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80,000 Data Points and Growing


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November, 2004

cds_mwarburtonIn November CIMMYT unveiled a significant addition to the field of DNA fingerprinting for wheat and maize. Two databases, fashioned by molecular geneticist Marilyn Warburton and her team, are the largest public information sites of their kind.

Offered online via CIMMYT’s www page (see links below) and on CD-ROM, the new databases can be accessed or requested. Currently, over 80,000 data points are recorded, but the databases’ dynamic nature enables the constant incorporation of new information, so scientists worldwide can integrate information into the original studies. “This feature will perhaps be their greatest legacy,” says Warburton, “as people can add and compare their data with CIMMYT’s to address an infinite number of queries.” In fact, the size of these databases is expected to double within one year. Recorded in the databases are characterization information for CIMMYT varieties (pure lines and populations), breeding materials, and landraces, as well as materials from collaborating universities and national agriculture research programs in developing countries.

Of Widespread Interest

Like the diversity within the databases themselves, those who stand to reap the benefits from such a project are varied. “The more people who know how to use it and do, the more useful it becomes,” Warburton predicts. Breeders will utilize it to ascertain the success of a potential cross. Gene bank curators can steer clear of myopia and work with more complete or correct information regarding a strain’s pedigree or origin. When one encounters, for example, a wheat strain labeled as originating in the former USSR, ambiguity is difficult to overcome in such a vast area. Also standing to benefit from this affair is the relatively new field of association analysis, which determines the function of specific genes. A little bit like detective work, these databases bridge the gap between the physical traits of a variety and its DNA sequences.

Providing Access

“If you want something done, you have to do it yourself,” Warburton remarks, in reference to her newfound computer savvy skills. Because there was nothing on the market that suited the project’s needs, Warburton learned Microsoft Accessℱ and modified it to properly manage the deluge of data. In addition, in Access, CIMMYT’s software developers Carlos Lopez, Juan Carlos Alarcón, and Jesper Norgaard built three specific tools to manipulate the data, with more in the works as the project grows. Other scientists, students, and assistants helped build the database by carrying out individual laboratory studies, which are recorded in the final product. Reformatting data to meet the input needs for different analysis programs can be tedious, toilsome work, and nearly discouraged one postdoctoral scientist from finishing his program. The fingerprinting database has data translation tools to input and output data in multiple formats. Many supporters of the fingerprinting work have been around from the beginning, and funding came from a variety of sources including the European Commission, Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economics and Development (BMZ), and more recently, the CGIAR Generation Challenge Program.

Efficient storage of multiple data types is essential for understanding and applying the vast universe of genes to improve wheat and maize varieties, which provide developing countries with better options to feed their hungry. Empowering faster and more efficient crop improvement which targets the needs of farmers, databases of the different data types will allow scientists to search for ideal traits and find the varieties with the genes that control these traits. Like a giant toolbox filled with unknown gadgets, the genes are there, but it hasn’t always clear what they do or how plants use them. Warburton and her team have started the process that, together with other data types, will allow each tool to be examined and labeled, furnishing scientists with clues to improve maize and wheat varieties.

genet_diverTableMaize database: http://staging.cimmyt.org/english/docs/manual/dbases/contents_mz.htm

Wheat database: http://staging.cimmyt.org/english/docs/manual/dbases/contents_wh.htm

Drought tolerant maize wins UK climate prize

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The United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) has won Best Technological Breakthrough at the 2012 UK Climate Week Awards for its support to the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project. The awards were held in London on 12 March 2012 to celebrate the UK’s most effective and ambitious organizations, communities, and individuals and their efforts to combat climate change.

Climate-Week-award-picDTMA has been responsible for the development and dissemination of 34 new drought-tolerant maize varieties to farmers in 13 project countries—Angola, Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe—between 2007 and 2011. An estimated two million smallholder farmers are already using the drought-tolerant maize varieties and have obtained higher yields, improved food security, and increased incomes.

Drought-tolerant varieties are invaluable on a continent where maize is the staple crop for over 300 million people, and nearly always relies on rainwater alone. The DTMA varieties, produced by conventional breeding, provide farmers with better yields than leading commercial varieties under moderate drought conditions, while also giving outstanding harvests when rains are good. DTMA works with a diverse network of partners to develop, market, and distribute seed, including private companies, publicly funded agricultural research and extension systems, ministries of agriculture, nongovernmental organizations, and community-based seed producers.

Jointly implemented by CIMMYT and the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), the DTMA project is presently funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and is also receiving complementary grants from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation (HGBF) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

“DFID has been a highly-valued and reliable, top-ten core contributor to CIMMYT’s work,” said DTMA project leader Wilfred Mwangi. In addition, the efforts of DTMA build on long-term support from the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Rockefeller Foundation, USAID, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the Eiselen-Foundation.

