funder_partner: CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT)

Joining advanced science with field-level research and extension in lower- and middle-income countries, the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT) works with public and private organizations worldwide to raise the productivity, production and affordable availability of wheat for 2.5 billion resource-poor producers and consumers who depend on the crop as a staple food.

WHEAT is led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), with the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) as a primary research partner.

Funding for WHEAT comes from CGIAR and national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies, in particular the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

https://wheat.org/

Dinke Abebe shows a handful of wheat at a traditional seed storage house in Boru Lencha village, Hetosa district, Arsi highlands, Ethiopia. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)

New publications: Gender and agricultural innovation in Oromia region, Ethiopia

Written by Emma Orchardson on February 27, 2019. Posted in Publications.

Despite formal decentralization, agricultural services in Ethiopia are generally “top-down,” claim the authors of a recently published paper on gender and agricultural innovation. “Extension services,” they explain, “are supply-driven, with off-the-shelf technologies transferred to farmers without expectation of further adaptation.”

Drawing on GENNOVATE case studies from two wheat-growing communities in Ethiopia’s Oromia region, the authors examine how a small sample of women and men smallholders attempt to innovate with improved wheat seed, row planting, and the broad bed maker, introduced through the Ethiopian agricultural extension system. They also introduce the concept of tempered radicals, an analytic lens used to understand how individuals try to initiate change processes, and assess whether this can have validity in rural settings.

As the authors demonstrate through their literature review on cultural norms in the region, there are powerful institutional gender constraints to change processes, which can be punitive for women.

Ethiopian women smallholders are particularly disadvantaged because they have limited access to productive assets such as irrigation water, credit and extension services. Therefore, they find it harder to implement innovations. The study asserts that strategies to support innovators, and women innovators in particular, must be context-specific as well as gender-sensitive.

Read the full article “Gender and agricultural innovation in Oromia region, Ethiopia: from innovator to tempered radical” in Gender, Technology and Development.

Development of research methodology and data collection was supported by the CGIAR Gender and Agricultural Research Network, the World Bank, the Government of Mexico, the Government of Germany, and the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat. Data analysis was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Check out other recent publications by CIMMYT researchers below:

Alternative use of wheat land to implement a potential wheat holiday as wheat blast control: in search of feasible crops in Bangladesh. 2019. Mottaleb, K.A., Singh, P.K., Xinyao He, Akbar Hossain, Kruseman, G., Erenstein, O. In: Land Use Policy v. 82, p. 1-12.
Applications of machine learning methods to genomic selection in breeding wheat for rust resistance. 2019. González-Camacho, J.M., Ornella, L., Perez-Rodriguez, P., Gianola, D., Dreisigacker, S., Crossa, J. In: Plant Genome v. 11, no. 2, art. 170104.
Genetic diversity and population structure of synthetic hexaploid-derived wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) accessions. 2019. Gordon, E., Kaviani, M., Kagale, S., Payne, T.S., Navabi, A. In: Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution v. 66, no. 2, p. 335-348.
Genomic-enabled prediction accuracies increased by modeling genotype × environment interaction in durum wheat. 2019. Sukumaran, S., Jarquín, D., Crossa, J., Reynolds, M.P. In: Plant Genome v. 11, no. 2, art. 170112.
Improved water-management practices and their impact on food security and poverty: empirical evidence from rural Pakistan. 2019. Ali, A., Rahut, D.B., Mottaleb, K.A. En: Official Journal of the World Water Council Water Policy v. 20, no. 4, p. 692-711.
Integrating genomic-enabled prediction and high-throughput phenotyping in breeding for climate-resilient bread wheat. 2019. Juliana, P., Montesinos-Lopez, O.A., Crossa, J., Mondal, S., Gonzalez-Perez, L., Poland, J., Huerta-Espino, J., Crespo-Herrera, L.A., Velu, G., Dreisigacker, S., Shrestha, S., Perez-Rodriguez, P., Pinto Espinosa, F., Singh, R.P. In: Theoretical and Applied Genetics v. 132, no. 1, p. 177-194.
Pre-harvest management is a critical practice for minimizing aflatoxin contamination of maize. 2019. Mahuku, G., Nzioki, H., Mutegi, C., Kanampiu, F., Narrod, C., Makumbi, D. In: Food Control v. 96, p. 219-226.
Root-lesion nematodes in cereal fields: importance, distribution, identification, and management strategies. 2019. Mokrini, F., Viaene, N., Waeyenberge, L., Dababat, A.A., Moens, M. In: Journal of Plant Diseases and Protection v. 126, no. 1, p. 1-11.
Spider community shift in response to farming practices in a sub-humid agroecosystem of southern Africa. 2019. Mashavakure, N., Mashingaidze, A.B., Musundire, R., Nhamo, N., Gandiwa, E., Thierfelder, C., Muposhi, V.K. In: Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment v. 272, p. 237-245.
Threats of tar spot complex disease of maize in the United States of America and its global consequences. 2019. Mottaleb, K.A., Loladze, A., Sonder, K., Kruseman, G., San Vicente, F.M. In: Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change v. 24, no. 2, p. 281–300.

Tara Miah, a farmer from Rajguru in Rahamanbari union, Barisal, Bangladesh. (Photo: Ranak Martin/CIMMYT)

Assessing the effectiveness of a “wheat holiday” for preventing blast in the lower Gangetic plains

Written by Marcia MacNeil on February 22, 2019. Posted in News.

Wheat blast — one of the world’s most devastating wheat diseases — is moving swiftly into new territory in South Asia.

In an attempt to curb the spread of this disease, policymakers in the region are considering a “wheat holiday” policy: banning wheat cultivation for a few years in targeted areas. Since wheat blast’s Magnaporthe oryzae pathotype triticum (MoT) fungus can survive on seeds for up to 22 months, the idea is to replace wheat with other crops, temporarily, to cause the spores to die. In India, which shares a border of more than 4,000 km with Bangladesh, the West Bengal state government has already instituted a two-year ban on wheat cultivation in two districts, as well as all border areas. In Bangladesh, the government is implementing the policy indirectly by discouraging wheat cultivation in the severely blast affected districts.

CIMMYT researchers recently published in two ex-ante studies to identify economically feasible alternative crops in Bangladesh and the bordering Indian state of West Bengal.

Alternative crops

The first step to ensuring that a ban does not threaten the food security and livelihoods of smallholder farmers, the authors assert, is to supply farmers with economically feasible alternative crops.

In Bangladesh, the authors examined the economic feasibility of seven crops as an alternative to wheat, first in the entire country, then in 42 districts vulnerable to blast, and finally in ten districts affected by wheat blast. Considering the cost of production and revenue per hectare, the study ruled out boro rice, chickpeas and potatoes as feasible alternatives to wheat due to their negative net return. In contrast, they found that cultivation of maize, lentils, onions, and garlic could be profitable.

