Location: Americas

CIMMYT has several offices in the Americas, including global headquarters in Mexico and a regional office in Colombia. Activities are supported by an additional 140 hectares of stations in diverse agro-ecological zones of Mexico. CIMMYT’s genebank in Mexico stores 27,000 maize and 170,000 wheat seed collections – key to preserving the crop genetic diversity of the region. CIMMYT projects range from developing nutritionally enhanced maize to mapping regional climate change hot spots in Central America. The comprehensive MasAgro project aims to increase wheat production in Mexico by 9 million tons and maize production by 350,000 tons by 2030. CIMMYT promotes regional collaboration and facilitates capacity building for scientists, researchers and technicians.

From CIMMYT-Colombia: The first 50 years of FENALCE

Written by on July 20, 2010. Posted in News.

This is how the National Federation of Cereal and Legume Producers (FENALCE) announces on its website that on 30 June 2010 it celebrated half a century of its establishment. CIMMYT’s relationship with FENALCE dates back to the 1980s, with training for Colombian researchers and joint development of improved maize varieties.

Since 2002, CIMMYT has been working with the Federation in a collaborative project to grow maize among coffee trees. To celebrate its anniversary, FENALCE organized various regional events focused on cereal production. Two CIMMYT researchers from Mexico and Colombia, George Mahuku and Luis Narro, attended the official ceremony in Bogotá, which was chaired by Colombia’s deputy agriculture minister Juan Camilo Salazar. Mahuku was invited to present a seminar on “The impact of maize diseases on food production in Latin America,” while Narro was recognized by FENALCE for his support to cereals research in Colombia.

Jairo Manrique and Henry Vanegas, FENALCE officers, gave speeches that included mentions of the maize and wheat varieties resulting from collaboration with CIMMYT that are being sown in Colombia, and the benefits of CIMMYT’s training for their researchers.

CIMMYT stories from Colombia

Written by on May 27, 2010. Posted in News.

Varieties of QPM released
Two new quality protein maize (QPM) varieties, designed to thrive in the tropical lowland coffee production zones of southwest Colombia, were released on 14 April 2010. CIMMYT-Mexico developed these two varieties—yellow maize FNC 31AC and white maize FNC 32AC—and the Fundación para la Investigación y Desarrollo Agrícola (FIDAR) evaluated them, under the supervision of Luis Narro of CIMMYT-Colombia. More than 150 people attended the launch event, held at the fields of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Palmira, a city in the Cauca Valley, Colombia.

The two varieties yield five tons per hectare, similar to normal maize, but have more tryptophan (0.08% compared to 0.05% of normal maize). Tryptophan is one of two amino acids required for protein synthesis in humans and swine livestock. The release of these QPM varieties is part of the Agrosalud Project, which aims to develop and disseminate biofortified crops, including maize, bean, rice, and sweet potato, and was the result of collaboration with CIMMYT, CIAT, and FIDAR. The National Federation of Colombian Coffee Growers (FENALCE) will take charge of seed production and distribution.

Visits and collaborations at CIMMYT-Colombia
The Global Maize Program’s new director, B.M. Prasanna, continues his travels to CIMMYT’s extensive and wide-spread maize offices. His most recent stop was to CIMMYT-Colombia where from 26-28 April he met with CIMMYTColombia staff and coordinated collaborative activities between CIMMYT and CIAT for Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

Included among other activities was a visit to one of the research stations of the Federación de Cafeteros de Colombia. The experimental station, Centro Nacional de Investigaciones de Café (CENICAFE) La Catalina, is a key area for maize-coffee trails. The director of the station, Carlos Gonzalo Mejía, showed Prasanna (accompanied by Félix San Vicente, maize breeder, and Reymunda Labuguen, program administrator) the fields where since 2002 CIMMYT has collaborated with FEDERECAFE (the National Federation of Colombian Coffee Growers) and FENALCE to sow maize among coffee trees. FENALCE researcher Argemiro Moreno highlighted the benefits of this crop combination, pointing out that maize yields in coffee production zones are high. This year, for example, experimental maize fields at La Catalina yielded 18 tons per hectare.

Agronomic management was another topic of conversation. FENALCE researcher Argemiro Moreno showed staff how to use GreenSeeker, a tool that allows farmers to apply the proper amount of nitrogen to their fields, which he learned about during a recent visit to CIMMYT’s Norman E. Borlaug Experimental Station, in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, Mexico.

