Senior representatives from CIMMYT visited the John Innes Centre to strengthen their strategic partnership focused on advancing global wheat research. Key collaborative efforts include the Wheat Disease Early Warning Advisory System (DEWAS) and research on genetic resistance to wheat blast. CIMMYTâs Director General, Dr. Bram Govaerts, emphasized the long-standing partnershipâs global impact, noting that around 70% of the worldâs wheat is linked to CIMMYTâs network. Dr. Sarah Hearne, Chief Science and Innovation Officer, highlighted the shared commitment to providing sustainable solutions that enhance farmersâ resilience and productivity worldwide.
The Novo Nordisk Foundation and CIMMYT have launched the 4-year CropSustaiN initiative to determine the global potential of wheat that is significantly better at using nitrogen, thanks to Biological Nitrification Inhibition (BNI)âand to accelerate breeding and farmer access to BNI wheat varieties.
With a budget of US$ 21 million, CropSustaiN addresses the pressing challenges of nitrogen pollution and inefficient fertilizer use, which contribute to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and ecological degradation. Currently, no other seed or agronomic practice-based solution matches BNI cropsâ mitigation impact potential. Growing BNI crops can complement other climate mitigation measures.
The challenge
Agriculture is at the heart of both food and nutrition security and environmental sustainability. The sector contributes ca. 10-12% of global GHG emissions, including 80% of the highly potent nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions. Fertilizer use contributes to such N losses, because plants take up about 50%, the remainder being lost. Wheat is the world’s largest âcropâ consumer of nitrogen-based fertilizerâa relatively nitrogen-inefficient cerealâat the same time providing affordable calories to billions of resource-poor people and ca. 20% of globally consumed protein. CropSustaiN targets this nexus of productivity and planetary boundary impact by verifying and thus de-risking the needed breeding, agronomic, and social innovations.
A solution: BNI-wheat
BNI is a natural ability of certain plant species to release metabolites from their roots into the soil. They influence the nitrogen-transforming activity of nitrifying bacteria, slowing down the conversion of ammonium to nitrate in the soil. This preserves soil ammonium levels for a longer time, providing plants with a more sustained source of available nitrogen and making them more nitrogen-use efficient (nitrogen plant use efficiency). As a result, BNI helps reduce the release of N2O gas emissions and nitrate leaching to the surrounding ecosystem.
A research breakthrough in 2021, led by the Japan International Research Center of Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS) in collaboration with CIMMYT, demonstrated that the BNI trait can be transferred from a wheat wild relative to a modern wheat variety by conventional breeding. BNI wheat can be made available to farmers worldwide.
Growing BNI wheat could reduce nitrogen fertilizer usage by 15-20%, depending on regional farming conditions, without sacrificing yield or quality.
Incorporating BNI into additional crops would reduce usage further. Farmers can get the same yield with less external inputs.
Other BNI-crops
CropSustaiN will work on spring and winter wheats. Rice, maize, barley, and sorghum also have BNI potential. CropSustaiN will build the knowledge base and share with scientists working on other crops and agronomic approaches.
Objectives and outcomes
This high risk, high reward mission aims to:
Verify the global, on-farm potential of BNI-wheat through field trial research and breeding.
Build the partnerships and pathways to meet farmer demand for BNI-wheat seeds.
Work with stakeholders on policy change that enables BNI crops production and markets
Success will be measured by determining nitrogen pollution reduction levels under different soil nitrogen environments and management conditions on research stations, documenting crop performance and safety, breeding for BNI spring and winter wheats for a wide range of geographies, and gauging farmer needs, interest, and future demand.
Wheat spikes against the sky at CIMMYT’s El BatĂĄn, Mexico headquarters. (Photo: H. Hernandez Lira/CIMMYT)
A collaborative effort
CIMMYT is the lead implementer of Novo Nordisk Foundationâs mission funding. CropSustaiNâs interdisciplinary, intersectoral, systems approach relies on building partnerships and knowledge-sharing within and outside this research initiative. 45+ partners are engaged in CropSustaiN.
The potential GHG emissions reduction from deploying BNI-wheat is estimated to be 0.016-0.19 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions per year, reducing 0.4-6% of total global N2O emissions annually, plus a lowering of nitrate pollution.
Impact on climate change mitigation and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)
The assumption is that BNI wheat is grown in all major wheat-growing areas and that farmers will practice a behavioral shift towards lower fertilizer use and higher fertilizer use efficiency. That could lead to ca. a reduction of 17 megatons per year globally. This can help nations achieve their NDCs under the Paris Agreement.
International public goods, governance, and management
CIMMYT and the Foundation are committed to open access and the dissemination of seeds, research data, and results as international public goods. The governance and management model reinforces a commitment to equitable global access to CropSustaiN outputs, emphasized in partnership agreements and management of intellectual property.
Invitation to join the mission
The CropSustaiN initiative is a bold step towards agricultural transformation. You are invited to become a partner. You can contribute to the mission with advice, by sharing methods, research data and results, or becoming a co-founder.
Please contact CropSustaiN Mission Director, Victor Kommerell, at v.kommerell@cgiar.org or Novo Nordisk Foundationâs Senior Scientific Manager, Jeremy A. Daniel, at jad@novo.dk.
An international cohort of scientists representing 12 countries gathered at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) station in Njoro for a comprehensive training course aimed at honing their expertise in wheat rust pathology.
With a mission to bolster the capabilities of National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS), the training course attracted more than 30 participants from diverse corners of the globe.
Maricelis Acevedo, a research professor of global development at Cornell and the associate director of Wheat DEWAS, underscored the initiativeâs significance. âThis is all about training a new generation of scientists to be at the forefront of efforts to prevent wheat pathogens epidemics and increase food security all over the globe,â Acevedo said.