The study in India looked at ten crops grown under similar conditions as wheat in the state of West Bengal, examining the economic viability of each. The authors conclude that growing maize, lentils, legumes such as chickpeas and urad bean, rapeseed, mustard and potatoes in place of wheat appears to be profitable, although they warn that more rigorous research and data are needed to confirm and support this transition.

Selecting alternative crops is no easy task. Crops offered to farmers to replace wheat must be appropriate for the agroecological zone and should not require additional investments for irrigation, inputs or storage facilities. Also, the extra production of labor-intensive and export-oriented crops, such as maize in India and potatoes in Bangladesh, may add costs or require new markets for export.

There is also the added worry that the MoT fungus could survive on one of these alternative crops, thus completely negating any benefit of the “wheat holiday.” The authors point out that the fungus has been reported to survive on maize.

A short-term solution?

*The grain in this blast-blighted wheat head has been turned to chaff. (Photo: CKnight/DGGW/ Cornell University)*

In both studies, the authors discourage a “wheat holiday” policy as a holistic solution. However, they leave room for governments to pursue it on an interim and short-term basis.

In the case of Bangladesh, CIMMYT agricultural economist and lead author Khondoker Mottaleb asserts that a “wheat holiday” would increase the country’s reliance on imports, especially in the face of rapidly increasing wheat demand and urbanization. A policy that results in complete dependence on wheat imports, he and his co-authors point out, may not be politically attractive or feasible. Also, the policy would be logistically challenging to implement. Finally, since the disease can potentially survive on other host plants, such as weeds and maize, it may not even work in the long run.

In the interim, the government of Bangladesh may still need to rely on the “wheat holiday” policy in the severely blast-affected districts. In these areas, they should encourage farmers to cultivate lentils, onions and garlic. In addition, in the short term, the government should make generic fungicides widely available at affordable prices and provide an early warning system as well as adequate information to help farmers effectively combat the disease and minimize its consequences.

In the case of West Bengal, India, similar implications apply, although the authors conclude that the “wheat holiday” policy could only work if Bangladesh has the same policy in its blast-affected border districts, which would involve potentially difficult and costly inter-country collaboration, coordination and logistics.

Actions for long-term success

The CIMMYT researchers urge the governments of India and Bangladesh, their counterparts in the region and international stakeholders to pursue long-term solutions, including developing a convenient diagnostic tool for wheat blast surveillance and a platform for open data and science to combat the fungus.

A promising development is the blast-resistant (and zinc-enriched) wheat variety BARI Gom 33 which the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) released in 2017 with support from CIMMYT. However, it will take at least three to five years before it will be available to farmers throughout Bangladesh. The authors urged international donor agencies to speed up the multiplication process of this variety.

CIMMYT scientists in both studies close with an urgent plea for international financial and technical support for collaborative research on disease epidemiology and forecasting, and the development and dissemination of new wheat blast-tolerant and resistant varieties and complementary management practices — crucial steps to ensuring food security for more than a billion people in South Asia.

Wheat blast impacts

First officially reported in Brazil in 1985, where it eventually spread to 3 million hectares in South America and became the primary reason for limited wheat production in the region, wheat blast moved to Bangladesh in 2016. There it affected nearly 15,000 hectares of land in eight districts, reducing yield by as much as 51 percent in the affected fields.

Blast is devilish: directly striking the wheat ear, it can shrivel and deform the grain in less than a week from the first symptoms, leaving farmers no time to act. There are no widely available resistant varieties, and fungicides are expensive and provide only a partial defense. The disease, caused by the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae pathotype triticum (MoT), can spread through infected seeds as well as by spores that can travel long distances in the air.

South Asia has a long tradition of wheat consumption, especially in northwest India and Pakistan, and demand has been increasing rapidly across South Asia. It is the second major staple in Bangladesh and India and the principal staple food in Pakistan. Research indicates 17 percent of wheat area in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan — representing nearly 7 million hectares – is vulnerable to the disease, threatening the food security of more than a billion people.

CIMMYT and its partners work to mitigate wheat blast through projects supported by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat and the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture.

Read the full articles:

Averting Wheat Blast by Implementing a ‘Wheat Holiday’: In Search of Alternative Crops in West Bengal, India by Khondoker A. Mottaleb, Pawan K. Singh, Kai Sonder, Gideon Kruseman, Olaf Erenstein (PLOS One, February 2019)

Alternative use of wheat land to implement a potential wheat holiday as wheat blast control: In search of feasible crops in Bangladesh by Khondoker Abdul Mottaleb, Pawan Kumar Singh, Xinyao He, Akbar Hossain, Gideon Kruseman, Olaf Erenstein (Land Use Policy, March 2019)

Harvesting wheat at Gataraga, Northern Province, Rwanda.

Smallholder wheat production can cut Africa’s costly grain imports

Written by Mike Listman on February 8, 2019. Posted in News.

International scientists are working with regional and national partners in sub-Saharan Africa to catalyze local wheat farming and help meet the rapidly rising regional demand for this crop.

The specialists are focusing on smallholder farmers in Rwanda and Zambia, offering them technical and institutional support, better links to markets, and the sharing of successful practices across regions and borders, as part of the project “Enhancing smallholder wheat productivity through sustainable intensification of wheat-based farming systems in Rwanda and Zambia.”

“Work started in 2016 and has included varietal selection, seed multiplication, and sharing of high-yielding, locally adapted, disease-resistant wheat varieties,” said Moti Jaleta, a socioeconomist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) who leads the project. “Our knowledge and successes in smallholder wheat production and marketing will also be applicable in Madagascar, Mozambique, and Tanzania.”

Maize is by far the number-one food crop in sub-Saharan Africa but wheat consumption is increasing fast, driven in part by rapid urbanization and life-style changes. The region annually imports more than 15 million tons of wheat grain, worth some US$ 3.6 billion at current prices. Only Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Africa grow significant amounts of wheat and they are still net importers of the grain.

“Growing more wheat where it makes sense to do so can help safeguard food security for people who prefer wheat and reduce dependence on risky wheat grain markets,” Jaleta explained. “We’re working in areas where there’s biophysical potential for the crop in rain-fed farming, to increase domestic wheat production and productivity through use of improved varieties and cropping practices.”

In addition to the above, participants are supporting the region’s wheat production in diverse ways:

Recommendations to fine-tune smallholder wheat value chains and better serve diverse farmers.
Testing of yield-enhancing farming practices, such as bed-and-furrow systems that facilitate efficient sowing and better weed control.
Testing and promotion of small-scale mechanization, such as power tillers, to save labor and improve sowing and crop establishment.
Exploring use of hand-held light sensors to precisely calibrate nitrogen fertilizer dosages throughout the cropping season.

Innocent Habarurema, wheat breeder in the Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board (RAB), cited recent successes in the release of improved, disease resistant wheat varieties, as well as engaging smallholder farmers in seed multiplication and marketing to improve their access to quality seed of those varieties.

“The main challenge in wheat production is the short window of time between wheat seasons, which doesn’t allow complete drying of harvested plants for proper threshing,” Habarurema explained. “Suitable machinery to dry and thresh the wheat would remove the drudgery of hand threshing and improve the quality of the grain, so that it fetches better prices in markets.”