Later, a meeting with Rubén Echeverría, director general of CIAT, led to the conclusion that CIMMYT and CIAT can and should increase collaboration for key areas in Latin America. Highlighted initiatives included 1) improving efficiency in the maize-bean-cattle production systems, 2) efficient utilization of new tools and methods to improve and expedite plant breeding and selection, 3) evaluation and promotion of precision agriculture technologies, and 4) capacity building with students and farmers for faster, effective technology adoption.

To follow-up on these identified issues, the visitor group toured CIAT facilities and met with some of the researchers involved in the emphasized areas, including Michael Peters, tropical forages program leader, Idupulapati M. Rao, physiology and plant nutrition, and Steve Beebe, bean breeder.

Fieldbook course
Two CIMMYT-Colombia team members led a course on Fieldbook during 13-14 May 2010. The course attracted 10 participants, including representatives from two local seed companies, Semivalle and Sem-Latam S.A, and agronomy students from the Corporación Universitaria Santa Rosa de Cabal, Risaralda, Colombia.

Yacenia Morillo, head of Semivalle’s basic research, said that Semivalle will embrace this new knowledge and software, and thanked course organizers Néstor Romero and Alba Lucía for their hard work. Counting this event, CIMMYT has now trained nearly 100 Latin American researchers from public and private organizations in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.

First international wheat blast meeting held in Brazil

Written by on May 17, 2010. Posted in News.

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/Agrária.

Maize as a cash intercrop with perennials in Colombia

Written by on November 24, 2009. Posted in News.

For about six years, CIMMYT and the large Colombian producer federations for coffee (FEDERECAFE) and cereals (FENALCE) have partnered to help coffee growers profit by cropping maize in the rows between pruned coffee plants, obtaining as many as three maize harvests while the coffee plants grow back. Led by maize breeder Luis Narro, CIMMYT has contributed hybrids that yield as much as 10 tons per hectare and are resistant to locally-important fungal diseases, particularly those caused by Cercospora zeae-maydis and Phyllachora maydis. As one result, over the short life of this work maize area in coffee zones has already gone from 5,000 to 60,000 hectares, with a potential area of 150,000 hectares.

This success has also bred a new partnership involving CIMMYT, FENALCE, and the Federation of Oil Palm Growers (FEDEPALMA), in which palm plantations will obtain three to four maize harvests while palm plants complete their growth cycle. Oil palms are grown on 350,000 hectares in Colombia, though the potential is 10 times that area. The palm-maize intercrop seems especially attractive given that many Colombian plantations are completely renewing their oil palm stands, due to severe attacks of bud rot disease (Phytophthora palmivora). This disease and other constraints are severely affecting smallscale (less than five hectares) palm growers in locations like Tumaco, who were previously earning at least USD 1,500 per month selling palm for oil extraction. Critically, farmers’ production losses also represent lost employment for farm hands, who are typically economically-disadvantaged. Growing maize offers a profitable hedge for all, while producers wait for the new generation of palm plants to come on line.

To date, 500 experimental maize hybrids have been tested in trials in 4 oil palm plantation zones. According to 90 farmers who took part in a field day in Tumaco on 30 October 2009, the trial results have been good. The highest yields surpassed 10 tons per hectare, with yields of 7 tons and profits of USD 1,500 per hectare on small-scale farmers’ plots.

“Maize could be of interest for farmers who might otherwise be tempted to grow drug crops, ” says Narro. “Maize also offers a profitable alternative for farmers in marginal zones who grow coconut palms in countries threatened with total crop loss from the lethal yellowing diseases.”

Matthew Reynolds talks about climate change

Written by on October 5, 2009. Posted in News.

The US government has temporarily satisfied its hunger for information on how to adapt agriculture to climate change. On 14 September 2009, Matthew Reynolds, CIMMYT wheat physiologist, joined around 15 other agriculture experts just outside of Washington, DC, USA, to present at a conference titled: “Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change: What Will It Take?”

The conference, sponsored by the US Department of State, opened with a keynote by John Holdren, science adviser to the President of the United States, and was followed by four main panel topics: Impacts of Climate Change on Agriculture; Research in the Public Sector; Research in the Private Sector; and Alternative Crops, Sustainable Management, and Integrative Strategies. The goal of the event was to explore strategies and raise awareness about adaption measures that are required—or will be required in the future—to maintain sufficient global food production.