This yearâs training aims to prepare global scientists to protect against disease outbreaks that threaten wheat productivity in East Africa and South Asia. The course encompassed a wide array of practical exercises and theoretical sessions designed to enhance the participantsâ knowledge in pathogen surveillance, diagnostics, modeling, data management, early warning assessments, and open science publishing. Presentations were made by DEWAS partners from the John Innes Centre, Aarhus University, the University of Cambridge and University of Minnesota.
(Photo: Borlaug Global Rust Initiative)
The course provided practical, hands-on experience in selecting and evaluating wheat breeding germplasm, race analysis and greenhouse screening experiments to enhance knowledge of rust diseases, according to Sridhar Bhavani, training coordinator for the course.
âThis comprehensive training program encompasses diverse aspects of wheat research, including disease monitoring, data management, epidemiological models, and rapid diagnostics to establish a scalable and sustainable early warning system for critical wheat diseases such as rusts, fusarium, and wheat blast,â said Bhavani, wheat improvement lead for East Africa at CIMMYT and head of wheat rust pathology and molecular genetic in CIMMYTâs Global Wheat program.
An integral part of the program, Acevedo said, was the hands-on training on wheat pathogen survey and sample collection at KALRO. The scientists utilized the international wheat screening facility at KALRO as a training ground for hot-spot screening for rust diseases resistance.
Daisy Kwamboka, an associate researcher at PlantVillage in Kenya, said the program provided younger scientists with essential knowledge and mentoring.
âI found the practical sessions particularly fascinating, and I can now confidently perform inoculations and rust scoring on my own,â said Kwamboka said, who added that she also learned how to organize experimental designs and the basics of R language for data analysis.
DEWAS research leaders Dave Hodson, Bhavani and Acevedo conducted workshops and presentations along with leading wheat rust experts. Presenters included Robert Park and Davinder Singh from the University of Sydney; Diane Sauders from the John Innes Centre; Clay Sneller from Ohio State University; Pablo Olivera from the University of Minnesota; Cyrus Kimani, Zennah Kosgey and Godwin Macharia from KALRO; Leo Crespo, Susanne Dreisigacker, Keith Gardner, Velu Govindan, Itria Ibba, Arun Joshi, Naeela Qureshi, Pawan Kumar Singh and Paolo Vitale from CIMMYT; Chris Gilligan and Jake Smith from the University of Cambridge; and Jens GrÞnbech Hansen and Mogens S. HovmÞller from the Global Rust Reference Center at Aarhus University.
âI thoroughly enjoyed the knowledge imparted by the invited experts, along with the incredible care they have shown us throughout this wonderful training.â
Narain Dhar, Borlaug Institute for South AsiaÂ
For participants, the course offered a crucial platform for international collaboration, a strong commitment to knowledge sharing, and its significant contribution to global food security.
âThe dedication of the trainers truly brought the training to life, making it incredibly understandable,â said Narain Dhar, research fellow at the Borlaug Institute for South Asia.
The event not only facilitated learning but also fostered connections among scientists from different parts of the world. These newfound connections hold the promise of sparking innovative collaborations and research endeavors that could further advance the field of wheat pathology.
One of the worldâs largest crop pathogen surveillance systems is set to expand its analytic and knowledge systems capacity to protect wheat productivity in food vulnerable areas of East Africa and South Asia.
Researchers announced the Wheat Disease Early Warning Advisory System (Wheat DEWAS), funded through a $7.3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United Kingdomâs Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, to enhance crop resilience to wheat diseases.
The project is led by David Hodson, principal scientist at CIMMYT, and Maricelis Acevedo, research professor of global development and plant pathology at Cornell Universityâs College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. This initiative brings together research expertise from 23 research and academic organizations from sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Europe, the United States and Mexico.
Wheat DEWAS aims to be an open and scalable system capable of tracking important pathogen strains. The system builds on existing capabilities developed by the research team to provide near-real-time model-based risk forecasts and resulting in accurate, timely and actionable advice to farmers. As plant pathogens continue to evolve and threaten global food production, the system strengthens the capacity of countries to respond in a proactive manner to transboundary wheat diseases.
The system focuses on the two major fungal pathogens of wheat known as rust and blast diseases. Rust diseases, named for a rust-like appearance on infected plants, are hyper-variable and can significantly reduce crop yields when they attack. The fungus releases trillions of spores that can ride wind currents across national borders and continents and spread devastating epidemics quickly over vast areas.
Wheat blast, caused by the fungus Magnaporte oryzae Tritici, is an increasing threat to wheat production, following detection in both Bangladesh and Zambia. The fungus spreads over short distances and through the planting of infected seeds. Grains of infected plants shrivel within a week of first symptoms, providing little time for farmers to take preventative actions. Most wheat grown in the world has limited resistance to wheat blast.
âNew wheat pathogen variants are constantly evolving and are spreading rapidly on a global scale,â said Hodson, principal investigator for Wheat DEWAS. âComplete crop losses in some of the most food vulnerable areas of the world are possible under favorable epidemiological conditions. Vigilance coupled with pathogen-informed breeding strategies are essential to prevent wheat disease epidemics. Improved monitoring, early warning and advisory approaches are an important component for safeguarding food supplies.â
Previous long-term investments in rust pathogen surveillance, modelling, and diagnostics built one of the largest operational global surveillance and monitoring system for any crop disease. The research permitted the development of functioning prototypes of advanced early warning advisory systems (EWAS) in East Africa and South Asia. Wheat DEWAS seeks to improve on that foundation to build a scalable, integrated, and sustainable solution that can provide improved advanced timely warning of vulnerability to emerging and migrating wheat diseases.
âThe impact of these diseases is greatest on small-scale producers, negatively affecting livelihoods, income, and food security,â Acevedo said. âUltimately, with this project we aim to maximize opportunities for smallholder farmers to benefit from hyper-local analytic and knowledge systems to protect wheat productivity.â
The system has already proven successful, contributing to prevention of a potential rust outbreak in Ethiopia in 2021. At that time, the early warning and global monitoring detected a new yellow rust strain with high epidemic potential. Risk mapping and real-time early forecasting identified the risk and allowed a timely and effective response by farmers and officials. That growing season ended up being a production record-breaker for Ethiopian wheat farmers.