*Millers, like this one in Rwanda, play a key role in wheat value chains.*

Critical wheat diseases in Zambia include spot blotch, a leaf disease caused by the fungus Cochliobolus sativus, and head blight caused by Fusarium spp., which can leave carcinogenic toxins in the grain, according to Batiseba Tembo, wheat breeder at the Zambian Agricultural Research Institute (ZARI).

“Developing and disseminating varieties resistant to these diseases is a priority in the wheat breeding program at Mt. Makulu Agricultural Research Center,” said Tembo. “We’re also promoting appropriate mechanization for smallholder farmers, to improve wheat production and reduce the enormous drudgery of preparing the soil with hand hoes.”

Participants in the project, which runs to 2020, met at Musanze, in Rwanda’s Northern Province, during February 5-7 to review progress and plan remaining activities, which include more widespread sharing of seed, improved practices, and other useful outcomes.

“There was interest in trying smallholder winter wheat production under irrigation in Zambia to reduce the disease effects normally experienced in rainfed cropping,” said Jaleta, adding that the costs and benefits of irrigation, which is rarely used in the region, need to be assessed.

Project participants may also include in selection trials wheat varieties that have been bred to contain enhanced grain levels of zinc, a key micronutrient missing in the diets of many rural Africa households.

“The project will also push for the fast-track release and seed multiplication of the best varieties, to get them into farmers’ hands as quickly as possible,” Jaleta said.

In addition to CIMMYT, RAB, and ZARI, implementing partners include the Center for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development for Southern Africa (CCARDESA). Generous funding for the work comes from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat.

A baker makes the traditional wheat flatbread known as “naan roti” in Dinajpur, Bangladesh. (Photo: S. Mojumder/Drik/CIMMYT)

City dwellers in Africa and Asia increasingly choose wheat, research shows

Written by Mike Listman on January 23, 2019. Posted in News.

The developing world’s appetite for wheat is growing swiftly, driven in part by rising incomes, rapid urbanization and the expansion of families where both spouses work outside the house, according to a recent seminar by two international experts.

“Our research is picking up significant shifts in demand among cereals, including the increasing popularity of wheat in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa,” said Khondoker Mottaleb, socioeconomist for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), speaking at a seminar at the center on December 11, 2018.

In preliminary results of a study using household data from six countries in Asia and five in sub-Saharan Africa, Mottaleb and his associate, Fazleen Binti Abdul Fatah, senior lecturer at the University of Technology MARA, Malaysia, found that the households of both regions will eat more wheat by 2030, mainly in place of rice in Asia and of maize and other coarse grain cereals in Africa.

Speedy urbanization, higher incomes, population growth, and allied lifestyle changes are all driving this trend, said Fazleen. “Many urban women are working, so families are transitioning to bread and other convenient wheat-based foods and processed foods.”

A typical case according to Mottaleb is that of Bangladesh, a country whose population at 160 million is half that of the United States but with a geographical area equivalent to the US state of Ohio. The per capita GDP of Bangladesh grew from US$360 to US$1,516 during 2000-2017, and more than 35 percent of the country’s inhabitants now live in cities.

Meeting demand for wheat in Bangladesh

A 2018 paper by Mottaleb and fellow CIMMYT researchers shows that wheat consumption will increase substantially in Bangladesh by 2030 and the country needs to expand production or increase imports to meet the growing demand.

“The country purchases nearly 70 percent of its wheat at an annual cost near or exceeding US$1 billion, depending on yearly prices,” said Mottaleb. “Wheat prices are relatively low and wheat markets have been relatively stable, but if yields of a major wheat exporting country suddenly fall, say, from pest attacks or a drought, wheat markets would destabilize and prices would spike, as occurred in 2008 and 2011.”

In a 2018 study, the United Kingdom’s Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) cautioned that declining wheat cropping area worldwide and significant stockpiling by China — which holds nearly half the world’s wheat stocks but does not export any grain — were masking serious risk in global wheat markets.

A recent report ranked Bangladesh as the world’s fifth largest wheat importer. Since 2014-15 domestic wheat consumption there has increased by 57 percent from 4.9 million metric ton to 7.7 million metric tons. Last December, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations forecast Bangladesh wheat import requirements of 6 million tons for this year — 34 percent above the previous five-year average following steady increases since 2012-13.

“The prevailing narrative has wealthier and more urban consumers shifting from basic foods to higher value foods, and this is doubtless occurring,” said Fazleen, “but our work shows a more nuanced scenario. In the traditional rice consuming economies in Asia, rural households are also eating more wheat, due to rapid dietary transformations.”

For Bangladesh, the researchers propose growing additional wheat on fallow and less-intensively-cropped land, as well as expanding the use of newer, high-yielding and climate-smart wheat varieties.

“Our work clearly shows the rising popularity of wheat across Asia and Africa,” said Mottaleb. “We urge international development agencies and policymakers to enhance wheat production in suitable areas, ensuring food security for the burgeoning number of people who prefer wheat and reducing dependence on risky wheat grain markets.”

In addition to the paper cited above, Mottaleb and colleagues have published recent studies on Bangladesh’s wheat production and consumption dynamics and changing food consumption patterns.

The authors thank the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat for its support for these studies.

Researcher Tamaya Peressini performs disease evaluations 10 days post infection at CIMMYT’s glasshouse facilities.

University of Queensland student researches tan spot resistance in wheat at CIMMYT

Written by on January 21, 2019. Posted in Features.

This story, part of a series on the international agricultural research projects of recipients of the Crawford Fund’s International Agricultural Student Award, was originally posted on the Crawford Fund blog.

In 2018, Tamaya Peressini, from the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), a research institute of the University of Queensland (UQ), travelled to CIMMYT in Mexico as part of her Honours thesis research, focused on a disease called tan spot in wheat.

Tan spot is caused by the pathogen Pyrenophora triciti-repentis (Ptr) and her project aimed to evaluate the resistance of tan spot in wheat to global races to this pathogen.

“The germplasm I’m studying for my thesis carries what is known as adult plant resistance (or APR) to tan spot, which has demonstrated to be a durable source of resistance in other wheat pathosystems such as powdery mildew,” Peressini said.

Tan spot is prevalent worldwide, and in Australia causes the most yield loss out of the foliar wheat diseases. In Australia, there is only one identified pathogen race that is prevalent, called Ptr Race 1. For Ptr Race 1, the susceptibility gene Tsn1 in wheat is the main factor that results in successful infection in Ptr strains that carry Toxin A. However, globally it is a more difficult problem, as there are seven other pathogen races that consist of different combinations of necrotrophic toxins. Hence, developing cultivars that are multi-race resistant to Ptr presents a significant challenge to breeders, as multiple resistant genes would be required for resistance to other pathogens.

“At CIMMYT, I evaluated the durability of APR I identified in plant material in Australia by inoculating with a local strain of Ptr and also with a pathogen that shares ToxA: Staganospora nodorum,” Peressini explained.