“It is reassuring to know that the US government is taking the issue of food security in the context of climate change seriously,” said Reynolds, who presented on adapting the major cereal crops (including maize and wheat) to climate change. “The State Department was not the only government program represented at the conference; the broad spectrum of speakers and government officials (including USDA and USAID) present shows that they are considering a comprehensive approach to the issue.”

A position paper based on the outcomes of the conference will be prepared for the US government. It will also be published in Science magazine.

Push for quality protein maize in El Salvador

Written by on September 7, 2009. Posted in News.

Salvador02-300x291 It was unusually hot for the rainy season, but the torrid sun did not dampen farmers’ enthusiasm on the afternoon of 02 September 2009. “This is a variety that yields well, even if we don’t put lots of fertilizer on it, and it has a sweet taste and mills well,” said Francisca Lilian Melgar. Along with 24 other farmers at Lomas de Santiago, El Salvador, she has joined her plot with others to form a communal “mega-plot” of about 25 hectares to test-grow the quality protein maize (QPM) hybrid ‘Oro Blanco’ (White Gold).

Each farmer has received seed and other inputs through AgroSalud, a five-year project that started in 2005 with funding from the Canadian International Development Agency to extend the benefits of nutritionally improved staple crops to Latin America and the Caribbean. CIMMYT’s work in the project has been led by maize breeder Gary Atlin, and includes many activities to develop, improve, and disseminate stress resistant, agronomically superior varieties of QPM, a type of maize that contains enhanced amounts of the essential amino acids lysine and tryptophan than normal maize.

Much of the work in El Salvador has been carried out by Héctor Reynaldo Deras Flores, maize researcher with the National Center of Agriculture, Livestock, and Forestry Technology (CENTA). “I would buy seed of this hybrid,” Melgar emphatically told the visitors, who included researchers and extension workers from CENTA, as well as seed producers, policymakers, and CIMMYT staff.

Salvador1-300x200 Hours earlier that day, many of the same specialists, along with staff of the Health and Education ministries and representatives of farmer associations, had gathered in the headquarters of El Salvador’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock in San Salvador to attend presentations and take part in discussions on the importance of QPM. The event was covered by leading national TV and radio stations, and included presentations by Scott Ferguson, CIMMYT deputy director general for Support Services; Kevin Pixley, associate director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program; and Hugo Córdova, retired CIMMYT maize breeder and distinguished scientist. Among other things, presenters reported on achievements of AgroSalud. “In the last five years, we’ve achieved annual increases of 250 kilograms per hectare in the yields of QPM hybrids,” said Córdova, a Salvadoran native. “Because the parent lines were selected under stress conditions, these hybrids perform well in all settings.”

Ferguson, Pixley, and Córdova also met with CENTA director Antonio René Rivera Magaña to discuss ways of promoting adoption and marketing of Oro Blanco. “With QPM we’ve pushed, pushed, pushed,” Pixley said. “Now we need to create some ‘pull’—we have to promote the product in a way that creates demand.” Studies have shown that QPM can improve human nutrition and health in populations that depend heavily on maize as food but, according to Pixley, farmers are interested first and foremost in higher yields— something that Oro Blanco and AgroSalud products appear to offer.

Researchers in Colombia learn to use Fieldbook

Written by on July 14, 2009. Posted in News.

About 20 scientists from FENALCE learned how to use Fieldbook—software for managing maize breeding activities—at CIMMYT-Colombia from 10-12 June 2009. FENALCE, Colombia’s National Federation of Cereal and Legume Breeders, has been one of CIMMYT’s main partners for the past 20 years, and has supported the center’s research, capacity-building, and technology transfer activities. The course was set up to support the Federation’s newly created maize improvement program.

CIMMYT technician Néstor Romero presented the course material along with colleagues Alba Lucía Arcos, breeder; and Luis Narro, senior scientist. Participants learned about inventory management, preparation of seed for international trials, taking data in the field and in the lab, and analysis and interpretation of experiment data. The course covered Fieldbook use for maize cultivation and participants practiced compiling field data and analyzing it with the program. CIMMYT-Colombia staff showed researchers a new printer for creating labels for station experimental plots and envelopes for seed shipments. Participants were also interested in a new machine that quickly and accurately counts seed.

Katherine Girón, technical director of FENALCE, coordinated the training which also marked Henry Vanegas’ beginning as the federation’s general manager. Our best wishes to Henry in his new position!

Hugo Córdova, Knight Commander of the Order Manuel Amador Guerrero in Panamá

Written by on August 15, 2008. Posted in News.

