, wheat breeder at Ohio State University, contributed training materials for important molecular breeding tools. Carlos Ignacio, previously based at the International Rice Research Center (IRRI) and now working on a PhD in Genomic Selection at Ohio State University, contributed his experience as a GOBii team member and a major contributor towards the design of Flapjack tools. Star Gao, application specialist with GOBii and now a requirements analyst for the Enterprise Breeding System, also facilitated the sessions.
Gilles Charmet, research director at the France’s National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), introduced the sessions in the Americas/Europe time zone with welcome remarks and overview of the goals of the Wheat Initiative. Alison Bentley, director of the CIMMYT Global Wheat Program, briefed on the achievements and goals of the CIMMYT Wheat program and the Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (AGG) project.
“This training will contribute towards us reaching our AGG goals of accelerating gains in wheat, by sharing technical knowledge, and allowing our beneficiary partners to have state-of-the-art know-how in the use of genetic and genomic data,” Bentley said.
Participant Stéphane Boury from Caussade Semences, France commented, “This was a very effective way to learn about new tools in wheat breeding.”
The sessions continue in Australasia next week, and will be introduced by Peter Langridge, chair of the Scientific Board for the Wheat Initiative, and EiB director Michael Quinn. Sanjay Kumar Singh, incoming chair of the Breeding expert working group for the Wheat Initiative, will close the event.
Denise E. Costich, the recently retired head of the Maize Collection at the Germplasm Bank of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), sometimes likes to include a Woody Allen quote in her presentations.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” declares the text over a photo of a befuddled-looking Allen. “But incompetence never stopped me from plunging in with enthusiasm.”
This is perhaps Costich’s tongue-in-cheek way of acknowledging the unusual trajectory that led her to the Germplasm Bank and her zeal for new and interesting challenges. But it is in no way an accurate reflection of the skill, knowledge and humane managerial style she brought to the job.
“CIMMYT requires individuals with a broad set of experiences,” says Tom Payne, head of the Wheat Collection at CIMMYT’s Germplasm Bank. Though she was not trained as a crop scientist, and despite having never worked in a genebank before, Costich’s rich set of professional and life experiences made her an ideal person for the job.
From Ithaca and back again
Born and raised in Westbury, NY, Costich spent much of her childhood on a tree nursery. Her grandfather was the manager, her father became the sales director and eventually her sister also went into the horticulture business. While her experiences on the nursery contributed to an early interest in plants and ecology, the business aspect of the nursery eluded her. “I just can’t sell things. I’m terrible,” Costich says. “But I really do like to study them.”
This studiousness took her to Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, where she initially declared as a wildlife biology major. Her notion of what it meant to “study things” was influenced by her early heroes, primatologists and field biologists Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall. It involved travel. Fieldwork in faraway places. So, when the opportunity arose at the end of her sophomore year to travel to Kenya with Friends World College, Costich didn’t hesitate.
Costich eventually spent four years in Kenya, studying baboons. When she finally returned to Ithaca, she knew two things. Fieldwork was absolutely her thing, and she wanted to pursue a doctorate.
A chance conversation with her housemates in her last semester led to a post-graduation fieldwork stint in the Brazilian Amazon under the supervision of the legendary tropical and conservation biologist, Thomas Lovejoy. But instead of a dissertation topic, she stumbled across a parasite, a case of leishmaniasis and the realization that the rainforest was not the work environment for her.
Unexpected influences and outcomes continued to mark Costich’s career throughout her graduate studies at the University of Iowa. She found her plant not in the field, but while reading a dusty review paper as an exchange student at the University of Wisconsin. Her study of Ecballium elaterium (a wild species in the Cucurbitaceae, or squash, family) did not take her back to the tropics — where most of her peers were working and where she expected to be headed as a grad student — but rather to Spain where, incidentally, she first learned Spanish.
Several years after defending, Costich landed a tenure-track position in the Biology Department at The College of New Jersey. She continued to publish on Ecballium elaterium. Her career appeared to be settling into a predictable, recognizable academic trajectory — one with no obvious intersection with CIMMYT.
