Location: Asia

The Chinese Academy of Engineering honored Zhonghu He, principal scientist of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program and China country representative, for his work with wheat quality improvement and promotion of China-CIMMYT collaboration. Zhonghu received the Guanghua Award in a ceremony on 09 June 2010 in Beijing. Established in 1996, this award recognizes Chinese scientists who have made signification contributions in applied science and management. To date, only eight scientists with agriculture or forestry backgrounds have received the Guanghua Award.

Nearly 600 participants representing all the wheat regions in China attended the 6th National Wheat Breeding and Genetics Conference in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province. The conference ran from 28-31 March and was jointly organized by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS), the Yangzhou Agricultural Research Institute, and CIMMYT. The event included keynote presentations, a forum of young scientists, and oral presentations on yield potential, hybrid wheat, resistance to biotic and abiotic stress, and industrial quality.

China has experienced impressive progress in wheat breeding and management over the past several years. Though the country’s wheat area was reduced by nearly 22% in the past decade, the average yield increased almost 30%. In comparison, yield increases for rice were roughly 3% and for maize 5.5%. Two wheat varieties— Jimai 22 and Zhoumai 18—have yield potential over 10.5 tons per hectare and are the leading varieties in the major wheat areas. Significant progress has also been achieved in quality improvement.

Four wheat breeders were selected to receive the Zhuang Qiaosheng Award (named after Zhuang Qiaosheng, wheat breeder from CAAS and former CIMMYT Board member). They included Ma Yongan, who developed a leading variety Han 6172 from CIMMYT germplasm, and Yang Wuyun, who developed leading varieties from CIMMYT synthetic wheat. Also, six postgraduates were selected to receive the outstanding young scientist award. Notable attendees included Zhai Huqu, president of CAAS; Cao Weixing, vice governor of Jiangsu Province; Li Zhengsheng, well-known wheat geneticist; Cheng Shunhe and Richard Richards from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO); and Edward Souza from United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service.

The National Wheat Breeding and Genetics Conference is held every five years. CIMMYT has played a key role in organizing the conference in the years 2000, 2005, and 2010. The next conference will be held in Henan Province in 2015, hosted by the Henan Academy of Agricultural Science.

A team of 18 scientists coordinated by CIMMYT recently published a paper that explores genetic diversity among 770 inbred maize lines. “Molecular characterization of global maize breeding germplasm based on genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)” was published in the December print issue of Theoretical Applied Genetics.

“This paper is a clear example of strong international cooperation and it shows the importance of the well established network led by CIMMYT,” said Sidney Parentoni, co-author and maize breeder from Embrapa Maize and Sorghum, Brazil.

The collaborating scientists from five countries used 1,034 SNP markers to discover general molecular similarities and differences among select maize lines. This is done by looking at areas on DNA that are known to vary among members of the same species; for a SNP this refers to the difference of a single nucleotide. The work resulted in millions of new data point across the 770 maize lines.

“The published research provides significant new information for maize genetic improvement including germplasm classification, heterotic grouping, and genetic differences between tropical and temperate, yellow and white, and fl int and dent maize germplasm,” said Yunbi Xu, project leader and CIMMYT maize molecular breeder, adding that the use of so many lines and markers makes the 23-page publication the largest study of its kind. Another major CIMMYT contributor was Yanli Lu, the paper’s first author (pictured above). Lu is a CIMMYT consultant who will receive her Ph.D. from Sichuan Agricultural University of China next year.

The paper and research were made possible by the use of SNP markers previously identified by non-CIMMYT related authors. This work, along with recent publications in the magazine Science documenting an improved sequence of the maize genome and the first haplotype map of maize, is an essential asset to help maize breeders use diverse germplasm and begin to implement genome-wide selection.

“The availability of genotypic information and the rapidly falling cost of genotyping are paving the way for genome-wide molecular breeding for maize at CIMMYT,” said Gary Atlin, associate director of the Global Maize Program.

Two additional papers that further examine the selected inbred maize lines are currently in the works: one on association mapping and the other on linkage mapping.

A delegation of eight scientists from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) and China Agricultural University (CAU), Beijing, arrived in Mexico on 28 November and traveled the following day to Ciudad Obregón. They spent three days touring the Yaqui Valley to learn about activities in CIMMYT’s northern Mexico conservation agriculture (CA) hub. On 01 December, they returned to El Batán to familiarize themselves with CA activities there, until their departure for China on 03 December. Their visit is associated with efforts to develop new collaborative activities between CIMMYT and relevant Chinese institutions to generate and promote locally-adapted CA cropping practices for major Chinese maize and wheat production systems.