“Crossing elite lines with exotic material has its challenges,” said Matthew Reynolds, co-author of the study and leader of Wheat Physiology at CIMMYT. “There’s a well-recognized risk of bringing in more undesirable than desirable traits, so this result represents a significant breakthrough in overcoming that barrier and the continued utilization of genetic resources to boost climate resilience.”
These results can be used to improve crop resilience and food security in the face of the challenges posed by climate change, as well as emphasizing the importance of genetic diversity in key crops where selective breeding has reduced adaptability.
Prasanna Boddupalli presents at the International Plant Health Conference, September 2022. (Photo: International Plant Health Conference)
CGIAR research centers involved in the One CGIAR Plant Health Initiative joined forces at the International Plant Health Conference in London on September 21-23, 2022 to highlight the importance of global partnerships in effectively preventing and managing devastating pest and disease outbreaks in the Global South.
In an interactive side event on Plant Health Management in the Global South through Partnerships on September 21, the Plant Health Initiative team presented on and discussed: global diagnostic and surveillance systems against plant pests and diseases; risk assessment and preparedness for proactive response; integrated pest and disease management; mycotoxin mitigation strategy; and gender and social inclusion.
The CGIAR Plant Health Initiative, launched in January 2022, aims to protect agriculture-based economies of low and middle-income countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America from pest and disease outbreaks in major crops by leveraging and building viable networks across an array of national, regional, and international institutions.
Building on a track record of more than 50 years of impactful research, the Plant Health Initiative aims to develop and deploy solutions through partnerships, and to achieve impacts that contribute towards several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Healthy crops for a healthy planet
Showing the strength of partnerships in action, researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Alliance Bioversity-CIAT (ABC), the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), the International Potato Center (CIP), and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) highlighted the Initiative’s activities and sought feedback from the plant health experts participating in the session.
Martin Kropff, CGIAR Science Director of Resilient Agrifood Systems, welcomed the participants to the session. Prasanna Boddupalli, CGIAR Plant Health Initiative Lead & Director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program, introduced the Initiative and its scope, emphasizing the inclusive partnerships. This was followed by presentations from Monica Carvajal (ABC), Lava Kumar (IITA), Alejandro Ortega-Beltran (IITA), Nozomi Kawarazuka (CIP), and Yanyan Liu (IFPRI).
Time was dedicated to engaging participants through Mentimeter polling on specific questions related to plant health management. Participants also shared their views on plant health research coordination, capacity strengthening, and knowledge exchange between the Global North and Global South, with a focus on improving food security and livelihoods of smallholders.
The event was successful not only in generating greater understanding of the Initiative amongst the participants, but also in developing significant interest from the participants to contribute to the Initiative’s goals with collective actions, all for the benefit of smallholders in the low- and middle-income countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Establishing wider networks for plant health
The Plant Health Initiative team, together with Kropff, also had a productive discussion on September 22 with Osama El-Lissy, International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) Secretary, on opportunities for joint actions on plant health management in the Global South by IPPC and the CGIAR Plant Health Initiative, together with national partners.
Boddupalli also participated in a workshop on September 20 organized by Euphresco, a network of organizations that fund research projects and coordinate national research in the phytosanitary area, at the Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in the United Kingdom, on shaping global plant health research coordination. The workshop participants discussed and endorsed several actions for advancing global plant health research coordination.
Participants of a workshop by Euphresco endorsed actions to advance research coordination for global plant health. (Photo: Euphresco)
Grafting wheat shoot to oat root gives the plant tolerance to a disease called “Take-all,” caused by a pathogen in soil. The white arrow shows the graft junction. (Photo: Julian Hibberd)
Grafting is the technique of joining the shoot of one plant with the root of another, so they continue to grow together as one. Until now it was thought impossible to graft grass-like plants in the group known as monocotyledons because they lack a specific tissue type, called the vascular cambium, in their stem.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have discovered that root and shoot tissues taken from the seeds of monocotyledonous grasses — representing their earliest embryonic stages — fuse efficiently. Their results are published today in the journal Nature.
An estimated 60,000 plants are monocotyledons; many are crops that are cultivated at enormous scale, for example rice, wheat and barley.
The finding has implications for the control of serious soil-borne pathogens including Panama Disease, or Tropical Race 4, which has been destroying banana plantations for over 30 years. A recent acceleration in the spread of this disease has prompted fears of global banana shortages.