Then Costich saw an ad in the Ecological Society of America bulletin for a managing editor position for all of the Society’s journals. Her husband, a fellow biology Ph.D., had been working as an academic journal editor for several years. When Costich saw the ad she immediately drove over to her husband’s office. “I slapped the thing on his desk and said, ‘Here’s your job!’” she recalls.
Costich was right. Soon after, she was on her way back to Ithaca — where the Society’s offices were located — with a family that now included three children. While it was the right move for her family, it came at the cost of her budding academic career. In Ithaca, she soon found herself stuck in the role of itinerant postdoc.
Denise Costich in Spain in 1986, doing fieldwork on Ecballium elaterium with her daughter Mara.
An amazing turn of events
Costich admits that, especially the beginning, the return to Ithaca was tough, even depressing. Her recollections of these years can sound a bit like a game of musical chairs played with research laboratories. As one post-doc or research project wound down, she’d find herself scanning the campus for her next perch. She became very adept at it. “In ten years, I never missed a paycheck,” Costich says.
The turn of the millennium found Costich scanning the horizon yet again. As the days wound down at her latest post, a maize geneticist moved into the lab next door. What started as hallway jokes about Costich jumping ship and joining the maize lab soon turned into an interview, then a job offer.
The job introduced her to nearly everyone at Cornell working in maize genetics. Costich soon found herself managing the Buckler Lab’s work on maize population genetics. Meanwhile, she dabbled in side projects on Tripsacum, a perennial grass genus that is closely related to maize, and managed a major project on switchgrass. At the end of her postdoc, Buckler set to work trying to create a permanent position for her. Once again, Costich’s trajectory was beginning to take a stable, predictable form.
Then CIMMYT scientist Sarah Hearne showed up. “I’d heard through the grapevine — or maybe through the corn field — that the position of manager of the Maize Collection of CIMMYT’s Germplasm Bank was open… and that they were having a hard time trying to find a person for the position,” Costich recalls. She had met Hearne previously and personally knew and had worked with Suketoshi Taba, the pioneering longtime director of the germplasm bank. Naturally the topic emerged as she and Hearne caught up in Ithaca.
Hearne admitted that the search hadn’t yet been successful. “But I know the perfect person for the job,” she added.
“Yeah, who’s that?” Costich asked, not getting the setup.
Denise Costich, the maize collection manager at CIMMYT’s Maize and Wheat Germplasm Bank, shows one of the genebank’s more than 28,000 accessions of maize. (Photo: Luis Salazar/Crop Trust)
A stranger in a strangely familiar land
Costich was not a little surprised by the suggestion. She had never worked at a germplasm bank before. She was finally finding some stability at Cornell.
At the same time, her early dreams of exploring new places through her work, especially the tropics, beckoned. Her youngest son was nearly college-aged. Against the advice of some who had watched her work so hard to establish herself at Cornell, she took the plunge.
By the time she reached the CIMMYT campus in Texcoco, Costich had crisscrossed a good part of the globe, picking up Spanish here, management skills there, a deep knowledge of maize and its biological and cultural evolution yonder. During this life journey, she developed a deep humanism that is all her own.
It all seemed like happenstance, perhaps, until she reached Mexico and — suddenly, counterintuitively — found herself in the field she was perfectly adapted for. “It turned out that being a germplasm bank manager was the perfect job for me, and I didn’t even know it!” Costich says. “I ended up using everything I learned in my entire career.”
That isn’t to say that it was easy, especially at first. Taba, her predecessor, had occupied the post for decades, was a trained crop scientist, and had grown the bank from a regionally-focused collection with 12,000 accessions to the preeminent maize germplasm bank globally with 28,000 accessions, a state-of-the-art storage facility, and a slew of pioneering practices.
Not only had Taba left enormous shoes to fill, during his tenure — as is common in the expansionary phase of many projects — it had been difficult for the bank to keep a full accounting and understanding of all the new material that had been added. According to germplasm bank coordinator Cristian Zavala, by the time Costich joined CIMMYT “we knew very little about the material in our vaults.”
“Taba was primarily a breeder,” Costich says. “I actually think this oscillation between a focus on breeding and a focus on conservation and curation is good for the bank.”