Hugo Córdova will be invested by Panama’s president, His Excellence Martín Torrijos, and Grand Maestre of the Order, on August 28, 2008, during the Feria Agrícola de Divisa, where according to Román Gordon, Agrosalud project partner, two new QPM synthetics will be released. This award is the highest honor Panama gives for scientific contributions to development, and was named after Manuel Amador Guerrero, independence hero and first president of Panama.

Training course in Colombia: application of ecophysiology to crop improvement

Written by on July 27, 2008. Posted in News.

From July 21 to 25, 18 crop researchers attended Colombia’s Agricultural and Livestock Research Corporation (CORPOICA) for a 40-hour training course on the application of ecophysiology to crop improvement under stress conditions at the facilities in Villavicencia, Meta Province, Colombia.

The course was coordinated by Luis Narro and Alba Lucía Arcos, CIMMYT researchers based in Colombia, and José Luis Araus, CIMMYT researcher based in Mexico, in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Barcelona (Spain), CORPOICA, and the National University of Colombia. In addition to staff from the organizing institutions, participants from other Colombian organizations, such as Federation of Cereal and Legume Producers (FENALCE) and Federation of Coffee Growers (FEDERECAFE), also attended.

The science of ecophysiology focuses on the physiological processes that take place during interactions between organisms at the community and ecosystem levels, as well as the interrelationships between live and inert systems (for example, the study of bio-geochemical cycles and biospheric-atmospheric exchanges), Therefore, the course focused on demonstrating, from a theoretical and practical standpoint, how physiology can contribute to crop improvement under stress conditions, with special emphasis on maize production in acid or low fertility soils and drought.

Meta Province is located within Colombia’s eastern Plains, a region where the farming sector has a bright future, but where problems such as acid soils, aluminum toxicity, and poor fertility have constrained productivity of maize and other crops. For this reason, the course was divided into the theoretical and practical aspects, and discussion; as an example, during field work using portable equipment, the participants learned to assess parameters that are important to crop development (for example, biomass, chlorophyll content, and plant moisture status).

The course was a great success thanks to the coordinators’ logistical efficiency, the participants’ enthusiasm, and the diversity of subjects covered. The course also gave us the opportunity to make contact with people who could help us establish agricultural research partnerships/networks in the future.

Quality protein maize cultivars released in El Salvador

Written by on June 20, 2008. Posted in News. 1 Comment on Quality protein maize cultivars released in El Salvador

Three quality protein maize hybrids—Platino (CML144/CML159//CML503/CML502), Oro Blanco(CML503/CML492//CML491), and synthetic Protemas (03TLWQAB3)—were released to farmers at the headquarters of the national center for agriculture and livestock technology (CENTA) in San Andrés, La Libertad, El Salvador, on Wednesday 18 June 2008.

More than 500 farmers attended the ceremony along with extension agents and officials including the Minister of Agriculture, Mario Salaverria; the Vice Minister of Agriculture, Emilio Suadi; the Presidential High Commissioner for Agriculture, María Elena Sol; Ever Hernández, CENTA Board Chair; and Abraham Gonzáles, CENTA Director.

The Minister and the Vice Ministers spoke to farmers about the potential of the cultivars to alleviate hunger and malnutrition especially now, during the world food crisis. The new cultivars will be grown on 3,000 hectares this year, and the ministers promised that farmers will have enough seed to sow at least 20,000 hectares in 2009. Farmers who ran demonstration plots last year were happy that the cultivars were finally released.

Salaverria said he was impressed during a visit to CIMMYT last May and commended the center for its work to increase maize yields in El Salvador by 250 kg per hectare per year for the past 4 years. The national maize yield has increased to an average 3 tons per hectare, which is the highest in the region. The goal is to reach 4.3 tons per hectare in the next 10 years and to locally produce all white and yellow maize needed in the country. El Salvador is self-sufficient in white maize for food but imports all yellow maize used for the animal feed industry. The day of the release the price of yellow maize had reached USD 400 a ton.

On Friday 20 June Hugo Córdova participated in a forum organized by the El Salvador Agronomists Society (SIADES) to discuss actions to reduce the impact of the food crisis and present alternatives from the Organization for Health Improvement of Agricultural Workers and Families in Guatemala (AGROSALUD) to alleviate hunger, malnutrition, and reduce poverty. Salaverria, who is Minister of Agriculture and Chair of the Central American Council of Agriculture (CAC), reiterated his interest in supporting AGROSALUD.