“We’ve achieved something that everyone said was impossible. Grafting embryonic tissue holds real potential across a range of grass-like species. We found that even distantly related species, separated by deep evolutionary time, are graft compatible,” said Julian Hibberd in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences, senior author of the report.
The technique allows monocotyledons of the same species, and of two different species, to be grafted effectively. Grafting genetically different root and shoot tissues can result in a plant with new traits — ranging from dwarf shoots, to pest and disease resistance.
Alison Bentley, CIMMYT Global Wheat Program Director and a contributor to the report, sees great potential for the grafting method to be applied to monocot crops grown by resource-poor farmers in the Global South. “From our major cereals, wheat and rice, to bananas and matoke, this technology could change the way we think about adapting food security crops to increasing disease pressures and changing climates.”
High magnification images show successful grafting of wheat in which a connective vein forms between root and shoot tissue after four months. White arrows show the graft junction. (Photo: Julian Hibberd)Monocotyledons breakthrough
The scientists found that the technique was effective in a range of monocotyledonous crop plants including pineapple, banana, onion, tequila agave and date palm. This was confirmed through various tests, including the injection of fluorescent dye into the plant roots — from where it was seen to move up the plant and across the graft junction.
“I read back over decades of research papers on grafting and everybody said that it couldn’t be done in monocots. I was stubborn enough to keep going — for years — until I proved them wrong,” said Greg Reeves, a Gates Cambridge Scholar in the University of Cambridge Department of Plant Sciences, and first author of the paper.
“It’s an urgent challenge to make important food crops resistant to the diseases that are destroying them,” Reeves explained. “Our technique allows us to add disease resistance, or other beneficial properties like salt-tolerance, to grass-like plants without resorting to genetic modification or lengthy breeding programmes.”
The world’s banana industry is based on a single variety, called the Cavendish banana — a clone that can withstand long-distance transportation. With no genetic diversity between plants, the crop has little disease-resilience. And Cavendish bananas are sterile, so disease resistance cannot be bred into future generations of the plant. Research groups around the world are trying to find a way to stop Panama Disease before it becomes even more widespread.
Image of date palm two and a half years after grafting. Inset shows a magnified region at the base of the plant, with the arrowhead pointing to the graft junction. (Photo: Julian Hibberd)
Grafting has been used widely since antiquity in another plant group called the dicotyledons. Dicotyledonous orchard crops — including apples and cherries, and high-value annual crops including tomatoes and cucumbers — are routinely produced on grafted plants because the process confers beneficial properties, such as disease resistance or earlier flowering.
The researchers have filed a patent for their grafting technique through Cambridge Enterprise. They have also received funding from Ceres Agri-Tech, a knowledge exchange partnership between five leading universities in the United Kingdom and three renowned agricultural research institutes.
“Panama disease is a huge problem threatening bananas across the world. It’s fantastic that the University of Cambridge has the opportunity to play a role in saving such an important food crop,” said Louise Sutherland, Director of Ceres Agri-Tech.
Ceres Agri-Tech, led by the University of Cambridge, was created and managed by Cambridge Enterprise. It has provided translational funding as well as commercialisation expertise and support to the project, to scale up the technique and improve its efficiency.
This research was funded by the Gates Cambridge Scholarship programme.
The University of Cambridge is one of the world’s top ten leading universities, with a rich history of radical thinking dating back to 1209. Its mission is to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.
The University comprises 31 autonomous Colleges and 150 departments, faculties and institutions. Its 24,450 student body includes more than 9,000 international students from 147 countries. In 2020, 70.6% of its new undergraduate students were from state schools and 21.6% from economically disadvantaged areas.
Cambridge research spans almost every discipline, from science, technology, engineering and medicine through to the arts, humanities and social sciences, with multi-disciplinary teams working to address major global challenges. Its researchers provide academic leadership, develop strategic partnerships and collaborate with colleagues worldwide.
The University sits at the heart of the ‘Cambridge cluster’, in which more than 5,300 knowledge-intensive firms employ more than 67,000 people and generate £18 billion in turnover. Cambridge has the highest number of patent applications per 100,000 residents in the UK.
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.
Cover photo: A banana producer in Kenya. (Photo: N. Palmer/CIAT)
From October 31 to November 12, all eyes and cameras turned to Glasgow, where the 26th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Convention against Climate Change (COP26) took place in a hybrid format. With temperatures rising around the world and extreme weather events becoming increasingly frequent, country leaders and climate experts came together in Scotland to discuss the next steps in the fight against climate change.