Visiting a newly-built community seed reserve in Chanchimil, Todos Santos Cuchumatanes, Huehuetenango, Guatemala, in 2016. From left to right: Mario Fuentes (collaborator), a member of the community seed reserve staff, Denise Costich, Carolina Camacho (CIMMYT), Miriam Yaneth Ramos (Buena Milpa) and Esvin López (local collaborator).
Visiting one of the oldest community seed reserves in the region, Quilinco, Huehuetenango, Guatemala, in 2016. From left to right: Pedro Bello (UC Davis), Esvin López (local collaborator), Denise Costich, José Luis Galicia (Buena Milpa), Ariel Rivers (CIMMYT) and Miriam Yaneth Ramos (Buena Milpa).
Costich with the winners of the Second Harvest Fair and Largest Mature Ear of Jala Maize Contest in Coapa, in Mexico’s Nayarit state.
Costich (left) measures ears of corn for the Second Harvest Fair and Largest Mature Ear of Jala Maize Contest in Coapa, in Mexico’s Nayarit state in 2019.
Costich (center) shares some comments from the stage at the Second Harvest Fair and Largest Mature Ear of Jala Maize Contest in Coapa, in Mexico’s Nayarit state. To her left is Angel Perez, a participating farmer from La Cofradía, and to her right, Rafael Mier, Director of the Fundación Tortillas de Maíz Mexicana.
A bank for farmers
However, according to Zavala, because of the limited knowledge of much material they were working with, many in the bank’s rank-and-file didn’t fully understand the importance of their work. Morale was mixed. Moreover, despite an assumption that her new job would see her working closely with local smallholders, Costich found that the institution was poorly known by everyday farmers in its host country. Where it was known, associate scientist on innovation and social inclusion, Carolina Camacho, notes, there was an assumption that CIMMYT only worked with hybrid varieties of maize and not the native landraces many smallholders in Mexico depend on.
These became the principal axes of Costich’s work at the bank: curation of backlogged material, staff development, and community outreach.
Thus, when Costich realized that records were being kept in a combination of paper and rudimentary digital formats, she sent Zavala, a promising young research assistant at the time, to an internship at the USDA’s Maize Germplasm Bank Collection in Ames, Iowa, to workshops at CGIAR germplasm banks in Colombia (CIAT) and Ethiopia (ILRI), and to meetings on specialized topics in Germany and Portugal.
Zavala had never left the country before, spoke little English, and remembers being “rebellious” at work. “I needed more responsibility,” he says. “Dr. Denise saw that and helped me grow.” Upon returning from an early trip, Zavala helped implement up-to-date traceability and data management processes, including migrating the genebank’s data onto the USDA’s GRIN-Global platform.
But as Payne points out, Costich’s tenure was never about simple bean — or, in this case, grain — counting. “She sees a more human aspect of the importance of the collections,” he says. The main tasks she set for the bank came to be subsumed into the overarching goal of a fuller understanding of the contents of the bank’s vaults, one that encompassed both their biological and sociocultural importance.
When Costich came across a collection of maize landraces from Morelos state assembled by Ángel Kato in the mid 1960s that conserved the name of the farmer who had donated each sample, she worked with Camacho and graduate student Denisse McLean-Rodriguez to design a study involving the donor families and their communities. McLean-Rodriguez, Camacho and Costich set out to compare the effects of ex-situ versus in-situ landrace conservation in both genetic and socioeconomic terms.
Similarly, when a colleague at INIFAP invited Costich to be a judge at a yearly contest for largest ear of Jala landrace maize in Mexico’s Nayarit state, they soon began discussing how they could contribute more than just their participation as judges to the community. Starting in 2016 Costich was a co-lead on a study of the landrace’s genetic diversity as well as an initiative to rematriate Jala seeds conserved at CIMMYT for over 60 years.
Costich and members of the Maize Collection team hosting Pedro Bello from UC Davis (center, glasses) at the CIMMYT Germplasm Bank in Texcoco, Mexico, for a workshop on seed longevity and conservation techniques.