First international wheat blast meeting held in Brazil

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Wheat blast or ‘brusone’ is a new wheat disease caused by M. oryzae (Pyricularia oryzae). It is responsible for 5-100% of wheat yield loss in regions of South America, and has the potential to spread. To address this and other issues, a workshop titled “Wheat blast: A potential threat to global wheat production” was held in Passo Fundo, Brazil, during 03-05 May 2010, followed by a field visit to the Brasilia region. It was organized by Embrapa Wheat, Embrapa Cerrados, and CIMMYT, and attended by representatives from 11 countries.

Wheat blast was identified for the first time in 1985 in the State of Parana in southern Brazil, from where it quickly spread to neighboring countries. Four years later, it caused serious damage (40-100%) in the wheat fields of Paraguay. In the lowlands of Bolivia, it was responsible for a loss of 90,000 hectares of wheat between 1997 and 2000. In 2007, the disease was seen in summer-sown experimental wheat trials in Chaco, Argentina, and although researchers in Uruguay have not observed the disease in wheat, they have found the fungus on barley. A 2009 outbreak cut Brazilian wheat production by up to 30%.

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Of great concern is that chemical control of wheat blast may not be working. “There are places where farmers are using four fungicide applications with no results, which suggests the current chemicals are not effective against the fungus, or are not properly applied,” says Etienne Duveiller, wheat pathologist and associate director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program. “To date, there is a lack of cultivars resistant to wheat blast, and only limited tolerance can be found.”

Climate change is adding to the problem. “A more hot and humid climate favors fungal diseases such as wheat blast, which needs high temperatures of about 24- 28°C and long periods of rain to occur,” explains researcher Gisele Torres of Embrapa Wheat. CIMMYT’s Duviller echoes these concerns: “Changes in rainfall may create environmental conditions favorable to wheat blast in other parts of the world such as South Asia or Africa. This was the main reason for inviting researchers from different wheat-producing countries in several continents to discuss wheat blast in Brazil.”

The most important diseases that affect wheat production worldwide are leaf rust (5 million ha), tan spot (4.5 million ha), and fusarium (4 million ha). “So far, new diseases like wheat blast in South America has been limited to a few countries,” says Man Mohan Kohli, ex-CIMMYT researcher once posted in South America. “Similarly the distribution of the stem rust Ug99 in Africa has been limited, but has been the object of studies by several research institutes around the world.” Efforts to improve wheat resistance to Ug99 and to reduce the risk of its spread to other countries show how international collaborative research and investment facilitates scientific response to new virulent pathotypes, or races of pathogens, that could become potentially devastating.

Researchers from the following institutions participated in the workshop, which was supported by EMBRAPA and BMZ (Germany): Göttingen University (Germany), Kansas State University (United States), CIRAD (France), CIAT (Bolivia), INTA (Argentina), INIA (Uruguay), CIMMYT (Mexico), USDA/ARS (United States), MAG/ DIA (Paraguay), and Wageningen University (Netherlands), as well as Brazil Embrapa Cerrados, Embrapa Wheat, Labex Europa, OR, BIOTRIGO, COODETEC, FUNDACEP, UPF, UNESP, and Fapa/Agråria.

Innovative partnerships boost livestock-maize systems in eastern Africa

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In recent times, in eastern Africa, arable land has become more scarce and livestock production has gained more ground, making maize more important than ever—both as a source of food and feed—in highly intensified crop-livestock farming systems. In an innovative partnership, CIMMYT, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and partners from universities, research centers, and ministries of agriculture in Ethiopia, Tanzania , Kenya, and Germany have worked together to develop and evaluate dual-purpose maize cultivars to meet the increasing need for livestock fodder in a project funded by BMZ from 2005 to 2009. The partnership—new to all those involved—brought together socio-economists, animal scientists, maize breeders, and spatial analysts.

Recently, CIMMYT and ILRI organized an end-of-project workshop themed “Improving the Value of Maize Stover as Livestock Feed” in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for stakeholders to review results of the project and agree on future directions. Maize stover is the leftover leaves, stalks, husks, and cobs after a harvest.

“Livestock is important in Ethiopia—contributing 40% to our gross domestic product (GDP). Available grazing land has decreased while the area under maize has increased. Therefore, stovers have become an important source of fodder,” said Adefris Teklewold, crop research process director at the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), who opened the workshop. “However, maize stover has low nutritive value and this project has the potential of increasing its value as livestock feed.”