While wheat is the major focus of the system, pathogens with similar biology and dispersal modes exist for all major crops. Discoveries made in the wheat system could provide essential infrastructure, methods for data collection and analysis to aid interventions that will be relevant to other crops.
The Wheat Disease Early Warning Advisory System (Wheat DEWAS) project is bringing new analytic and knowledge systems capacity to one of the worldâs largest and most advanced crop pathogen surveillance systems. With Wheat DEWAS, researchers are building an open and scalable system capable of preventing disease outbreaks from novel pathogen strains that threaten wheat productivity in food vulnerable areas of East Africa and South Asia.
The system builds from capabilities developed previously by multi-institutional research teams funded through long-term investments in rust pathogen surveillance, modelling, and diagnostics. Once fully operationalized, the project aims to provide near-real-time, model-based risk forecasts for governments. The result: accurate, timely and actionable advice for farmers to respond proactively to migrating wheat diseases.
The Challenge
Farmers growing wheat face pathogen pressures from a range of sources. Two of the most damaging are the fungal diseases known as rust and blast. Rust is a chronic issue for farmers in all parts of the world. A study in 2015 estimated that the three rust diseases â stem, stripe and leaf â destroyed more than 15 million tons of wheat at a cost of nearly $3 billion worldwide. Wheat blast is an increasing threat to wheat production and has been detected in both Bangladesh and Zambia. Each of these diseases can destroy entire harvests without warning, wiping out critical income and food security for resource-poor farmers in vulnerable areas.
The Response
Weather forecasts and early-warning alerts are modern technologies that people rely on for actionable information in the case of severe weather. Now imagine a system that lets farmers know in advance when dangerous conditions will threaten their crop in the field. Wheat DEWAS aims to do just that through a scalable, integrated, and sustainable global surveillance and monitoring system for wheat.
Wheat DEWAS brings together research expertise from 23 research and academic organizations from sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Europe, the United States and Mexico.
Together, the researchers are focused on six interlinked work packages:Â
Work package
Lead
Objectives
Data Management
Aarhus University; Global Rust Reference Center
Maintain, strengthen and expand the functionality of the existing Wheat Rust Toolbox data management system
Create new modules within the Toolbox to include wheat blast and relevant wheat host information
Consolidate and integrate datasets from all the participating wheat rust diagnostic labs
Develop an API for the two-way exchange of data between the Toolbox and the Delphi data stack
Develop an API for direct access to quality-controlled surveillance data as inputs for forecast models
Ensure fair access to data
Epidemiological Models
Cambridge University
Maintain operational deployment and extend geographical range
Productionalize code for long-term sustainability
Multiple input sources (expert, crowd, media)
Continue model validation
Ensure flexibility for management scenario testing
Extend framework for wheat blast
Surveillance (host + pathogen)
CIMMYT
Undertake near-real-time, standardized surveys and sampling in the target regions
Expand the coverage and frequency of field surveillance
Implement fully electronic field surveillance that permits near real-time data gathering
Target surveillance and diagnostic sampling to validate model predictions
Map vulnerability of the host landscape
Diagnostics
John Innes Centre
Strengthen existing diagnostic network in target regions & track changes & movement
Develop & integrate new diagnostic methodology for wheat rusts & blast
Align national diagnostic results to provide a regional & global context
Enhance national capacity for wheat rust & blast diagnostics
Information Dissemination and Visualization Tools
PlantVillage; Penn State
Create a suite of information layers and visualization products that are automatically derived from the quality-controlled data management system and delivered to end users in a timely manner
Deliver near real time for national partners to develop reliable and actionable advisory and alert information to extension workers, farmers and policy makers
National Partner Capacity Building
Cornell University
Strengthening National partner capacity on pathogen surveillance, diagnostics, modeling, data management, early warning assessment, and open science publishing
Wheat at a CIMMYT field trial. (Photo: H. Hernandez Lira/CIMMYT)
As the Russia-Ukraine war continues to degrade global food security, a new analysis lays out concrete actions that governments and investors must do now to mitigate near-term food security risks and stabilize wheat supplies, while transitioning toward long-term resilience.
âThe Russia-Ukraine war will impact global food security over months â if not years,â said CIMMYT Global Wheat Program Director and lead author Alison Bentley. âWe now need to move beyond defining the problem to implementing practical actions to ensure stable supply, safeguard the livelihoods of millions of vulnerable people and bring resilience to our global agrifood system.â
The war in Ukraine and trade sanctions against Russia are triggering a level of volatility that could easily overwhelm existing mitigation mechanisms. More than 2.5 billion people worldwide consume wheat-based foods; those in lower- to middle-income countries dependent on imports from Russia and Ukraine are particularly affected. Some of the worldâs poorest countries, such as Bangladesh, Sudan and Yemen, rely heavily on Russian and Ukrainian wheat. Given the highly interconnected nature of contemporary agrifood systems, few will remain unaffected by this new global food shock.
Mitigate the immediate crisis
The first priority, according to the authors, is to mitigate the immediate crisis by boosting wheat production in existing high- and low-productivity areas, ensuring grain access and blending wheat flour with other low-cost cereals. Bundled agronomic and breeding improvements and sustainable farming practices can reduce dependence on imported grain and fertilizer, while coordinated, multilateral policies can help conserve grain stocks for human consumption and avert trade restrictions.
Increase the resilience of wheat supply
In the medium term, the authors emphasized the need to increase the local, regional, and global resilience of the wheat supply. This can be done by expanding production within agro-ecological boundaries, supporting national wheat self-sufficiency and providing technical assistance, to increase the production of high-yielding disease-resistant wheat and to mainstream capacity for pest and disease monitoring.
Transition to system-level resilience
Finally, to reach crucially needed resilience in the worldâs agrifood system, long-term measures must be taken that encompass agroecosystem diversity, address gender disparities in agriculture and rural communities and sustain increased investment in a holistic, agrifood transition.