“The benefit of studying this at CIMMYT was that I had access to different strains of the pathogen which carry different virulence factors of disease, I was exposed to international agricultural research and, importantly, I was able to create research collaborations that would allow the APR detected in this population to have the potential to reach developing countries to assist in developing durably resistant wheat cultivars for worldwide deployment.”

Recent work in Dr Lee Hickey’s laboratory in Queensland has identified several landraces from the Vavilov wheat collection that exhibited a novel resistance to tan spot known as adult plant resistance (APR). APR has proven to be a durable and broad-spectrum source of resistance in wheat crops, namely with the Lr34 gene which confers resistance to powdery mildew and leaf stem rust of wheat.

“My research is focused on evaluating this type of resistance and identifying whether it is resistant to multiple pathogen species and other races of Ptr. This is important to the Queensland region, as the northern wheat belt is significantly affected by tan spot disease. Introducing durable resistance genes to varieties in this region would be an effective pre-breeding strategy because it would help develop crop varieties that would have enhanced resistance to tan spot should more strains reach Australia. Furthermore, it may provide durable resistance to other necrotrophic pathogens of wheat,” Peressini said.

The plant material Peressini studied in her honors thesis was a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population, with the parental lines being the APR landrace — carries Tsn1 — and the susceptible Australian cultivar Banks — also carries Tsn1. To evaluate the durability of resistance in this population to other strains of Ptr, this material along with the parental lines of the population and additional land races from the Vavilov wheat collection were sent to CIMMYT for Tamaya to perform a disease assay.

“At CIMMYT I evaluated the durability of APR identified in plant material in Australia by inoculating with a local strain of Ptr and also with a pathogen that shares ToxA: Staganospora nodorum. After infection, my plant material was kept in 100 per cent humidity for 24 hours (12 hours light and 12 hours dark) and then transferred back to regular glasshouse conditions. At 10 days post infection I evaluated the resistance in the plant material.”

From the evaluation, the APR RIL line demonstrated significant resistance compared to the rest of the Australian plant material against both pathogens. The results are highly promising, as they demonstrate the durability of the APR for both pre-breeding and multi-pathogen resistance breeding. Furthermore, this plant material is now available for experimental purposes at CIMMYT, where further trials can validate how durable the resistance is to other necrotrophic pathogens and also be deployed worldwide and be tested against even more strains of Ptr.

“During my visit at CIMMYT I was able to immerse myself in the Spanish language and take part in professional seminars, tours, lab work and field work around the site. A highlight for me was learning to prepare and perform toxin infiltrations for an experiment comparing the virulence of different strains of spot blotch,” Peressini said.

Peressini had a chance to visit the pyramids of Teotihuacán and other Mexican landmarks. — *During her stay in Mexico, Peressini had a chance to visit the pyramids of Teotihuacán and other cultural landmarks.*

“I also formed valuable friendships and research partnerships from every corner of the globe and had valuable exposure to the important research underway at CIMMT and insight to the issues that are affecting maize and wheat growers globally. Of course, there was also the chance to travel on weekends, where I was able to experience the lively Mexican culture and historical sites – another fantastic highlight to the trip!”

“I would like to thank CIMMYT and Dr Pawan Singh for hosting me and giving the opportunity to learn, grow and experience the fantastic research that is performed at CIMMYT and opportunities to experience parts of Mexico. The researchers and lab technicians were all so friendly and accommodating. I would also like to thank my supervisor Dr Lee Hickey for introducing this project collaboration with CIMMYT. Lastly, I would like to thank the Crawford Fund Queensland Committee for funding this visit; not only was I able to immerse myself in world class plant pathology research, I have been given valuable exposure to international agricultural research that will give my research career a boost in the right direction,” Peressini concluded.

Bangladesh farmer Raju Sarder sits on his recently acquired reaper. (Photo: CIMMYT/Md. Ikram Hossain)

The saving grace of a hefty investment

Written by on December 18, 2018. Posted in Features.

A man in his early 20s walked the winding roads of Sajiara village, Dumuria upazila, Khulna District in Bangladesh. His head hanging low, he noticed darkness slowly descending and then looked up to see an old farmer wrapping up his own daily activities. With traditional tools in hand, the farmer looked exhausted. The young man, Raju Sarder, considered that there had to be a better way to farm to alleviate his drudgery and that of others in the community.

Determined to act, Raju set out to meet Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) officials the very next day. They informed him about the Mechanization and Irrigation project of the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA MI). They also introduced him to the project’s most popular technologies, namely the power tiller operated seeder, reaper and axial flow pumps, all of which reduce labor costs and increase farming efficiency.

Raju found the reaper to be the most interesting and relevant for his work, and contacted a CSISA representative to acquire one.

The first challenge he encountered was the cost — the equivalent of $1,970 — which as a small-scale farmer he could not afford. CSISA MI field staff assured him that his ambitions were not nipped in the bud and guided him in obtaining a government subsidy and a loan of $1,070 from TMSS, one of CSISA MI’s micro financing partners. Following operator and maintenance training from CSISA MI, Raju began providing reaping services to local smallholder rice and wheat farmers.

He noticed immediately that he did not have to exert himself as much as before but actually gained time for leisure and his production costs dwindled. Most remarkably, for reaping 24 hectares Raju generated a profit of $1,806; a staggering 15 times greater than what he could obtain using traditional, manual methods and enough to pay back his loan in the first season.

“There was a time when I was unsure whether I would be able to afford my next meal,” said Raju, “but it’s all different now because profits are pouring in thanks to the reaper.”

As a result of the project and farmers’ interest, field labor in Raju’s community is also being transformed. Gone are the days when farmers toiled from dawn to dusk bending and squatting to cut the rice and wheat with rustic sickles. Laborious traditional methods are being replaced by modern and effective mechanization. Through projects such as CSISA MI, CIMMYT is helping farmers like Raju to become young entrepreneurs with a bright future. Once poor laborers disaffected and treated badly in their own society, these youths now walk with dignity and pride as significant contributors to local economic development.

CSISA MI is a partnership involving the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and iDE, a non-governmental organization that fosters farmers’ entrepreneurial development, with funding from USAID under the Feed the Future initiative.

Pakistan wheat seed makeover

Written by on December 13, 2018. Posted in News.

Munfiat, a farmer from Nowshera district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan, is happy to sow and share seed of the high-yielding, disease resistant Faisalabad-08 wheat variety. (Photo: CIMMYT/Ansaar Ahmad)

Nearly 3,000 smallholder wheat farmers throughout Pakistan will begin to sow seed of newer, high-yielding, disease-resistant wheat varieties and spread the seed among their peers in 2019, through a dynamic initiative that is revitalizing the contribution of science-based innovation for national agriculture.