Submitted by Hugo Córdova, CIMMYT Consultant

Mini-course on the analysis of maize diversity

Written by on February 8, 2008. Posted in News.

As part of on-going efforts to facilitate the use of DNA markers in maize breeding and diversity studies, during 01-06 February 2008 CIMMYT El Batán held a workshop on “The analysis of molecular data generated from genetic bulked heterogenous populations.” Coordinated by CIMMYT molecular biologist Marilyn Warburton and visiting biometrician Jorge Franco, of the Universidad de la República, Uruguay, the course drew six participants from six different countries, in addition to CIMMYT participants. According to Warburton, the workshop turned out to be of great interest to CIMMYT scientists. “We had three people signed up from outside when we started, and gave certificates to another ten or twelve CIMMYT people in the end,” she says. Participants included Allen Oppong (Ghana), Tunde Golinar (Hungary), Niclas Freitag (Switzerland), Yusuf Mansir (Nigeria), Marlen Huebner (Germany), Guy Davenport (CIMMYT), Trushar Shah (CIMMYT), Miguel Anducho (CIMMYT), Eduardo Hernández (CIMMYT), Jianbing Yan (CIMMYT), Shibin Gao (CIMMYT), Maria Zaharieva (CIMMYT), Claudia Bedoya (CIMMYT), and Aida Zewdu Kebede (Ethiopia).

Raun named OSU Sarkeys Distinguished Professor

Written by on November 20, 2007. Posted in News.

Former CIMMYT wheat agronomist (1986-91) Bill Raun has been named the 2007 recipient of the Sarkeys Distinguished Professor Award by the Oklahoma State University (OSU) Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. The Sarkeys award is based on outstanding contributions to agriculture through teaching, research or extension efforts. The award was established by the Sarkeys Foundation in 1980 to honor Elmo Baumann, an agronomist who worked with the foundation after his retirement from OSU. Raun was named a Fellow of the Soil Science of America and American Society of Agronomy and has received many prestigious honors, including the ASA Werner L. Nelson Award, the Robert E. Wagner Award, the OSU Regents Distinguished Research Award and the OSU James A. Whatley Award for Meritorious Service in Agricultural Sciences.

Ohio State University honors Kevin Pixley

Written by on November 9, 2007. Posted in News.

On 16 October 2007, CIMMYT maize breeder and assistant director of the center’s global maize program, Kevin Pixley, was given the G.H. Stringfield Award from Ohio State University, USA, in recognition of “his outstanding contributions to the science of maize breeding and genetics.” The award was made on behalf of the OSU Department of Horticulture and Crop Science and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. “Stringfield was arguably the most important maize breeder in Ohio history,” says Pixley, who is only the second person to receive the award. “He was instrumental in early hybrid research and in leading the transition from OPVs to hybrids in Ohio.”

First FLDP in Spanish

Written by on October 26, 2007. Posted in News.

Thirteen national staff from CIMMYT and the Cali Colombia-based International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) took the First Leadership Development Program (FLDP) last week at El Batán. CIMMYT organized the course. This is the first time it has been given completely in Spanish. Facilitator Petr Kosina said mounting the course in Spanish was a great challenge and he was happy with the outcome. “I was very impressed with the high standards of the students. It was a very good group.” A follow-up session has been scheduled for January.

Special mention for CIMMYT wheat poster

Written by on October 26, 2007. Posted in News.

A poster on a CIMMYT-led project to establish a system for assessing wheat grain quality in the main wheat-producing areas of Mexico received special mention at the 1st Latin American International Conference on Cereals and Cereal Products Quality and Safety in Rosario, Argentina, 23 September 2007. CIMMYT is partnering with several federal and Mexican state-level organizations (INIFAP, SIAP, SAGARPA and CONASIST-CONATRIGO) and the private sector (GRANOTEC) to determine the varieties cultivated and the quality of wheat grain lots from commercial fields in the North West and the Central Highlands of Mexico.

The two-year project, funded by COFUPROSAGARPA- CONACYT, aims to assess which varieties are being cultivated and what new and improved wheat varieties should be planted to better suit local markets. The poster describes how CIMMYT and partners conducted the analysis of grain from commercial fields in the country’s major wheat lands, to provide potential users with a clear idea of its quality. “The use of old varieties and inappropriate crop management are the main factors influencing crop quality variability,” says Javier Peña, who is head of CIMMYT’s cereal quality laboratory and leader in the project. “With a crop quality assessment system, we will know which varieties to improve for manufacturers of wheat-based products.”