âThe current global food crisis underscores and compounds existing inequalities in our global food system,â Bentley said. âA transition to agrifood system resilience requires us to urgently balance global food supply needs with the multi-layered challenges of climate change, achieving gender equity, nutritional sufficiency and livelihood security.â
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is an international organization focused on non-profit agricultural research and training that empowers farmers through science and innovation to nourish the world in the midst of a climate crisis.
Applying high-quality science and strong partnerships, CIMMYT works to achieve a world with healthier and more prosperous people, free from global food crises and with more resilient agrifood systems. CIMMYTâs research brings enhanced productivity and better profits to farmers, mitigates the effects of the climate crisis, and reduces the environmental impact of agriculture.
CIMMYT is a member of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food secure future dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources.
Written by Bea Ciordia on . Posted in Uncategorized.
MARPLE (Mobile And Real-time PLant disEase) diagnostics is a new innovative approach for fungal crop pathogen diagnostics developed by Diane Saundersâs team at the John Innes Centre.
MARPLE is the first operational system in the world using nanopore sequencing for rapid diagnostics and surveillance of complex fungal pathogens in situ. Generating results in 48 hours of field sampling, this new digital diagnostic strategy is leading revolutionary changes in plant disease diagnostics. Rapid strain level diagnostics are essential to quickly find new emergent strains and guide appropriate control measures.
Through this project, CIMMYT will:
Deploy and scale MARPLE to priority geographies and diseases as part of the Current and Emerging Threats to Crops Innovation Lab led by Penn State University / PlantVillage and funded by USAID’s Feed the Future.
Build national partner capacity for advanced disease diagnostics. We will focus geographically on Ethiopia, Kenya and Nepal for deployment of wheat stripe and stem rust diagnostics, with possible expansion to Bangladesh and Zambia (wheat blast).
Integrate this new in-country diagnostic capacity with recently developed disease forecasting models and early warning systems. Already functional for wheat stripe rust, the project plans to expand MARPLE to incorporate wheat stem rust and wheat blast.
A generalized wiring diagram for wheat, as proposed by the authors. The diagram depicts the traits most commonly associated with the source (left) and sink (right) strengths and others that impact both the sink and source, largely dependent on growth stage (middle). TGW, thousand grain weight.
As crop yields are pushed closer to biophysical limits, achieving yield gains becomes increasingly challenging. Traditionally, scientists have worked on the premise that crop yield is a function of photosynthesis (source), the investment of assimilates into reproductive organs (sinks) and the underlying processes that enable and connect the expression of both. Although the original source-and-sink model remains valid, it must embrace more complexity, as scientific understanding improves.
A group of international researchers are proposing a new wiring diagram to show the interrelationships of the physiological traits that impact wheat yield potential, published on Nature Food. By illustrating these linkages, it shows connections among traits that may not have been apparent, which could serve as a decision support tool for crop scientists. The wiring diagram can inform new research hypotheses and breeding decisions, as well as research investment areas.
The diagram can also serve as a platform onto which new empirical data are routinely mapped and new concepts added, thereby creating an ever-richer common point of reference for refining models in the future.
âIf routinely updated, the wiring diagram could lead to a paradigm change in the way we approach breeding for yield and targeting translational research,â said Matthew Reynolds, Distinguished Scientist and Head of Wheat Physiology at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and lead author of the study. âWhile focused on yield potential, the tool can be readily adapted to address climate resilience in a range of crops besides wheat.â
Breeding milestone
The new wiring diagram represents a milestone in deterministic plant breeding. It dovetails simpler models with crop simulation models.
This diagram can be used to illustrate the relative importance of specific connections among traits in their appropriate phenological context and to highlight major gaps in knowledge. This graphical representation can also serve as a roadmap to prioritize research at other levels of integration, such as metabolomic or gene expression studies. The wiring diagram can be deployed to identify ways for improving elite breeding material and to explore untapped genetic resources for unique traits and alleles.
Yield for climate resilience
The wheat scientific community is hard at work seeking new ways to get higher yields more quickly to help the world cope with population growth, climate change, wars and stable supplies of calories and protein.
“To ensure food and nutritional security in the future, raising yields must be an integral component of making crops more climate-resilient. This new tool can serve as a roadmap to design the necessary strategies to achieve these goals,” said Jeff Gwyn, Program Director of the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP).
Matthew Reynolds â Distinguished Scientist and Head of Wheat Physiology at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
Gustavo Ariel Slafer â Research Professor at the Catalonian Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) and Associate Professor of the University of Lleida
For more information or to arrange interviews, please contact the CIMMYT media team:
The study is an international collaboration of scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the Catalonian Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), the Center for Research in Agrotechnology (AGROTECNIO), the University of Lleida, the University of Nottingham, the John Innes Centre, Lancaster University, Technische UniversitĂ€t MĂŒnchen, CSIRO Agriculture & Food, and the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP).
ABOUT CIMMYT:
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is an international organization focused on non-profit agricultural research and training that empowers farmers through science and innovation to nourish the world in the midst of a climate crisis.
Applying high-quality science and strong partnerships, CIMMYT works to achieve a world with healthier and more prosperous people, free from global food crises and with more resilient agri-food systems. CIMMYTâs research brings enhanced productivity and better profits to farmers, mitigates the effects of the climate crisis, and reduces the environmental impact of agriculture.
CIMMYT is a member of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources.
The International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP) represents a long-term global endeavor that utilizes a collaborative approach to bring together funding from public and private research organizations from a large number of countries. Over the first five years, the growing list of partners aims to invest up to US$100 million.
Workshop participants stand for a group photo. (Photo: Danny Ward/John Innes Centre)
On April 26â29, 2022, researchers from Nepal participated in a workshop on the use of MARPLE Diagnostics, the most advanced genetic testing methodology for strain-level diagnostics of the deadly wheat yellow rust fungus. Scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the John Innes Centre trained 21 researchers from the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) and one from iDE. The workshop took place at NARC’s National Plant Pathology Research Centre in Khumaltar, outside the capital Kathmandu.