Some 73 tons of seed of 15 improved wheat varieties recently went out to farmers in the provinces of Baluchistan, Gilgit Baltistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh, as part of the Agricultural Innovation Program (AIP), an initiative led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) with funding from the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

“Our main goal is to help farmers replace outdated, disease-susceptible wheat varieties,” said Muhammad Imtiaz, CIMMYT scientist and country representative for Pakistan who leads the AIP. “Studies have shown that some Pakistan farmers grow the same variety for as long as 10 years, meaning they lose out on the superior qualities of newer varieties and their crops may fall victim to virulent, rapidly evolving wheat diseases.”

With support from CIMMYT and partners, participating farmers will not only enjoy as much as 20 percent higher harvests, but have agreed to produce and share surplus seed with neighbors, thus multiplying the new varieties’ reach and benefits, according to Imtiaz.

He said the new seed is part of AIP’s holistic focus on better cropping systems, including training farmers in improved management practices for wheat.

Wheat is Pakistan’s number-one food crop. Farmers there produce over 25 million tons of wheat each year — nearly as much as the entire annual wheat output of Africa or South America.

Annual per capita wheat consumption in Pakistan averages over 120 kilograms, among the highest in the world and providing over 60 percent of Pakistanis’ daily caloric intake.

The seed distributed includes varieties that offer enhanced levels of grain zinc content. The varieties were developed by CIMMYT in partnership with HarvestPlus, a CGIAR research program to study and deliver biofortified foods.

According to a 2011 nutrition survey, 39 percent of children in Pakistan and 48 percent of pregnant women suffer from zinc deficiency, leading to child stunting rates of more than 40 percent and high infant mortality.

The road to better food security and nutrition seems straighter for farmer Munsif Ullah and his family, with seed of a high-yielding, zinc-enhanced wheat variety. (Photo: CIMMYT/Ansaar Ahmad)

“I am very excited to be part of Zincol-16 seed distribution, because its rich ingredients of nutrition will have a good impact on the health of my family,” said Munsif Ullah, a farmer from Swabi District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Other seed distributed includes that of the Pakistan-13 variety for rainfed areas of Punjab, Shahkar-13 for the mountainous Gilgit-Baltistan, Ehsan-16 for rainfed areas in general, and the Umeed-14 and Zardana varieties for Baluchistan.

All varieties feature improved resistance to wheat rust diseases caused by fungi whose strains are mutating and spreading quickly in South Asia.

CIMMYT and partners are training farmers in quality seed production and setting up demonstration plots in farmers’ fields to create awareness about new varieties and production technologies, as well as collecting data to monitor the varieties’ performance.

They are also promoting resource-conserving practices such as balanced applications of fertilizer based on infrared sensor readings, ridge planting, and zero tillage. These innovations can save water, fertilizer, and land preparation costs, not to mention increasing yields.

“CIMMYT’s main focus in Pakistan is work with national wheat researchers to develop and spread better wheat production systems,” Imtiaz explained. “This includes improved farming practices and wheat lines that offer higher yields, disease resistance, and resilience under higher temperatures and dry conditions, as well as good end-use quality.”

CIMMYT’s partners in AIP include the National Rural Support Program (NRSP), the Lok Sanjh Foundation, the Village Friends Organization (VFO), the Aga Khan Rural Support Program (AKRSP), the National Agricultural Research Council (NARC) Wheat Program, the Wheat Research Institute (WRI) Faisalabad and Sakrand centers, AZRI-Umarkot, Kashmala Agro Seed Company, ARI-Quetta, BARDC-Quetta, and Model Farm Services Center, KP.

New publications: Climate change impact and adaptation for wheat protein

Written by Courtney Brantley on December 11, 2018. Posted in Publications.

Globally, wheat provides around 20 percent of the calories and protein in human diets. By mid-century, crop production must increase by 60 percent to meet global food demand and help reduce hunger, a challenge made even harder by climate change. “Climate Change Impact and Adaptation for Wheat Protein,” a study published in Global Change Biology in September 2018, examines why wheat grain protein concentration — a determinant of grain quality — is often overlooked in relation to improving global crop production in the face of climate change challenges.

“The impact of climate change on crops typically focuses on productivity; however, there are nutritional implications too,” says key contributor to the study Matthew Reynolds, wheat physiologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). “Since wheat also provides a significant proportion of protein in the diets of millions of resource-poor people, the negative impact of increased atmospheric CO2 on protein concentration in the grain is a disturbing fact,” stated Reynolds. “If not addressed, it could have a devastating impact on the health and livelihoods especially of marginalized people who cannot easily afford diverse sources of protein in their diet.”

Multi-location field trials, in addition to model testing, were used to systematically analyze the effects of increasing temperature, heat shocks, elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration, nitrogen, water deficiency and the combination of these factors on yield and wheat grain protein in the world’s main wheat producing regions. This study marked the first time that heat shock and high temperature interaction with elevated CO2 concentration was tested through an impact model. As noted in the study, “This is the most comprehensive study ever done of the effect of climate change on yield and the nutritional quality of one of the three major sources of human food security and nutrition.”

Read the full study here.

*An improved wheat variety grows in the field in Islamabad, Pakistan. (Photo: A. Yaqub/CIMMYT)*

Check out other recent publications by CIMMYT researchers here:

Association of Lr 34 gene complex with spot blotch disease resistance at molecular level in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Suneel Kumar, Singh, R.P., Joshi, A.K., Roder, M.S., Chhuneja Parveen, Mavi, G.S., Kumar, U. In: Indian Journal of Genetics and Plant Breeding v. 78, no. 3, p. 302-308.
Base temperatures and degrees days development of 10 Mexican corn accessions. Arista-Cortes, J., Quevedo-Nolasco, A., Zamora-Morales, B.P., Bauer Mengelberg, J.R., Sonder, K., Lugo-Espinosa, O. In: Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Agricolas v. 9, no. 5, p. 1023-1033.
Genetic analysis of resistance to stripe rust in durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L. Var. Durum). Xue Lin, N’Diaye, A., Walkowiak, S., Nilsen, K., Cory, A.T., Haile, J., Kutcher, H.R., Ammar, K., Loladze, A., Huerta-Espino, J., Clarke, J.M., Ruan, Y., Knox, R., Fobert, P., Sharpe, A.G., Pozniak, C.J. In: PLoS One v. 13, no. 9, art. e0203283.
Pre-harvest management is a critical practice for minimizing aflatoxin contamination of maize. Mahuku, G., Nzioki, H., Mutegi, C., Kanampiu, F., Narrod, C., Makumbi, D. In: Food Control v. 96, p. 219-226.
Variations in food-fodder traits of bread wheat cultivars released for the Ethiopian highlands. Bezabih, M., Adie, A., Ravi, D., Prasad, K.V.S.V., Jones, C., Abeyo Bekele Geleta, Tadesse, Z., Zegeye, H., Solomon, T., Blummel, M. In: Field Crops Research v. 229, p. 1-7.

CIMMYT scientists recognized for top-ranking research impact

Written by on December 6, 2018. Posted in News.

Five scientists from the CIMMYT community have been recognized with the Highly Cited Researcher award for 2018 for the influence of their research among their scientific peers.