Together with other CGIAR Centers, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) took part in this crucial conversation, drawing attention to the impact of climate change on smallholder agriculture and echoing CGIAR’s call for increased funding for agricultural research and innovation.
Here’s a summary of the events in which CIMMYT researchers and scientists participated.
“Because farmers feed us all: using climate for a resilient food system”
November 6, 2021
Sponsored by the UK Met Office, this event focused on the effects of climate change on the resilience of food systems and how this impact is factored into decision-making. Speakers discussed the real-life application of climate risk information, highlighting the importance of global collaboration and multi-stakeholder partnerships in developing context-specific climate services.
Focusing on CIMMYT’s work in Ethiopia, research associate Yoseph Alemayehu and senior scientist Dave Hodson provided some insights on the wheat rust early warning system. This revolutionary mechanism developed by CIMMYT and partners helps farmers in developing countries predict this disease up to a week in advance.
“COP26 highlighted the vulnerability of different agriculture sectors to climate change, including increased threats from pests and pathogens. From the work in Ethiopia on wheat rust early warning systems, strong partnerships and the application of advanced climate science can play an important role in mitigating some of the effects.” – Dave Hodson
“Developing Climate Resilient Food Systems Pathways: Approaches From Sub-Saharan Africa”
November 8, 2021
Putting an emphasis on participatory governance and community-centered technologies, this event showcased innovative approaches to strengthen the resilience of African food systems, calling for increased investment in the scale-up of climate-smart agriculture practices to meet growing demand.
Joining from Zimbabwe, Christian Thierfelder, Principal Cropping Systems Agronomist gave an overview of CIMMYT’s work in southern Africa, explaining how the introduction of conservation agriculture back in 2004 helped farmers overcome low crop yields and boost their incomes.
“If one thing was made clear at COP26, it is the urgent need for a change in the way we do agriculture. The status quo is not an option and we, as CIMMYT and part of the One CGIAR, will continue to generate the scientific evidence and climate-smart solutions to accelerate this change and address the climate challenges ahead of us, with farmers at the core of our work.” – Christian Thierfelder
“4 per 1000” Initiative Day
November 10, 2021
The “4 per 1000” Initiative, a multi-stakeholder partnership of more than 650 members on food security and climate change, held a day-long hybrid event to explore how healthy soils can help agriculture and forestry adapt to and mitigate climate change.
At the Partner Forum, Bram Govaerts, Director General of CIMMYT, stressed the urgent need to fund soil science to achieve its carbon sequestration potential, reiterating CIMMYT’s commitment to supporting this science with results-oriented actions that scale out sustainable practices and technologies.
“For me, the main take-away of the summit is the growing consensus and understanding that we need to transform agriculture and food systems to achieve global emissions targets on time.” – Bram Govaerts
Cover photo: The action zone and the globe at the Hydro, one of the venues in Glasgow where COP26 took place. (Photo: Karwai Tang/UK Government)
CIMMYT researchers use coverings to increase night-time temperatures and study wheat’s 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 world’s wheat farmers and consumers.
“I am pleased to formalize our longstanding partnership in wheat research with this agreement,” said CIMMYT Deputy Director General for Research Kevin Pixley. “Our 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.”
Director of the John Innes Centre, Professor Dale Sanders commented, “Recognizing 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.”
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 plant’s 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.
“A 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,” 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 – Director, Global Wheat Program, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
Dale Sanders – 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 nature’s 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.
MARPLE team members Dave Hodson and Diane Saunders (second and third from left) stand for a photograph after receiving the International Impact award. With them is Malcolm Skingle, director of Academic Liaison at GlaxoSmithKline (first from left) and Melanie Welham, executive chair of BBSRC. (Photo: BBSRC)
The research team behind the MARPLE (Mobile And Real-time PLant disEase) diagnostic kit won the International Impact category of the Innovator of the Year 2019 Awards, sponsored by the United Kingdom’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
The team — Diane Saunders of the John Innes Centre (JIC), Dave Hodson of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and Tadessa Daba of the Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR) — was presented with the award at an event at the London Science Museum on May 15, 2019. In the audience were leading figures from the worlds of investment, industry, government, charity and academia, including the U.K.’s Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, Chris Skidmore.