âThe need for new diagnostic technologies like MARPLE and the critical timing of the workshop was highlighted by the severe yellow rust outbreak observed this season in the western areas of Nepal,â commented Dave Hodson, Senior Scientist at CIMMYT and project co-lead. âHaving national capacity to detect the increasing threats from yellow rust using MARPLE will be an important tool to help combat wheat rusts in Nepalâ.
The yellow rust fungus can cause grain yield losses of 30â80 % to wheat, Nepalâs third most important food crop.
Current diagnostic methods for wheat rust used in Nepal are slow, typically taking months between collecting the sample and final strain identification. They are also costly and reliant on sending samples overseas to highly specialized labs for analysis.
MARPLE (Mobile and Real-time PLant disEase) Diagnostics is the first method to place strain-level genetic diagnostics capability directly into the hands of Nepali researchers, generating data in-country in near-real time, for immediate integration into early warning systems and disease management decisions.
âThis is a fantastic opportunity to bring the latest innovations in plant disease diagnostics for the wheat rust pathogens to where they are needed most, in the hands of researchers in the field working tirelessly to combat these devastating diseases,â commented Diane Saunders, Group Leader at the John Innes Centre and project co-lead.
Diane Saunders (left), Group Leader at the John Innes Centre and project co-lead, observes workshop participants during the use of MARPLE. (Photo: Danny Ward/John Innes Centre)
Suraj Baidya senior scientist and chief of the National Plant Pathology Research Centre at NARC noted the worrying recent geographical expansion of yellow rust in Nepal. âDue to global warming, yellow rust has now moved into the plain and river basin area likely due to evolution of heat tolerant pathotypes. MARPLE Diagnostics now gives us the rapid diagnostics needed to help identify and manage these changes in the rust pathogen population diversity,â he said.
The highly innovative MARPLE Diagnostics approach uses the hand-held MinION nanopore sequencer, built by Oxford Nanopore, to generate genetic data to type strains of the yellow rust fungus directly from field samples.
Beyond MARPLE Diagnostics, Saunders noted that âthe workshop has also opened up exciting new possibilities for researchers in Nepal, by providing local genome-sequencing capacity that is currently absent.â
MARPLE (Mobile and Real-time PLant disEase) Diagnostics is a revolutionary mobile lab kit. It uses nanopore sequence technology to rapidly diagnose and monitor wheat rust in farmersâ fields. (Photo: Danny Ward/John Innes Centre)
Whatâs next for MARPLE Diagnostics in Nepal?
Following the successful workshop, Nepali researchers will be supported by CIMMYT and the John Innes Centre to undertake MARPLE Diagnostics on field samples collected by NARC. âThe current plan includes monitoring of yellow rust on the summer wheat crop planted at high hill areas and then early sampling in the 2022/23 wheat season,â Hodson noted.
âWe were struck by the enthusiasm and dedication of our colleagues to embrace the potential offered by MARPLE Diagnostics. Looking forward, we are excited to continue working with our Nepali colleagues towards our united goal of embedding this methodology in their national surveillance program for wheat rusts,â Saunders remarked.
MARPLE Diagnostics is supported by the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Current and Emerging Threats to Crops, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Innovator of the Year Award, the CGIAR Big Data Platform Inspire Challenge, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United Kingdomâs Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
The impacts of the Ukraine crisis are likely to reverberate over months, if not years, to come. If the reductions in wheat exports from Russia and Ukraine are as severe as anticipated, global supplies of wheat will be seriously constrained. If a major reduction in fertilizer exports comes to pass, the resulting drop in global productivity will tighten global markets for wheat, other grains and alternate food sources â leaving vulnerable people all over the world facing higher food prices, hunger and malnutrition.
These massive disruptions will erode modest progress made toward gender equality, biodiversity conservation and dietary diversification. The severe impact of this single shock shows the underlying fragility and complexity of our agri-food systems. Climate change will bring many more.
The world must take essential actions to mitigate food shocks, stabilize local wheat supplies and transition toward agri-food system resilience, from the current efficiency-driven model. We call for large and sustained agricultural research investments as a foundational element of any viable, food-secure future.
From chronic challenges to food crisis conditions
Global wheat production for export is geographically concentrated, placing inherent vulnerabilities on the global system. Dominance of the wheat export trade by a relatively small number of countries makes sense under an efficiency paradigm, but it opens the door to price spikes and food-related crises. At the same time, biophysical vulnerability of major global breadbaskets is on the rise as drought and other weather extremes increase volatility in cereal yields, exports and prices.
Russia and Ukraine produce 28% of the worldâs total wheat exports and Russia is a globally important source of fuel and fertilizer. With over 2.5 billion people worldwide consuming wheat-based products and wheat futures at their highest levels since 2012, disrupted exports from Russia and Ukraine would usher in substantial new pressures on global wheat markets and tremendous risks for vulnerable populations around the world.
Dependence on wheat imports from Russia and Ukraine imperils food security in lower- and middle-income countries in North Africa and the Middle East (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Yemen), the Mediterranean (Azerbaijan, Turkey), sub-Saharan Africa (Nigeria, Sudan), Southern Asia (Bangladesh, Pakistan) and throughout Southeast Asia. Globally elevated food prices will hit hardest in those countries already struggling with food insecurity.
Layered onto the existing concentration of wheat-exporting countries and the climate-induced vulnerabilities in essential global breadbaskets, the crisis in Ukraine and trade sanctions on Russia are triggering a level of volatility that could easily overwhelm existing mitigation mechanisms. We may well see a range of negative effects over the short, medium and long term, including:
Severe food insecurity and economic impacts due to reduced global wheat supplies and price increases affecting all wheat-importing countries and humanitarian agencies.
Diminished global grain productivity due to fertilizer supply limitations and price escalation, especially in low-income, fertilizer-import-dependent countries.