The list, developed by Clarivate Analytics, recognizes exceptional research performance demonstrated by production of multiple papers that rank in the top 1 percent by citations for field and year, according to the Web of Science citation indexing service.

The honorees include:

Julio Huerta: CIMMYT-seconded INIFAP wheat breeder and rust geneticist;
Marc Corbeels: CIMMYT Kenya and CIRAD agronomist, who recently published work on carbon soil sequestration to mitigate climate change;
Matthew Reynolds: CIMMYT wheat physiologist and Mexican Academy of Sciences member;
Ravi Singh: CIMMYT Distinguished Scientist and Head of Bread Wheat Improvement; and
Sybil Herrera-Foessel: Former CIMMYT Global Wheat Program rust pathologist.

It is a significant honor to be part of this list, as it indicates that their peers have consistently acknowledged the influence of their research contributions in their publications and citations.

“This is a tremendous achievement and is a very good indicator for the relevance and quality of [their] publications,” said Hans Braun, director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT).

For more information, you can view the Highly Cited Researchers 2018 list and the full methodology.

Mechanization could boost Ethiopian wheat production and provide youth with new job opportunities. (Photo: Gerardo Mejía/CIMMYT)

A wheat self-sufficiency roadmap for Ethiopia’s future

Written by Jérôme Bossuet on December 5, 2018. Posted in Features.

The Ethiopian government announced recently that the country should become wheat self-sufficient over the next four years. Why is boosting domestic wheat production important for this country in the Horn of Africa, and could wheat self-sufficiency be attained in the next four years? The Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR), with the support of International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), gathered agriculture and food experts from the government, research and private sectors on November 23, 2018, to draw the first outlines of this new Ethiopian wheat initiative.

The low-tech domestic wheat farming and price support issue

Despite a record harvest of 4.6 million metric tons in 2017, Ethiopia imported 1.5 million tons of wheat the same year, costing US$600 million. Population growth, continuous economic growth and urbanization over the last decade has led to a rapid change in Ethiopian diets, and the wheat sector cannot keep up with the growing demand for pasta, dabo, ambasha and other Ethiopian breads.

The majority of Ethiopia’s 4.2 million wheat farmers cultivate this cereal on an average of 1.2-hectare holdings, with three quarters produced in Arsi, Bale and Shewa regions. Most prepare the land and sow with draft animal power equipment and few inputs, dependent on erratic rainfall without complementary irrigation. Yields have doubled over the last 15 years and reached 2.7 tons per hectare according to the latest agricultural statistics, but are still far from the yield potential.

According to data from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), wheat is preferred by wealthier, urban families, who consume 33 percent more wheat than rural households. Ethiopia needs to rethink its wheat price support system, which does not incentivize farmers and benefits mostly the wealthier, urban consumers. Wheat price support subsidies could, for instance, target bakeries located in poor neighborhoods.

Where to start to boost wheat productivity?

*Ethiopia’s Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Eyasu Abraha, welcomes conference participants. (Photo: Jérôme Bossuet/CIMMYT)*

Ethiopia, especially in the highlands, has an optimum environment to grow wheat. But to make significant gains, the wheat sector needs to identify what limiting factors to address first. The Wheat initiative, led by Ethiopia’s Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), has targeted 2,000 progressive farmers across 41 woredas (districts) between 2013 and 2018, to promote the use of improved and recommended inputs and better cropping techniques within their communities. A recent IFPRI impact study showed a 14 percent yield increase, almost enough to substitute wheat imports if scaled up across the country. It is, however, far from the doubling of yields expected initially. The study shows that innovations like row planting were not widely adopted because of the additional labor required.

Hans Braun, WHEAT CGIAR research program and CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program director, believes Ethiopian farmers can achieve self-sufficiency if they have the right seeds, the right agronomy and the right policy support.

One priority is to increase support for wheat improvement research to make wheat farmers more resilient to new diseases and climate shocks. Drought and heat tolerance, rust resistance and high yields even in low-fertility soils are some of the factors sought by wheat farmers.

International collaboration in durum wheat breeding is urgently needed as the area under durum wheat is declining in Ethiopia due to climate change, diseases and farmers switching to more productive and resilient bread wheat varieties. Braun advises that Ethiopia set up a shuttle breeding program with CIMMYT in Mexico, as Kenya did for bread wheat, to develop high-yielding and stress-resistant varieties. Such a shuttle breeding program between Ethiopia and Mexico would quickly benefit Ethiopian durum wheat farmers, aiming at raising their yields similar to those of Mexican farmers in the state of Sonora, who harvest more than 7 tons per hectare under irrigation. This would require a policy reform to facilitate the exchange of durum germplasm between Ethiopia and Mexico, as it is not possible at the moment.

Ethiopia also needs to be equipped to respond quickly to emerging pests and diseases. Five years ago, a new stem rust (TKTTF, also called Digalu race) damaged more than 20,000 hectares of wheat in Arsi and Bale, as Digalu — the popular variety used by local farmers — was sensitive to this new strain. The MARPLE portable rust testing lab, a fast and cost-effective rust surveillance system, is now helping Ethiopian plant health authorities quickly identify new rust strains and take preventive actions to stop new outbreaks.

*CIMMYT’s representative in Ethiopia, Bekele Abeyo, gives an interview for Ethiopian media during the conference. (Photo: Jérôme Bossuet/CIMMYT)*

Invest in soil health, mechanization and gender

In addition to better access to improved seeds and recommended inputs, better agronomic practices are needed. Scaling the use of irrigation would certainly increase wheat yields, but experts warn not to dismiss adequate agronomic research — knowing the optimal water needs of the crop for each agroecological zone — and the underlying drainage system. Otherwise, farmers are at risk of losing their soils forever due to an accumulation of salt.

‘’2.5 billion tons of topsoil are lost forever every year due to erosion. A long-term plan to address soil erosion and low soil fertility should be a priority,” highlights Marco Quinones, adviser at ATA. For instance, large-scale lime application can solve the important issue of acid soils, where wheat does not perform well. But it requires several years before the soil can be reclaimed and visible yield effects can be seen.

*CIMMYT gender and development specialist Kristie Drucza talks about innovation barriers for female-headed households linked to gender norms in Ethiopia. (Photo: Jérôme Bossuet/CIMMYT)*

Mechanization could also boost Ethiopian wheat production and provide youth with new job opportunities. Recent research showed smallholder farmers can benefit from six promising two-wheel tractor (2WT) technologies. Identifying the right business models and setting up adapted training programs and financial support will help the establishment of viable machinery service providers across the country.

Better gender equity will also contribute significantly to Ethiopia becoming self-sufficient in wheat production. Women farmers, especially female-headed households, do not have the same access to trainings, credit, inputs or opportunities to experiment with new techniques or seed varieties because of gender norms. Gender transformative methodologies, like community conversations, can help identify collective ways to address such inequalities, which cost over one percent of GDP every year.

‘’With one third better seeds, one third good agronomy and one third good policies, Ethiopia will be able to be wheat self-sufficient,” concluded Braun. A National Wheat Taskforce led by EIAR will start implementing a roadmap in the coming days, with the first effects expected for the next planting season in early 2019.