The BBSRC Innovator of the Year awards, now in their 11th year, recognize and support individuals or teams who have taken discoveries in bioscience and translated them to deliver impact. Reflecting the breadth of research that BBSRC supports, they are awarded in four categories of impact: commercial, societal, international and early career. Daba, Hodson and Saunders were among a select group of 12 finalists competing for the four prestigious awards. In addition to international recognition, they received £10,000 (about $13,000).
“I am delighted that this work has been recognized,” Hodson said. “Wheat rusts are a global threat to agriculture and to the livelihoods of farmers in developing countries such as Ethiopia. MARPLE diagnostics puts state-of-the-art, rapid diagnostic results in the hands of those best placed to respond: researchers on the ground, local government and farmers.”
On-the-ground diagnostics
The MARPLE diagnostic kit is the first operational system in the world using nanopore sequence technology for rapid diagnostics and surveillance of complex fungal pathogens in the field.
In its initial work in Ethiopia, the suitcase-sized field test kit has positioned the country — one of the region’s top wheat producers — as a world leader in pathogen diagnostics and forecasting. Generating results within 48 hours of field sampling, the kit represents a revolution in plant disease diagnostics. Its use will have far-reaching implications for how plant health threats are identified and tracked into the future.
MARPLE is designed to run at a field site without constant electricity and with the varying temperatures of the field.
“This means we can truly take the lab to the field,” explained Saunders. “Perhaps more importantly though, it means that smaller, less-resourced labs can drive their own research without having to rely on a handful of large, well-resourced labs and sophisticated expertise in different countries.”
In a recent interview with JIC, EIAR Director Tadessa Daba said, “we want to see this project being used on the ground, to show farmers and the nation this technology works.”
The MARPLE team uses the diagnostic kit in Ethiopia. (Photo: JIC)
Development of the MARPLE diagnostic kit was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture’s Inspire Challenge. Continued support is also provided by the BBSRC’s Excellence with Impact Award to the John Innes Centre and the Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat project, led by Cornell University and funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Despite the rising interest in advanced methods to discover useful genes for breeding in crops like wheat, the role of crop physiology research is now more important than ever, according to Gemma Molero, a wheat physiologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
“Physiology starts with the physical, observable plant,” Molero said. “It attempts to understand plant traits and processes and, ultimately, to provide breeders with selectable traits. Take for example the plant’s ability to capture and use sunlight. This is a complex trait and there are no useful DNA markers for it, so we have to analyze how it works and then help breeders to select plants that use sunlight better and yield more grain.”
A key goal of breeders and physiologists is to boost wheat’s genetic yield potential dramatically. Progress through current breeding is less than 1 percent each year. Molero said that needs to go to 1.7 percent yearly, to meet the demand expected by 2050 from expanding and urbanizing populations.
“Science must also adapt wheat to rising temperatures, less water, and mutating disease strains, and physiology is contributing,” she added.
Applied science and fieldwork drew Molero to CIMMYT
Molero grew up near Barcelona, Spain, in a family that included a folk-healing grandmother and a grandfather whose potato fields and orchards she recalls helping to tend as a child, during summers in Granada.
“My family called me ‘santurrona’ — something like ‘goody-two-shoes’ in English — because I was always trying to help people around me,” Molero explained.
Molero completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology at the University of Barcelona, Spain, by 2006. She then pursued a doctorate in eco-physiology under the supervision of José Luis Araus, a University of Barcelona professor who was also working as a CIMMYT maize physiologist around the same time.
“Araus was an example of persistence and enthusiasm for me,” Molero explained. “He sent me to the CIMMYT research station near Ciudad Obregón, in northwestern Mexico, for fieldwork as part of my Ph.D. research. That sealed the deal. I said ‘This is the type of work where I can have impact, in an interdisciplinary setting, and with fieldwork.’ ”
She joined CIMMYT in 2011 as a post-doctoral fellow with Matthew Reynolds, a CIMMYT distinguished scientist who leads wheat physiology research.
Wheat spikes hold grain and catch light
Molero has quickly made a mark in CIMMYT wheat physiology research. Among other achievements, she has spearheaded studies on photosynthesis in wheat spikes — the small ears that hold the grain — to increase yield.
“In elite wheat varieties, spike photosynthesis adds an average 30 percent to grain yield,” she said. “In wheat wild relatives and landraces, that can go as high as 60 percent. This has put wheat spike photosynthesis in the science limelight.”
Practical outputs of this work, which involves numerous partners, include molecular markers and other tools that breeders can use to select for high spike photosynthesis in experimental lines. “We have a project with Bayer Crop Science to refine the methods,” Molero said.