Higher food prices and expanded global hunger and malnutrition as a result of tighter fuel supplies driving up costs of agricultural production.
Pressure on household budgets negatively affecting nutrition, health, education and gender equity.
The employee of an Ethiopian seed association smiles as bags of wheat seed are ready to be distributed. (Photo: Gerardo MejĂa/CIMMYT)
Stabilize while building resilience
With these multi-layered challenges in view, we propose essential actions to mitigate near-term food security crises, to stabilize wheat supply and to concurrently transition toward agri-food system resilience.
Without doubt, the world’s top priority must be to mitigate food security crises at our doorstep. This will involve boosting wheat production through expanded acreage (e.g. in high-performing systems in the Global North) and closing yield gaps (e.g. improved management and value chains of rainfed, wheat-based systems in the Global South) using policy incentives such as price guarantees and subsidized agricultural inputs. Short-term food insecurity can also be addressed through demand-side management (e.g. market controls to conserve grain stocks for human consumption; use of lower-cost flour blends) and de-risking alternative sourcing (e.g. trade agreements).
As these actions are taken, a range of strategies can simultaneously drive toward more resilient wheat supply at local to global scales. Well-functioning seed systems, demand-driven agronomic support and other elements of wheat self-reliance can be encouraged through shifts in local policy, regulatory and sectoral contexts. Enhanced monitoring capacity can track spatial patterns in wheat cropping, including expansion into areas where comparative advantage for wheat production (e.g. agro-ecological suitability; supporting infrastructure) has been identified in rural development frameworks and national plans (e.g. as a double crop in Ethiopian midlands). In addition to enabling yield forecasts, surveillance systems are critical to phytosanitary control of geographically restricted pathogens under altered wheat trade routes.
Yet, these steps to mitigate food shocks and stabilize local wheat supplies will not adequately protect the world from climate-related biophysical risks to food and nutritional security. In parallel, a transition toward agri-food system resilience requires transformative investments in agricultural diversification, sustainable natural resource management and low-greenhouse-gas agroecosystems, as well as meaningful actions toward achieving gender equality, nutritional sufficiency and livelihood security.
Sustained research & development for a food-secure future
None of the critical actions described above are guaranteed given the oscillating global investment in agricultural research. Enabled by decades of agricultural research, the world has managed to constrain the number and severity of food security crises through major gains in agricultural productivity.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the global international wheat research Center of the CGIAR, has been working tirelessly to maintain wheat harvests around the world in the face of mounting disease pressures and climate challenges. The estimated benefit-cost ratio for wheat improvement research ranges from 73:1 to 103:1. Yet, research funding only rises when food crises occur, revealing the globalized risks of our highly interconnected agri-food systems, and then tapers as memories fade.
With limited resources, scientists around the world are attacking the complex challenge of increasing agricultural yields and ensuring stable, equitable food supplies. Receiving only about 2% of international agricultural research funding over time, CIMMYT and the entire CGIAR have had limited ability to develop the long-term research capabilities that could mitigate or prevent short-term emergencies with medium- to long-term effects.
Responding to the mounting pressures on deeply complex agri-food systems requires integrative solutions that allow farmers and other agri-food stakeholders to mitigate and withstand shocks and to achieve viable livelihoods. Knowledge and technology needs are extensive across production systems (e.g. wheat-legume intercropping; cereals-focused agroecological interventions), value chains (e.g. context-appropriate seed systems; nutrition enhancement through flour blending), monitoring systems (e.g. genomics-based surveillance), and social dimensions (e.g. gender implications of new production and consumption strategies; policy interventions).
Generating such solutions depends on robust, multidisciplinary and transparent research capabilities that fuel the transition to agri-food system resilience. Robust international investment in resilient agricultural systems is an essential condition for national security, global peace and prosperity.
With the past decade identified as the warmest on record and global temperatures predicted to rise by as much as 2 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels by 2050, the worldâs staple food crops are increasingly under threat.
A new review published this month in the Journal of Experimental Botany describes how researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and collaborators are boosting climate resilience in wheat using powerful remote sensing tools, genomics and big data analysis. Scientists are combining multiple approaches to explore untapped diversity among wheat genetic resources and help select better parents and progeny in breeding.
The review â authored by a team of 25 scientists from CIMMYT, Henan Agricultural University, the University of Adelaide and the Wheat Initiative â also outlines how this research can be harnessed on a global level to further accelerate climate resilience in staple crops.
âAn advantage of understanding abiotic stress at the level of plant physiology is that many of the same tools and methods can be applied across a range of crops that face similar problems,â said first author and CIMMYT wheat physiologist Matthew Reynolds.
Abiotic stresses such as temperature extremes and drought can have devastating impacts on plant growth and yields, posing a massive risk to food security.
Harnessing research across a global wheat improvement network for climate resilience: research gaps, interactive goals, and outcomes.
Addressing research gaps
The authors identified nine key research gaps in efforts to boost climate resilience in wheat, including limited genetic diversity for climate resilience, a need for smarter strategies for stacking traits and addressing the bottleneck between basic plant research and its application in breeding.
Based on a combination of the latest research advances and tried-and-tested breeding methods, the scientists are developing strategies to address these gaps. These include:
Using big data analysis to better understand stress profiles in target environments and design wheat lines with appropriate heat and drought adaptive traits.
Exploring wheat genetic resources for discovery of novel traits and genes and their use in breeding.
Accelerating genetic gains through selection techniques that combine phenomics with genomics.
Crowd-sourcing new ideas and technologies from academia and testing them in real-life breeding situations.
These strategies will be thoroughly tested at the Heat and Drought Wheat Improvement Network (HeDWIC) Hub under realistic breeding conditions and then disseminated to other wheat breeding programs around the world facing similar challenges.
One factor that strongly influences the success and acceleration of climate resilience technologies, according to Reynolds, is the gap between theoretical discovery research and crop improvement in the field.