The consultative workshop “Wheat Self-Sufficiency in Ethiopia: Challenges and Opportunities” took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on November 23, 2018.

Breaking Ground: Huihui Li links new genetic knowledge with crop breeding

Written by on November 28, 2018. Posted in Features.

Postcard_Huihui Li Breaking Ground

DNA is often referred to as the blueprint for life. It contains codes to make the proteins, molecules and cells essential for an organism’s growth and development. Over the last decade, scientists have been figuring out how specific sections of DNA in maize and wheat are associated with physical and genetic traits, such as grain size and drought resistance.

Quantitative geneticist Huihui Li with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) helps link this new genetic knowledge with traditional crop breeding, to speed up the development of improved maize and wheat varieties. Li’s research uses cutting-edge genomics, computational biology and statistical tools to turn data into useful information for plant breeders.

“Breeders always accumulate big amounts of data, most of the time they need efficient tools to mine the stories from this data. That’s part of our job in the Biometrics and Statistics Unit,” she explained.

Her research helps breeders more quickly and accurately predict which maize and wheat varieties in the CIMMYT gene bank have the traits they seek to create improved varieties. For example, if a plant breeder wanted to develop a hybrid maize variety with high protein levels and pest resistance, Li could help by identifying which parental varieties would have these traits.

It takes about ten years for crop breeders to develop a new hybrid. Removing some of the guesswork during the early stages of their experiments could reduce this time significantly. With increasing environmental pressures from climate change and population growth, releasing better crop varieties more quickly will be vital to ensure there is enough food in the future.

Li says her family and experience growing up in China greatly influenced her career choice.

“Through my grandfather’s experience as the head of the Bureau of Agriculture and Forestry, I learned that there were many people in China suffering from hunger, poverty and malnutrition,” she said.

Li realized that these issues were prevalent throughout the developing world when her mother left China for two years to serve as a foreign aid doctor in Cameroon.

“As a ten-year-old girl, I told myself that I should make my contribution to reduce hunger and poverty, and improve human nutrition in the future,” Li recalled. “I always ask myself, ‘What’s my value to humanity?”

She studied bio-mathematics and quantitative genetics at Beijing Normal University and Cornell University before joining CIMMYT in 2010 as a consultant.

“I wanted to join CIMMYT because it works throughout the developing world to improve livelihoods and foster more productive, sustainable maize and wheat farming,” Li explained. “Also, CIMMYT provided a platform where I could collaborate with scientists worldwide and receive academic and career-boosting trainings.”

She became staff in 2012 and is currently based out of the CIMMYT office in Beijing. In addition, Li is an adjunct associate professor with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS). She helps CAAS scientists improve their experimental design and better incorporate genetic information into their crop breeding.

“I love doing research,” Li said. “I’m a curious person so if I can solve a problem, I feel very happy, but I really want my research to have value – not just for myself – but for the world.”

Huihui Li’s work contributes to Seeds of Discovery (SeeD), a multi-project initiative comprising: MasAgro Biodiversidad, a joint initiative of CIMMYT and the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA) through the MasAgro (Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture) project and the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize (MAIZE) and Wheat (WHEAT).

Breaking Ground: Susanne Dreisigacker knows wheat inside out

Written by Courtney Brantley on November 14, 2018. Posted in Features.

EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Through pure coincidence, Susanne Dreisigacker fell into the world of agricultural science and landed in Mexico. Her interest in genetics and biology solidified when she arrived at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) through the University of Hohenheim in Germany to pursue her PhD work. Impressed by CIMMYT’s scientific endeavors and its mission, she found herself permanently back at the institution in 2005 as a resident scientist. Now, as the head of CIMMYT’s Wheat Molecular Breeding Lab, Dreisigacker ensures that wheat breeders use the appropriate wheat material to conduct gene profiling and genome sequencing.

Dreisigacker works to discover and validate molecular markers, or DNA segments, for traits of interest. This information helps breeders to develop improved crop varieties that feature those traits.

At its core, her position centers on defining best practices for genomic tool application in the wheat breeding program. These genomic tools serve as “…indirect selection criteria to ultimately assist breeders select improved outputs at the molecular level, such as disease resistance and enhanced nutritional quality in wheat,” explains Dreisigacker. Furthermore, her research amasses data on grain yield and its corresponding components — such as grain weight and other difficult traits to tackle in the wheat breeding world — to help breeders stabilize high yield rates.

On average, over 40,000 wheat lines a year are analyzed on behalf of breeders under Dreisigacker’s direction. The ultimate challenge is organizing this massive data outcome to effectively support the breeders.

Zooming out from the molecular level

*Dreisigacker works to discover and validate molecular markers, or DNA segments, for traits of interest. (Photo: Darell Sison)*

Working in an environment with interdisciplinary characteristics such as a breeding program, it can be difficult to prioritize which traits merit the bulk of her time. Dreisigacker stresses that teamwork is paramount, from breeders to pathologists to quality specialists, as they all share mutual goals, so their efforts “need to intersect in order to be beneficial.” Dreisigacker enjoys interacting among the disciplines and sharing her work with the international wheat community.

Progress in the application of genomic tools and the push for their usefulness inspires Dreisigacker to continue her work with wheat at CIMMYT. Her work in the laboratory is the backbone of the transmission of better quality germplasm from breeders to farmers. “There is a need to more efficiently integrate gene profiling and genome sequencing into breeding. The transition from upstream genomic research to the processes of application and adaptability are overlooked,” says Dreisigacker.

When she is not looking at wheat at the molecular level, you can find her spending time with her husband and young daughter or teaching exercise classes in CIMMYT’s gymnasium.

Fighting hidden hunger from the ground up: the powerful link between soils and nutritious food

Written by on October 15, 2018. Posted in News.

Conserving organic matter in soils improves vital nutrients in wheat, according to new study in Ethiopia. On World Food Day, CIMMYT Systems Agronomist Frédéric Baudron highlights the role of healthy soils as a tool for fighting malnutrition, in an article published on The Conversation.

The study by Baudron and Stephen A. Wood of The Nature Conservancy found that wheat grown on soils rich in organic matter, especially near the forest, had more essential nutrients like zinc and protein. Ethiopia faces varying levels of hidden hunger: a deficiency in vitamins and minerals in food, despite rising yields.

In Ethiopia and many low and middle-income countries, Nitrogen-based fertilizers are out of reach for farmers. But low-cost techniques like agroforestry, minimum tillage, and planting nitrogen-fixing legumes can help African farmers enhance soils, and have been successfully implemented in different African farming systems. The study found that wheat farms near forests had richer soils due to decomposing trees and plants, and more livestock manure, pointing to the benefits of an integrated approach.

The researchers conclude that healthy soils are an important tool for “feeding the world well” and achieving Zero Hunger, one of the Sustainable Development Goals. “The finding offers a new solution in addressing growing malnutrition,” writes Baudron.