A genebank is not an island
Genebanks are bulwarks against genetic erosion. But, as Camacho explains, this mission can be understood in both very narrow and very broad senses. The narrow sense focuses on genetic processes per se: the loss of alleles. The broad sense includes the loss of cultural practices and knowledge built and sustained around the cultivation of a given landrace. Through the initiatives the bank has undertaken during her tenure, Costich has tried to demonstrate, both scientifically and in practice, how germplasm collections such as CIMMYT’s can complement, reinforce, and be enriched by the work of smallholders — de facto germplasm conservators in their own right — while contributing to the difficult task of combating genetic erosion in the broad sense.
One gets the sense that in Costich’s view this isn’t about a one-way process of big institutions “helping” smallholders. Rather it’s about collaboration among all the participants in an interdependent web of conservation. As she argued at her recent exit seminar, Costich views germplasm banks as one link in a chain of food security backups that begins at the farm level.
Indeed, Costich’s most recent initiative demonstrated how innovations intended for one link in the chain can travel upwards and find applications at bigger institutions.
Costich recently led an initiative with community seed banks in the Cuchumatanes mountain range of Guatemala to study the use of DryChain technology in post-harvest storage of maize. This experiment showed the enormous benefits that incorporating such technologies could yield for energy-insecure or low-tech family and community seed reserves.
Ultimately, however, the study led to a second experiment at CIMMYT’s tropical-climate station at Agua Fría in Mexico. With advice from collaborators at UC Davis and an industry partner (Dry Chain America), the seed conditioning team retrofitted an old drying cabinet at the station to dry maize without using heat, but rather by forcing air to circulate through sacks of drying beads. Under the direction of Filippo Guzzon, a postdoc and seed biologist working with Costich, the long-term viability of seeds dried using the accelerated technique versus traditional, slower techniques was tested. The study showed no loss in long-term viability using the accelerated drying technique.
Denise Costich, CIMMYT director general Martin Kropff, and the Maize Collection team confer certificates of participation to two visiting interns, Jiang Li (to the left of Kropff), a doctoral student from CAAS, Beijing, China, and Afeez Saka Opeyemi (to the right of Costich), a staff member of the IITA Germplasm Bank in Nigeria.
Costich and the Maize Collection team at the 2018 CIMMYT Christmas party. Filippo Guzzon, seated to the right of Costich, had just been offered a postdoc with the team.
Costich and the Maize Collection team at the 2018 CIMMYT Christmas party.
A very busy retirement
At her exit seminar, Costich was presented a plaque in appreciation of her service at CIMMYT by Kevin Pixley, director of the genetic resources program. Terence Molnar, maize breeder with the Genetic Resources Team, has succeeded Costich as the Maize Germplasm Bank Head.
For some of her close colleagues, however, Costich’s departure is not the end of the road. “This is not a forever goodbye,” Guzzon says. “I will continue to be in touch with my cuatita,” says Camacho, who has also left CIMMYT.
For her part, Costich echoes that this is not a forever goodbye at all. Not to her friends and colleagues, and certainly not to her work. At a socially-distanced, maize-based farewell lunch Costich held just days before her departure, she was still busy weaving social connections and furthering collaborations among maize fanatics of all stripes — from chefs and designers to scientists and policy advocates.
She is already considering taking a part time position at her old lab at Cornell and a return to Tripsacum research. At the same time, she will be a visiting scientist at Mexico’s National Center for Genetic Resources (CNRG), where officially she will be heading up part of an international switchgrass study. Costich is hoping to leverage her tenure at CIMMYT by getting involved in a push to help improve the Mexican national system for plant genetic resources. Additionally, she has recently accepted an invitation from Seed Savers Exchange to join their board and she is looking forward to volunteering her time and expertise to various seed-saving initiatives within that organization and their many collaborators.
Asked what she’s looking forward to tackling in her retirement that isn’t work related, Costich betrays her deep allegiance to the plant world. “I don’t know,” she says, “I’m thinking of starting a big vegetable garden.”
Cover photo: Denise Costich stands for a photo during the inauguration of the CIMMYT Genebank museum in 2019. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)
Sanjaya Rajaram at the Centro de Investigaciones Agrícolas del Noroeste (CIANO) in Ciudad Obregón, in Mexico’s Sonora state. (Photo: Gil Olmos/CIMMYT)
With great sorrow, we report the passing of Sanjaya Rajaram, former Wheat Program director and distinguished scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), in Mexico on February 17, 2021, at the age of 78. Rajaram was one of the most successful and influential wheat breeders ever, and was distinguished with the World Food Prize in 2014.