âMany great ideas on how to improve climate-resilience of crops pile up in the literature, but often remain âon the shelfâ because the research space between theory and practice falls between the radar of academia on the one hand, and that of plant breeders on the other,â Reynolds explained.
Translational research â efforts to convert basic research knowledge about plants into practical applications in crop improvement â represents a necessary link between the world of fundamental discovery and farmersâ fields and aims to bridge this gap.
Main research steps involved in translating promising technologies into genetic gains (graphical abstract, adapted from Reynolds and Langridge, 2016). Reprinted under licence CC BY-NC-ND.
The impacts of this research, conducted under HeDWIC â a project led by CIMMYT in partnership with experts around the world â will be validated on a global scale through the International Wheat Improvement Network (IWIN), with the potential to reach at least half of the worldâs wheat-growing area.
The results will benefit breeders and researchers but, most importantly, farmers and consumers around the world who rely on wheat for their livelihoods and their diets. Wheat accounts for about 20% of all human calories and protein, making it a pillar of food security. For about 1.5 billion resource-poor people, wheat is their main daily staple food.
With the world population projected to rise to almost ten billion by 2050, demand for food is predicted to increase with it. This is especially so for wheat, being a versatile crop both in terms of where it can grow and its many culinary and industrial uses. However, current wheat yield gains will not meet 2050 demand unless serious action is taken. Translational research and strategic breeding are crucial elements in ensuring that research is translated into higher and stable yields to meet these challenges.
CIMMYT researchers use coverings to increase night-time temperatures and study wheatâs heat tolerance mechanisms, key to overcoming climate change challenges to wheat production. (Photo: Kevin Pixley/CIMMYT)
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the John Innes Centre (JIC) have announced a strategic collaboration for joint research, knowledge sharing and communications, to further the global effort to develop the future of wheat.
Wheat, a cornerstone of the human diet that provides 20% of all calories and protein consumed worldwide, is threatened by climate change-related drought and heat, as well as increased frequency and spread of pest and disease outbreaks. The new collaboration, building on a history of successful joint research achievements, aims to harness state-of-the-art technology to find solutions for the worldâs wheat farmers and consumers.
âI am pleased to formalize our longstanding partnership in wheat research with this agreement,â said CIMMYT Deputy Director General for Research Kevin Pixley. âOur combined scientific strengths will enhance our impacts on farmers and consumers, and ultimately contribute to global outcomes, such as the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger.â
Director of the John Innes Centre, Professor Dale Sanders commented, âRecognizing and formalizing this long-standing partnership will enable researchers from both institutes to focus on the future, where the sustainable development of resilient crops will benefit a great many people around the world.â
Thematic areas for collaboration
Scientists from CIMMYT and JIC will work jointly to apply cutting-edge approaches to wheat improvement, including:
developing and deploying new molecular markers for yield, resilience and nutritional traits in wheat to facilitate deploying genomic breeding approaches using data on the plantâs genetic makeup to improve breeding speed and accuracy;
generating, sharing and exploiting the diversity of wheat genetic material produced during crossing and identified in seed banks;
pursuing new technologies and approaches that increase breeding efficiency to introduce improved traits into new wheat varieties; and
developing improved technologies for rapid disease diagnostics and surveillance.
Plans for future collaborations include establishing a new laboratory in Norwich, United Kingdom, as part of the Health Plants, Healthy People, Healthy Plant (HP3) initiative.
Bringing innovations to farmers
An important goal of the collaboration between CIMMYT and JIC is to expand the impact of the joint research breakthroughs through knowledge sharing and capacity development. Stakeholder-targeted communications will help expand the reach and impact of these activities.
âA key element of this collaboration will be deploying our innovations to geographically diverse regions and key CIMMYT partner countries that rely on smallholder wheat production for their food security and livelihoods,â said CIMMYT Global Wheat Program Director Alison Bentley.
Capacity development and training will include collaborative research projects, staff and student exchanges and co-supervision of graduate students, exchange of materials and data, joint capacity building programs, and shared connections to the private sector. For example, plans are underway for a wheat improvement summer school for breeders in sub-Saharan African countries and an internship program to work on the Mobile And Real-time PLant disease (MARPLE) portable rust testing project in Ethiopia.
INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITIES:
Alison Bentley â Director, Global Wheat Program, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
Dale Sanders  â Director, John Innes Centre
OR MORE INFORMATION, OR TO ARRANGE INTERVIEWS, CONTACT THE MEDIA TEAM:
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is the global leader in publicly-funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty. CIMMYT is a member of the CGIAR System and leads the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The Center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies. For more information, visit staging.cimmyt.org.
ABOUT THE JOHN INNES CENTRE:
The John Innes Centre is an independent, international centre of excellence in plant science, genetics and microbiology. Our mission is to generate knowledge of plants and microbes through innovative research, to train scientists for the future, to apply our knowledge of natureâs diversity to benefit agriculture, the environment, human health, and wellbeing, and engage with policy makers and the public.
We foster a creative, curiosity-driven approach to fundamental questions in bio-science, with a view to translating that into societal benefits. Over the last 100 years, we have achieved a range of fundamental breakthroughs, resulting in major societal impacts. Our new vision Healthy Plants, Healthy People, Healthy Planet (www.hp3) is a collaborative call to action. Bringing knowledge, skills and innovation together to create a world where we can sustainably feed a growing population, mitigate the effects of climate change and use our understanding of plants and microbes to develop foods and discover compounds to improve public health.
The first meetings of the Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (AGG) wheat and maize science and technical steering committees â WSC and MSC, respectively â took place virtually on 25th and 28th September.
Researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) sit on both committees. In the WSC they are joined by wheat experts from national agricultural research systems (NARS) in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, India, and Nepal; and from Angus Wheat Consultants, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), HarvestPlus, Kansas State University and the Roslin Institute.
Similarly, the MSC includes maize experts from NARS in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya and Zambia; and from Corteva, the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), SeedCo, Syngenta, the University of Queensland, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
During the meetings, attendees discussed scientific challenges and opportunities for AGG, and developed specific recommendations pertaining to key topics including breeding and testing scheme optimization, effective engagement with partners and capacity development in the time of COVID-19, and seed systems and gender intentionality.