Molero is also collaborating with plant biologists Stephen Long, University of Illinois, and Elizabete Carmo-Silva, Lancaster University, UK, to understand how quickly wheat returns to full photosynthesis after being shaded — for example, when clouds pass overhead. According to Molero, wheat varies greatly in its response to shading; over a long cropping season, quick recoveries can add 20 percent or more to total productivity.
“This is a breakthrough in efforts to boost wheat yields,” explained Molero, who had met Long through his participation in the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP), an initiative that aims to raise wheat’s genetic yield potential by 50 percent over the next two decades. “I was fortunate to arrive at CIMMYT at just the right time, when IWYP and similar global partnerships were being formalized.”
Training youth and improving conditions for young women
From a post-doctoral fellow to her current position as a full scientist at CIMMYT, Molero has supervised 13 Ph.D. students and post-doctoral fellows, as well as serving as an instructor in many training courses.
“During my first crop cycle at Ciudad Obregón, I was asked to coordinate the work of five Ph.D. students,” she said. “I’d arrive home exhausted from long days and fall asleep reading papers. But I love supervising students and it’s a great way to learn about diverse facets of wheat physiology.”
Regarding the challenges for women and youth in the scientific community, Molero believes a lot needs to change.
“Science is male-dominated and fieldwork even more,” she observed. “It’s challenging being a woman and being young — conditions over which we have no control but which can somehow blind peers to our scientific knowledge and capacity. Instances of what I call ‘micro-machismo’ may appear small but they add up and, if you push back, the perceived ‘feminism’ makes some male scientists uncomfortable.”
Molero also believes young scientists need ample room to develop. “The most experienced generation has to let the new generation grow and make mistakes.”
Wheat stem rust was reported by the Greeks and Romans, and the latter sacrificed to the gods to avoid disease outbreaks on their wheat crops. Photo: CIMMYT/Petr Kosina
As reported today in Communications Biology, an international team of researchers led by the John Innes Centre, U.K., found that 80 percent of U.K. wheat varieties are susceptible to the deadly stem rust strain. The group also confirmed for the first time in many decades that the stem rust fungus was growing on barberry bush, the pathogen’s alternate host, in the UK.
“This signals the rising threat of stem rust disease for wheat and barley production in Europe,” said Dave Hodson, senior scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and co-author on the study.
A scourge of wheat since biblical times, stem rust caused major losses to North American wheat crops in the early 20th century. Stem rust disease was controlled for decades through the use of resistant wheat varieties bred in the 1950s by scientist Norman Borlaug and his colleagues. Widespread adoption of those varieties sparked the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 70s.
In 1999 a new, highly-virulent strain of the stem rust fungus emerged in eastern Africa. Spores of that strain and variants have spread rapidly and are threatening or overcoming the genetic resistance of many currently sown wheat varieties. Scientists worldwide joined forces in the early 2000s to develop new, resistant varieties and to monitor and control outbreaks of stem rust and yellow rust, as part of collaborations such as the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative led by Cornell University.
Barberry is a shrub found throughout the temperate and subtropical regions. Photo: John Innes Centre
The Communications Biology study shows that 2013 U.K. stem rust strain is related to TKTTF, a fungal race first detected in Turkey that spread across the Middle East and recently into Europe. It was the dominant race in the 2013 stem rust outbreak in Germany and infected 10,000 hectares of wheat in Ethiopia’s breadbasket the same year.
Because disease organisms mutate quickly to overcome crop resistance controlled by single genes, researchers are rushing to identify new resistance genes and to incorporate multiple genes into high-yielding varieties, according to Ravi Singh, CIMMYT wheat scientist who participated in the reported study.
“The greatest hope for achieving durable resistance to rust diseases is to make wheat’s resistance genetically complex, combining several genes and resistance mechanisms,” Singh explained.
Barberry, which serves as a spawning ground for the stem rust fungus, was largely eradicated from the U.K. and U.S. last century, greatly reducing the spread and genetic diversification of rust disease races. Now barberry is being grown again in the U.K. over the last decade, according to Diane G.O. Saunders, John Innes Centre scientist and co-author of the study.
“The late Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug said that the greatest ally of the pathogen is our short memory,” Saunders stated. “We recommend continued, intensive resistance breeding. We would also welcome work with conservationists of endangered, barberry-dependent insect species to ensure that planting of common barberry occurs away from arable land, thus safeguarding European cereals from a large-scale re-emergence of wheat stem rust.”