As leader of bread wheat breeding and later director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program, Rajaram — affectionately known by his colleagues as “Raj” — personally oversaw the development of more than 480 high-yielding, disease-resistant varieties sown on 58 million hectares in 51 countries, increasing global wheat production by more than 200 million tons during his lifetime in diverse regions across the globe.
“At CIMMYT, we all remember Raj as a great and humble colleague helping the team to perform at the highest levels of science with impact. Many of us within CIMMYT, as well in national programs worldwide, have been inspired by him,” said Martin Kropff, CIMMYT Director General. “We will also remember him as a friend who cared for others and treated all people alike.”
“Dr. Rajaram built a generation of wheat breeders at CIMMYT, ICARDA and national research institutions, who are carrying on his legacy and ensuring that new wheat varieties continue to reach farmers. We will deeply miss his presence and encouragement,” said Ravi Singh, head of the Wheat Improvement program once led by Rajaram.
Norman Borlaug (right) in the field with Sanjaya Rajaram, his successor as head of CIMMYT’s wheat program. (Photo: Gene Hettel/CIMMYT)
Hans Braun (center), Sanjaya Rajaram (third from right), Ravi Singh (first from right) and other colleagues stand for a photograph during a field day at CIMMYT’s experimental station in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, Mexico. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Sanjaya Rajaram (right) speaks during a field day for scientists and staff at the CIMMYT experimental station in Toluca, Mexico, in 2013. (Photo: CIMMYT)
The World Food Prize 2014 was awarded to Sanjaya Rajaram for his achievements in plant research and food production. (Photo: RajaramS, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Sanjaya Rajaram speaks at the 2015 BGRI Workshop in Sydney, Australia. (Photo: Christopher Knight/CIMMYT)
Sanjaya Rajaram speaks at the event to celebrate CIMMYT’s 50th anniversary in 2014. (Photo: Gerardo Mejía/CIMMYT)
A life devoted to wheat breeding
Born on a small farm in India in 1943, Rajaram studied genetics and plant breeding at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Sydney, he joined CIMMYT in 1969, diligently working as a wheat breeder alongside Nobel Prize Laureate and scientist Norman Borlaug in Mexico. Recognizing his talent and initiative, Borlaug appointed Rajaram as head of CIMMYT’s wheat breeding program at just 29 years of age.
Borlaug described Rajaram as “a scientist of great vision who made a significant contribution to the improvement of world wheat production, working for the benefit of hundreds of thousands of farmers in countries across the globe.”
Among Rajaram’s many accomplishments include being awarded the prestigious World Food Prize in 2014 for his role in increasing global wheat production and alleviating world hunger. His crossing of spring and winter wheat varieties led to new advances in wheat varieties that were stable across a wide range of environments, as well as featuring high yields and resistance to wheat diseases, particularly rust and foliar blight.
In 2015, he was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman award, the highest honor conferred on Indians overseas. He also received the highly prestigious Padma Shri award from the government of India in 2001, the Friendship Award from the government of China in 1998, numerous fellowships from scientific societies and doctorates from various universities.
Rajaram recognized the importance of sharing his knowledge and cultivating the talents of the next generation of plant scientists, training and mentoring more than 700 scientists from developing countries worldwide.
Rajaram also served as Director of the Integrated Gene Management Program at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) before formally retiring in 2008. In his retirement, he continued as a special scientific advisor to CIMMYT and ICARDA, residing in his home of Mexico.
In addition to his successful career as a plant scientist, Rajaram launched and operated Resource Seeds International, a company to study and market seed of improved wheat varieties.
The CIMMYT community sends our deepest condolences to Rajaram’s family during this period.
Global thought leader, philanthropist and one of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and CGIAR’s most vocal and generous supporters, Bill Gates, wrote a book about climate change and is now taking it around the world on a virtual book tour to share a message of urgency and hope.