Discussion groups noted, for example, the need to address family structure in yield trials, to strengthen collaboration with national partners, and to develop effective regional on-farm testing strategies. Interestingly, most of the recommendations are applicable and valuable for both crop teams, and this is a clear example of the synergies we expect from combining maize and wheat within the AGG project.
All the recommendations will be further analyzed by the AGG teams during coming months, and project activities will be adjusted or implemented as appropriate. A brief report will be submitted to the respective STSCs prior to the second meetings of these committees, likely in late March 2021.
A digital transformation is changing the face of international research for development and agri-food systems worldwide. This was the key takeaway from the 4th annual CGIAR Big Data in Agriculture Convention held virtually last month.
âIn many countries, farmers are using data to learn about market trends and weather predictions,â said Martin Kropff, director general of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), in a video address to convention participants. âBut many still do not have access to everything that big data offers, and that is where CIMMYT and partners come in.â
As a member of CGIAR, CIMMYT is committed to ensuring that farmers around the world get access to data-driven solutions and information, while at the same time ensuring that the data generated by farmers, researchers and others is used ethically.
According to CGIAR experts and partner organizations, there are four key areas with the potential to transform agriculture in the next 10 years: data, artificial intelligence (AI), digital services and sector intelligence.
Key interventions will involve enabling open data and responsible data use, developing responsible AI, enabling and validating bundled digital services for food systems, and building trust in technology and big data â many of which CIMMYT has been working on already.
Harnessing data and data analytics
Led by CIMMYT, the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding (EiB) team have been developing the Enterprise Breeding System (EBS) â a single data management software solution for global breeding programs. The software aims to provide a solution to manage data across the entire breeding data workflow â from experiment creation to analytics â all in a single user-friendly dashboard.
CIMMYT and partners have also made significant breakthroughs in crop modelling to better understand crop performance and yield gaps, optimize planting dates and irrigation systems, and improve predictions of pest outbreaks. The Community of Practice (CoP) on Crop Modeling, a CGIAR initiative led by CIMMYT Crop Physiologist Matthew Reynolds, aims to foster collaboration and improve the collection of open access, easy-to-use data available for crop modelling.
The CIMMYT-led Community of Practice (CoP) on Socio-Economic Data continues to work at the forefront of making messy socio-economic data interoperable to address urgent and pressing global development issues in agri-food systems. Data interoperability, one of the foundational components of the FAIR data standards supported by CGIAR, addresses the ability of systems and services that create, exchange and consume data to have clear, shared expectations for its content, context and meaning. In the wake of COVID-19, the world witnessed the need for better data interoperability to understand what is happening in global food systems, and the CoP actively supports that process.
The MARPLE team carries out rapid analysis using the diagnostic kit in Ethiopia. (Photo: JIC)
Improving data use and supporting digital transformation
In Ethiopia, the MARPLE (Mobile And Real-time PLant disEase) diagnostic kit â developed by CIMMYT, the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and the John Innes Centre (JIC) â has helped researchers, local governments and farmers to rapidly detect diseases like wheat rust in the field. The suitcase-sized kit cuts down the time it takes to detect this disease from months to just 48 hours.
In collaboration with research and meteorological organizations including Wageningen University and the European Space Agency (ESA), CIMMYT researchers have also been developing practical applications for satellite-sourced weather data. Crop scientists have been using this data to analyze maize and wheat cropping systems on a larger scale and create more precise crop models to predict the tolerance of crop varieties to stresses like drought and heatwaves. The aim is to share the climate and weather data available on an open access, user-friendly database.
Through the AgriFoodTrust platform â a new testing and learning platform for digital trust and transparency technologies â CIMMYT researchers have been experimenting with technologies like blockchain to tackle issues such as food safety, traceability, sustainability, and adulterated and counterfeit fertilizers and seeds. Findings will be used to build capacity on all aspects of the technologies and their application to ensure this they are inclusive and usable.
In Mexico, CIMMYT and partners have developed an application which offers tailored recommendations to help individual farmers deal with crop production challenges sustainably. The AgroTutor app offers farmers free information on historic yield potential, local benchmarks, Â recommended agricultural practices, Â commodity price forecasting and more.
Stepping up to the challenge
As the world becomes increasingly digital, harnessing the full potential of digital technologies is a huge area of opportunity for the agricultural research for development community, but one that is currently lacking clear leadership. As a global organization already working on global problems, itâs time for the CGIAR network to step up to the challenge. Carrying a legacy of agronomic research, agricultural extension, and research into adoption of technologies and innovations, CGIAR has an opportunity to become a leader in the digital transformation of agriculture.
Currently, the CGIAR System is coming together as One CGIAR. This transformation process is a dynamic reformulation of CGIARâs partnerships, knowledge, assets, and global presence, aiming for greater integration and impact in the face of the interdependent challenges facing todayâs world.
âOne CGIARâs role in supporting digitalization is both to improve research driven by data and data analytics, but also to foster the digitalization of agriculture in low and lower-middle income countries,â said CIMMYT Economist Gideon Kruseman at a session on Exploring CGIAR Digital Strategy at last monthâs Big Data convention.
âOne CGIAR â with its neutral stance and its focus on global public goods â can act as an honest broker between different stakeholders in the digital ecosystem.â
Cover photo:Â A researcher demonstrates the use of the AgroTutor app on a mobile phone in Mexico. (Photo: Francisco AlarcĂłn/CIMMYT)
âKnowing which strain you have is critical information that can be incorporated into early warning systems and results in more effective control of disease outbreaks in farmerâs fieldsâ said Dr. Dave Hodson, a rust pathologist at CIMMYT in Ethiopia and co-author of the paper âMARPLE, a point-of-care, strain-level disease diagnostics and surveillance tool for complex fungal pathogens.â Read more here.