Click here to read the John Innes Centre media release about the Communications Biology report and view the report.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT)—Scientists from two of the world’s leading agricultural research institutes will embark on joint research to boost global food security, mitigate environmental damage from farming, and help to reduce food grain imports by developing countries.
At a recent meeting, 30 scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and Rothamsted Research, a UK-based independent science institute, agreed to pool expertise in research to develop higher-yielding, more disease resistant and nutritious wheat varieties for use in more productive, climate-resilient farming systems.
“There is no doubt that our partnership can help make agriculture in the UK greener and more competitive, while improving food security and reducing import dependency for basic grains in emerging and developing nations,” said Achim Dobermann, director of Rothamsted Research, which was founded in 1843 and is the world’s longest running agricultural research station.
Individual Rothamsted and CIMMYT scientists have often worked together over the years, but are now forging a stronger, broader collaboration, according to Martin Kropff, CIMMYT director general. “We’ll combine the expertise of Rothamsted in such areas as advanced genetics and complex cropping systems with the applied reach of CIMMYT and its partners in developing countries,” said Kropff.
Nearly half of the world’s wheat lands are sown to varieties that carry contributions from CIMMYT’s breeding research and yearly economic benefits from the additional grain produced are as high as $3.1 billion.
Experts predict that by 2050 staple grain farmers will need to grow at least 60 percent more than they do now, to feed a world population exceeding 9 billion while addressing environmental degradation and climate shocks.
Rothamsted and CIMMYT will now develop focused proposals for work that can be funded by the UK and other donors, according to Hans Braun, director of CIMMYT’s global wheat program. “We’ll seek large initiatives that bring significant impact,” said Braun.
David Hodson, CIMMYT senior scientist (L), describes the challenges posed by wheat rust to Priti Patel, Britain’s international development secretary, during the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting in London. DFID/handout
LONDON (CIMMYT) – International wheat rust monitoring efforts are not only keeping the fast-spreading disease in check, but are now being deployed to manage risks posed by other crop diseases, said a scientist attending a major scientific event in London.
Although initially focused on highly virulent Ug99 stem rust, the rust tracking system – developed as part of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, an international collaboration involving Cornell University and national agricultural research programs – is also used to monitor other fungal rusts and develop prediction models with the aim of helping to curtail their spread.
“Our data reinforce the fact that we face threats from rusts per se and not just from the Ug99 race group – we are fortunate that international efforts laid the groundwork to establish a comprehensive monitoring system,” said Hodson, one of more than 1,200 international scientists at the gathering.
“The research investments are having additional benefits,” he told Priti Patel, Britain’s secretary of state for international development, explaining that the wheat rust surveillance system is now also being applied to the deadly Maize Lethal Necrosis disease in Africa.
“The learning from stem rust and investments in data management systems and other components of the tracking system have allowed us to fast-track a similar surveillance system for another crop and pathosystem.”
“Researchers at the University of Cambridge are working with the UK Met Office and international scientists to track and prevent deadly outbreaks of wheat rust which can decimate this important food crop for many of the world’s poorest people,” Patel said, referring to collaborative projects involving CIMMYT, funded by the Gates Foundation and DFID
Patel also launched a DFID research review at the meeting, committing the international development agency to continued research support and detailing how the UK intends to deploy development research and innovation funding of £390 million ($485 million) a year over the next four years.
Wheat improvement work by the CGIAR consortium of agricultural researchers was highlighted in the research review as an example of high impact DFID research. Wheat improvement has resulted in economic benefits of $2.2 to $3.1 billion per year and almost half of all the wheat planted in developing countries.
Bram Govaerts, Leader of CIMMYT’s program on Sustainable Intensification in Latin America, speaks at the Oxford Farming Conference. Photo: CIMMYT
“Imagine a sports car designed to travel at high speed on paved highways, running on a gravel road. It’s going to break down, isn’t it? The same thing happens when agricultural technologies are applied without using smart agronomy to increase input use efficiency, protect the environment and ensure sustainability,” said Bram Govaerts, Leader of CIMMYT’s program on Sustainable Intensification in Latin America.
Govaerts presented at a keynote speech titled “Ending hunger: Can we achieve humanity’s elusive goal by 2050?” at the Oxford Farming Conference (OFC) of the University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, on 5-7 January. The conference has been held in Oxford for more than 70 years with the aim of contributing to the improvement and welfare of British agriculture. Farmers, researchers, politicians and economists from across the world attend the event. This year, the main theme was “Daring Agriculture,” including such subjects as global agriculture, innovation, sustainable intensification, technology and agribusiness.