Researchers found that that farmers value grain yield much more than stover fodder value, and would adopt an improved variety only if it gave reasonable yields. Nevertheless, farmers do recognize differences among varieties in the fodder value of stover, particularly in traits such as ‘stay-green,’ softness of stalks, and palatability. After grain yield and food related attributes, stover biomass is an important characteristic upon which farmers base their selection of varieties.

The project successfully explored the potential to improve maize stover for livestock fodder and identified traits that could be used by breeding programs to do so. These traits would serve as additional ‘value added’ release criteria rather than requirements for release to facilitate optimization of whole plant utilization. To adopt and implement these findings will require more widespread awareness among actors in the food-feed value chain, including government extension workers, private seed companies, and farmers so that breeding for improved stover quality can be integrated in national maize breeding programs. Workshop participants also recognized competition for other uses of stover, such as fuel and fencing, as well as its importance in soil conservation. As Teklewold advised, “Reducing soil degradation and erosion from the hillsides and sloping fields on which much of Ethiopian agriculture is practiced is an urgent need. Reduced tillage and residue conservation are crucial to this task.” Participants were left with the challenge of how to reconcile the competing demands for crop residues in maize-livestock systems.

Machine mastery

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Nearly 50 two-wheel tractor operators in Bangladesh examined, adjusted, and tested several planting machines during in a four-day practical training course at the Wheat Research Center (WRC), Dinajpur. The Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI), and CIMMYT organized the course, which ran during 12-15 October 2009 and focused not only on the operation, repair, and maintenance of farm machinery, but also on different crop establishment techniques.

Course leaders divided participants into groups of four and gave each a Sayre Smart Planter (SSP), a farming implement with built-in seed dispensers for multiple crops and a fertilizer application mechanism. The small group size allowed each person to practice converting the machine into its various modes: bed planter, strip tillage seeder, minimum tillage seeder, and zero tillage seeder. All participants then operated the machine in its numerous settings and learned seed calibration techniques for crops such as rice, wheat, jute, lentil, and chickpea. To ensure full understanding of SSP mechanics, each group dismantled the seeder, indentified its various parts, and then reassembled it.

On-hand to provide assistance were Enamul Haque, CIMMYT cropping systems agronomist; Israil Hossain of BARI; and Abdur Rahman, AKM Saiful Islam, and Bidhan Chandra Nath of BRRI. The Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Development Cooperation (BMZ), and USAID Famine Fund Projects funded the course.

Hybrid maize breeding course in Hyberabad

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Forty-five maize scientists gathered at CIMMYT’s office in Hyderabad, India, from 31 August until 5 September for a course on maize hybrid breeding for rainfed areas in Asia. Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), and the Generation Challenge Program (GCP) organized the course, which received nearly 90 applications from interested scientists.

Various aspects related to hybrid maize breeding were covered by competent and qualified scientists from CIMMYT, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Indian maize programs, and the private sector. “This course was very successful,” said Harun-or Rahsid, a participant from Bangladesh. “We were introduced to several new ideas that we can use to develop stable maize hybrids in a more effective and resource-efficient manner.” The majority of participants came from India (23), but others came from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. The private sector was well represented; 12 participants came from the following companies: Monsanto, Syngenta, BIOSEED, Krishidhan Seeds, Ajeet Seeds, ABS Seeds, Safal Seeds, JK Seeds, VNR Seeds, and Vibha Agri-tech.

“I’m glad the CIMMYT-Asia program took the initiative to organized this much anticipated course,” said CIMMYT scientist S.K. Vasal. “It will strengthen partnerships and collaboration in the region and help us to achieve our goal of doubling maize production by the year 2020.”

Reaching maize farmers with improved varieties better through the value chain approach

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Jonathan Hellin, poverty specialist in the Impacts Targeting and Assessment Unit, was in Kenya over the past two weeks catching up with CIMMYT-Kenya colleagues and meeting senior economists and students from the University of Nairobi. This was in preparation for next year’s activities on his collaborative maize value chain research work. Funded by BMZ, the work builds on previous contributions by CIMMYT and its partners in meeting the needs of resource-poor farmers in stress-prone environments by making improved maize varieties more widely available.

A review mission concluded that work by CIMMYT and partners can serve as “
a model for multi-stakeholder regional R&D collaboration and enhanced researcher-extension-farmer-market linkages”. The mission suggested a continuation of the research but recommended that more emphasis be given to the availability and dissemination of varieties and technologies to the smallholder farmers in eastern and Central Africa. The current phase includes a value chain analysis of the seed input chains.

Learning from the wise: Jonathan Hellin in a work planning session with Alpha Diallo, maize breeder, in Nairobi, Kenya