Read the article: Study in Ethiopia links healthy soils to more nutritious cereals on The Conversation.

Original study: Wood SA and Baudron F. 2018. Soil organic matter underlies crop nutritional quality and productivity in smallholder agriculture. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 266 (100-108). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2018.07.025

New publications: Germplasm bank accessions add value to elite wheat lines

Written by Emma Orchardson on September 13, 2018. Posted in Publications.

For the first time ever, a research team of more than 40 scientists has genetically characterized values of exotics in hexaploid wheat. CIMMYT scientists, together with partners in Demark, India, Mexico, Pakistan, and the UK, used next-generation sequencing and multi-environment phenotyping to study the contribution of exotic genomes to pre-breeding lines. Research required collaborative development, evaluation, and deployment of novel genetic resources to breeding programs addressing food security under climate change scenarios in India, Mexico, and Pakistan.

The team generated large-scale pre-breeding materials, which have been evaluated for important traits such as grain yield, quality, and disease resistance. Pre-breeding and haplotype-based approaches revealed useful genetic footprints of exotic lines in pre-breeding germplasm. Results of the study, recently published in Nature Scientific Reports, show that some DNA from exotic germplasm improved the biotic and abiotic stress tolerances of lines derived from crosses of exotics with CIMMYT’s best elite lines.

The practical successes of large-scale, impact-oriented breeding work will be useful to other wheat breeding programs around the world, and the information generated could be used to boost global wheat productivity.

Sukhwinder Singh, wheat lead on CIMMYT’s SeeD Project, explains that pre-breeding is in-demand and the resources developed through this study can serve as tools to address upcoming challenges in wheat production more efficiently, as desirable alleles from exotics have been mobilized into best elite genetic background. Breeding programs can now use this material to deliver outcomes in shorter timeframes by avoiding the lengthy process of searching for exotics first.

Read the full article in Nature Scientific Reports: “Harnessing genetic potential of wheat germplasm banks through impact-oriented-prebreeding for future food and nutritional security.”

This research was conducted as part of the Seeds of Discovery and MasAgro projects in collaboration with the Borlaug Institute for South Asia, and was made possible by generous support from Mexico’s Department of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA), the Government of Punjab, and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat.

Check out other recent publications by CIMMYT researchers below:

Applications of machine learning methods to genomic selection in breeding wheat for rust resistance. González-Camacho, J.M., Ornella, L., Perez-Rodriguez, P., Gianola, D., Dreisigacker, S., Crossa, J. In: Plant Genome v. 11, no. 2, art. 170104.
Bayesian functional regression as an alternative statistical analysis of high‑throughput phenotyping data of modern agriculture. Montesinos-López, A., Montesinos-López, O.A., De los Campos, G., Crossa, J., Burgueño, J., Luna-Vázquez, F.J. In: Plant Methods v. 14, art. 46.
Effect of ppd-a1 and ppd-b1 allelic variants on grain number and thousand-kernel weight of durum wheat and their impact on final grain yield. Arjona, J.M., Royo, C., Dreisigacker, S., Ammar, K., Villegas, D. In: Frontiers in Plant Science v. 9, art. 888.
Genomic-enabled prediction accuracies increased by modeling genotype × environment interaction in durum wheat. Sukumaran, S., Jarquín, D., Crossa, J., Reynolds, M.P. In: Plant Genome v. 11, no. 2, art. 170112.
Mexican tropical cream cheese yield using low-fat milk induced by trans-10, cis-12 conjugated linoleic acid: effect of palmitic acid. Granados-Rivera, L.D., Hernández-Mendo, O., Burgueño, J., Gonzalez-Munoz, S.S., Mendoza-Martinez, G.D., Mora-Flores, J.S., Arriaga-Jordan, C.M. In: CyTA-Journal of Food v. 16, no. 1, p. 311-315.

Over 100,000 genes

Written by Mike Listman on August 31, 2018. Posted in News.

After 13 years of research, an international team of more than 200 scientists recently cracked the full genome of bread wheat. Considering that wheat has five times more DNA than humans, this is a significant scientific breakthrough. The complete sequencing provides researchers with a map for the location of more than 100,000 genes which, experts say, will help accelerate the development of new wheat varieties.

Philomin Juliana, a Post-Doctoral Fellow in wheat breeding at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) talks about the relevance of the new map for the center, whose genetics figures in the pedigrees of wheat varieties grown on more than 100 million hectares worldwide.

Are you already using this resource, and how?

We have anchored the genotyping-by-sequencing marker data for about 46,000 lines from CIMMYT’s first-year wheat yield trials (2013-2018) to the new, International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC) reference sequence (RefSeq v1.0) assembly of the bread wheat genome, with an overall alignment rate of 64%. This has provided valuable information on the location of key genome regions associated with grain yield, disease resistance, agronomic traits and quality in CIMMYT’s wheat germplasm, identified from genome-wide association mapping studies.

We have also used the new reference sequence to understand the impact of marker densities and genomic coverage on the genomic predictability of traits and have gained a better understanding of the contributions of diverse chromosome regions (distal, proximal, and interstitial) towards different phenotypes.

How will use of the new wheat reference sequence help CIMMYT and partners to develop improved wheat for traits of interest?

There are so many ways we can use this new tool! It provides valuable insights into trait genetics and genomics in bread wheat and will help us to more quickly identify candidate genes associated with traits of interest and to clone those genes. We will also be able to design molecular breeding strategies and precisely select and introgress target regions of the genome.

More generally, the reference sequence already has a range of markers — among them, simple sequence repeats (SSR), diversity array technologies (DArT) markers, and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) — anchored to it, which will facilitate comparisons between mapping studies and the quick development and validation of useful new markers.

It will also help to apply tools like gene-editing to obtain desired phenotypes and will allow us to better characterize the genetic diversity in CIMMYT’s wheat, to identify useful genes in key CIMMYT parent lines and rapidly introgress them into breeding lines.

With the annotated whole genome information, breeders can design crosses focused directly on desired combinations of genomic regions or predict the outcome of crosses involving gene combinations.

It will definitely speed varietal testing in partner countries through quick and accurate molecular screens for the presence of desired genes, instead of having to perform multiple generations of field testing.

Finally, it will help us to detect molecular-level differences between CIMMYT varieties released in different countries.

Which traits are being targeted by CIMMYT and partners?

We are using the new reference sequence to understand better the molecular bases of grain yield, heat and drought tolerance, rust resistance, flowering time, maturity, plant height, grain and flour protein, and various other quality traits.

A recipient of Monsanto’s Beachell-Borlaug International Scholars Program Award, Juliana completed a Ph.D. in Plant Breeding and Genetics at Cornell University in 2016. Her work at CIMMYT seeks to identify the genetic bases of key traits in CIMMYT wheat germplasm and to assess high-throughput genotyping and phenotyping to increase the rate of genetic gain for yield in the center’s bread wheat breeding. In this work, she partners with the Cornell-led Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat (DGGW) project and Jesse Poland of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and Kansas State University. Her research also forms part of USAID’s Feed the Future projects.