As evidenced during the event, there are many challenges in agriculture. We need to produce more food with fewer resources and less environmental impact while reducing world hunger and poverty. In his speech, Govaerts highlighted the main challenges to achieving food security for a world population that is projected to reach nearly ten billion by 2050. These challenges include the growing demand for food, demographic changes and the impacts on agriculture of weather events such as El Niño. Govaerts also mentioned CIMMYT’s efforts aimed at fighting world hunger and how initiatives such as MasAgro are taking science to the farm.
“It was very exciting to talk about the sustainable strategies we’re working on with farmers, technicians, scientists, institutions and partners to be able to produce more with fewer resources and, especially, to produce intelligently by adapting technologies to the needs of farmers, by developing machine prototypes and by using appropriate varieties and post-harvest practices,” said Govaerts.
WHAT: Bram Govaerts, strategic leader for Sustainable Intensification in Latin America and Latin America representative at the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), will make keynote speech entitled “Ending hunger: Can we achieve humanity’s elusive goal by 2050?” at the Oxford Farming Conference (OFC) at the University of Oxford, in Oxford, UK.
WHEN: Wednesday, January 6, 2016 at 10:30 a.m.
WHERE: South School, Examination Schools, University of Oxford, 75-81 High Street, Oxford, UK, OX1 4AS
ABOUT OFC: The Oxford Farming Conference has been held in Oxford for more than 70 years, attracting strong debate and exceptional speakers.
OTHER DETAILS: Bram Govaerts, who will be available for media interviews, will deliver the keynote Frank Parkinson Lecture sponsored by the Frank Parkinson Agricultural Trust, which aims to contribute to the improvement and welfare of British agriculture. The lecture will examine key challenges for achieving food security for a global population of 9.7 billion, which the U.N. projects will have grown 33 percent from a current 7.3 billion people by 2050. Demand for food, driven by population, demographic changes and increasing global wealth will rise more than 60 percent, according to a recent report from the Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience. Govaerts will discuss such risks to agricultural production as:
The need for funding and political will to support technological innovations to improve farming techniques for small landholders in the global south
How mobile technology could benefit agricultural research, development and relaying innovations to farmers
Machinery prototypes, which can help transform agricultural practices
How minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotation can boost yields, increase profit and protect the environment
Climate change: carbon sequestration debate; soil does not sequester the carbon needed to mitigate the impact of climate change as some policy makers suggest
Climate change: How CIMMYT is working to produce drought and heat tolerant varieties of maize and wheat
Why women are less likely than men to uptake conservation agricultural practices in developing countries
How CIMMYT connects smallholder maize farmers in Mexico with top restaurants and chefs in New York City
The U.N. Sustainable Development Goals: A recipe for success in achieving food security
MasAgro: Mexico’s Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture project involving more than 100 organizations, offering training, technical support, seeds
Dangerous diseases: How CIMMYT is producing varieties resistant to Maize Lethal Necrosis and Tar Spot Complex
MORE INFORMATION:
Julie Mollins, CIMMYT communications, by email at j.mollins@cgiar.org or by mobile at +52 1 595 106 9307 or by Twitter @jmollins or by Skype at juliemollins
CIMMYT, headquartered in El Batan, Mexico, is the global leader in research for development in wheat and maize and wheat- and maize-based farming systems. CIMMYT works throughout the developing world with hundreds of partners to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat systems to improve food security and livelihoods. CIMMYT is a member of the 15-member CGIAR Consortium and leads the Consortium Research Programs on Wheat and Maize. CIMMYT receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies.
GENETIC VARIATION AND DIVERSITY TRANSFER ACROSS DIFFERENT GRASS SPECIES
International Women’s Day on March 8, offers an opportunity to recognize the achievements of women worldwide. This year, CIMMYT asked readers to submit stories about women they admire for their selfless dedication to either maize or wheat. In the following story, wheat breeder Jessica Rutkoski writes about her Super Woman of wheat, Julie King, a research fellow at Britain’s University of Nottingham.
Wild relatives of wheat are of particular importance to wheat breeders trying to develop disease-resistant and high-yielding varieties that can tolerate various environmental stresses, including drought and poor quality soils.
These wild grasses, cousins to the ancestors of modern-day wheat, provide a vast and largely untapped source of genetic variation for almost all traits important for wheat growers.
Plant geneticist Julie King, a research fellow with the University of Nottingham, has developed a new strategy for transferring genetic variation and diversity across different grass species. This strategy is now being used to transfer genetic variation into wheat from its distant relatives, which carry key disease resistance and stress tolerance genes. Very few people in the world are capable of this work, and so Julie plays a key role in adding new variations.
By crossing wheat with its wild relatives, a painstaking process, Julie and her research team aim to improve the ability of wheat to tolerate heat, drought, and salt – of key benefit in a world where freshwater is going to become even more scarce amid changing climate and population pressures.
Working with wild relatives is very difficult and not many people can do it – it’s like magic. It almost takes super powers to overcome the many barriers that can prevent hybridization of the species – so many crosses fail.
Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – A social media crowd sourcing campaign initiated to celebrate the achievements of women has led to more than a dozen published blog story contributions about women in the maize and wheat sectors.
Each year, International Women’s Day gives the world a chance to inspire women and celebrate their achievements. This year, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) put out a call asking for blog contributions from the social media community.
CIMMYT asked readers to submit stories about women who have made a difference in the maize and wheat sectors, including women involved in conservation agriculture, genetic resources, research, technology and related socio-economics.
The “Who is Your Maize or Wheat Super Woman?” stories are featured on the CIMMYT website from Monday, March 2, 2015 in the lead up to International Women’s Day on Sunday, March 8, 2015.
Contributions include blog stories about women from Britain, Canada, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, and the United States. Their stories will also be made available in Spanish-language.
“We’ve got the germplasm and improved varieties, but what can we do to overcome the hurdle of farmer adoption of these technologies?” Jon Hellin, value chain and poverty specialist for CIMMYT’s Socioeconomics Program presented this challenge and how crop-index insurance may be part of the solution, at a high-level Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) webcast event Wednesday, 28 January in London. The event covered innovations in index insurance and how Nigeria can implement them, as part of a plan to safeguard its farmers from climate change effects.
“Unfortunately, threats like drought – the very reason for adopting climate-smart practices – also represent a huge risk that makes farmers reluctant to invest in new technologies”
– Jon Hellin
CIMMYT’s Socioeconomics Program
Benefits of Index Insurance
“Unfortunately, threats like drought – the very reason for adopting climate-smart practices – also represent a huge risk that makes farmers reluctant to invest in new technologies,” said Hellin. Traditional crop insurance gives payouts that are explicitly determined on measured loss for a specific client. Index insurance allows farmers to purchase coverage based on an index that is correlated with those losses, such as average yield losses over a larger area or a well-defined climate risk, e.g. erratic rainfall, that significantly influences crop yields.
This approach can address many of the problems that limit the application of traditional crop insurance, including lower transaction costs and eliminating the need for in-field assessments. In addition, because the insurance product is based on an objective index it can also be reinsured, allowing insurance companies to efficiently transfer part of their risk to international markets. This makes index insurance financially viable for private-sector insurers and affordable for small-scale farmers.
CIMMYT is involved in a CCAFS-supported crop index insurance project. One focus is to determine how crop index insurance can enhance adoption of drought tolerant maize varieties. CIMMYT, along with international partners and scientists, has been developing many such varieties under the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) initiative. “When it comes to these varieties and exciting initiatives like crop index insurance, that’s where we can come together and get great win-wins,” Hellin stated.
Challenges and Opportunities
Scientifically-validated crop-index insurance schemes need indices that are affordable and attractive to stakeholders, particularly farmers and the insurance industry and other refinements. However, as demonstrated by examples from Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda and Senegal, if implemented correctly index insurance can build resilience for smallholder farmers not only by ensuring a payout in the event of a climate shock, but also by giving farmers the freedom to invest in new technology and inputs, such as seed.
“The Nigerian government’s interest in crop insurance will allow us to test different approaches for bundling insurance with technologies, making it attractive to farmers and private sector actors,” Hellin proposed.
International Women’s Day on March 8, offers an opportunity to recognize the achievements of women worldwide. This year, CIMMYT asked readers to submit stories about women they admire for their selfless dedication to either maize or wheat. In the following story, wheat breeder Jessica Rutkoski writes about her Super Woman of wheat, Julie King, a research fellow at Britain’s 
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – A social media crowd sourcing campaign initiated to celebrate the achievements of women has led to more than a dozen published blog story contributions about women in the maize and wheat sectors.
