CIMMYT scientist Caixia Lan. Photo: Courtesy of Caixia Lan
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Support for research into breeding crops resistant to wheat rust is essential to manage the spread of the deadly disease, which has caused billions of dollars of yield losses globally in recent years, said Caixia Lan, a wheat rust expert at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Rust disease has historically been a menace to wheat production worldwide. Although agricultural scientists manage the disease by breeding wheat varieties with rust resistant traits, the emergence of new races hinders progress and demands continued research, said the scientist.
With outbreaks of new strands reported in Europe, Africa and Central Asia, wheat rust presents an intensifying threat to the over 1 billion people in the developing world who rely on the crop as a source of food and for their livelihoods.
One of the most recent rust races, Ug99, was detected in 1998 and has since spread across 13 countries, alone causing crop losses of $3 billion in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, said Lan.
Working with CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program Lan is identifying and mapping adult-plant resistance genes to different races of rust (leaf, stripe, and stem) in bread and durum wheat and transferring them into new varieties that help secure farmer’s production.
Growing up in an area dependent on agriculture in rural China, Lan knows all too well the impact crop disease and natural disaster has on family food security and livelihoods. The struggles of smallholder farmers to feed and support their families motivated her to pursue a career in agriculture for development, but it was not until university that she became inspired by the improvements made to crop yield through genetic manipulation and breeding, she said.
Rust is a fungal disease that uses wheat plants as a host, sucking vital nutrients and sugars from the plant leaving it to wither and die. Without intervention, wheat rust spreads due to the release of billions of spores, which travel by wind to other plants, crops, regions or countries. Spores have the potential to start new infection, ravage crops and threaten global food security.
The science behind building genetic resistance takes two forms known as major (or race-specific) genes and adult-plant resistance based on minor genes. Major resistance genes protect the wheat plants from infection by specific strains of rust. While adult plant resistance, Lan’s area of specialization, stunts the pathogen by reducing the infection frequency and limiting its nutrient intake from the host wheat plant. Some of the longer-lasting adult-plant resistance genes have been shown to provide protection against multiple diseases for decades and have not succumbed to a mutated strain of rust so far.
Replacing wheat crops for varieties bred with several rust-resistant genes acts as a safeguard for occasions when the pathogen mutates to overcome one resistant gene as the others continue the defense, Lan said.
Lan has identified a number of rust resistant genes in CIMMYT germplasm and developed molecular markers, which are fragments of DNA associated with a specific location in the genome. However, as new races of the disease emerge and old ones continue to spread, research identifying durable and multiple rust resistant genes and breeding them into crops is of high importance, she said.
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Scientists have unlocked evolutionary secrets of landraces through an unprecedented study of allelic diversity, revealing more about the genetic basis of flowering time and how maize adapts to variable environments, according to new research published in Nature Genetics journal. The discovery opens up opportunities to explore and use landrace diversity in new ways to help breeders adapt crops to climate change and other emerging challenges to crop production.
Farmers worldwide have been ingeniously adapting landrace maize varieties to their local environments for thousands of years. In this landmark study, over 4,000 landraces from across the Americas were analyzed and their DNA characterized using recent advances in genomics.
A unique experimental strategy was developed to study and learn more about the genes underlying maize adaptation by researchers with the MasAgro Biodiversidad program and the Seeds of Discovery (SeeD) initiative.
Significantly, the study identified 100 genes, among the 40,000 that make up the maize genome, influencing adaptation to latitude, altitude, growing season and the point at which maize plants flower in the field.
Flowering time helps plants adapt to different environments. It is measured as the period between planting and the emergence of flowers, and is a basic mechanism through which plants integrate environmental information to balance when to make seeds instead of more leaves. The seeds form the next generation making flowering time a critically important feature in a plant’s life cycle.
Over the next century, increasingly erratic weather patterns and environmental changes projected to result from climate change mean that such crops as maize will need to adapt at an unprecedented rate to maintain stable production globally.
“This research offers a blueprint of how we can rapidly assess genetic resources for a highly variable crop species like maize, and identify, in landraces, those elements of the maize genome which may benefit breeders and farmers,” said molecular geneticist Sarah Hearne, who leads maize research within MAB/SeeD, a collaboration led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) with strong scientific partnerships with Mexico’s research institute for agriculture, livestock and forests (INIFAP), the Antonio Narro Autonomous Agrarian University (UAAAN) in Mexico and Cornell University in the United States.
“This is the most extensive study, in terms of diversity, that has been conducted on maize flowering,” said Martha Willcox, maize landrace improvement coordinator at CIMMYT . “This was achieved using landraces, the evaluation of which is an extremely difficult and complex task.”
The groundbreaking study was supported by Mexico’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA) through the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) initiative. Additional support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service, Cornell University and the National Science Foundation facilitated the completion of vast quantities of data analysis.
“The knowledge we have gained from this work gives us something similar to a manual of ‘how to go on a successful treasure hunt;’ within the extensive genetic diversity that exists for maize. This knowledge can accelerate and broaden our work on developing resilient varieties, building upon millennia of natural and farmer selection in landraces,” Hearne said.
CORRECT CITATION:
Romero-Navarro, J. A., Willcox, M., Burgueño, J. Romay M. Swarts, K., Trachsel, S., Preciado, E., Terron, A., Vallejo Delgado, H., Vidal, V., Ortega, A., Espinoza Banda, A., Gómez Montiel, N.O., Ortiz-Monasterio, I., San Vicente, F., Guadarrama Espinoza, A., Atlin, G., Wenzl, P., Hearne, S.*, Buckler, E*. A study of allelic diversity underlying flowering time adaptation in maize landraces. Nature Genetics. http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ng.3784.html
*Corresponding authors
Bhoja Raj Basnet joined CIMMYT as a postdoctoral fellow working in the bread wheat improvement program in 2012. Photo: A. Cortes/CIMMYT
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
MEXICO CITY (CIMMYT) – Scientist Bhoja Raj Basnet knows first hand what it is like to be a smallholder farmer.
Basnet’s earliest memories were formed on a one-acre subsistence farm in Jhapa, in southeastern Nepal, a fertile area in a country where the livelihoods of nearly 65 percent of people depend on agriculture.
The tiny farm provided the foundation for a journey that led ultimately to a doctoral degree in the United States and a career as a wheat breeder in Mexico at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Wheat plays a major role in Nepal’s agricultural landscape. It is the country’s third largest crop, cultivated on about 750,000 hectares of arable land each year with an average yield of 2.5 tons per hectare. Above wheat, farmers favor only rice and maize.
“I grew up playing with the plants and soil on my family’s farm and before I entered high school I knew I wanted to pursue a career in agricultural science.” Basnet explained. “As I got older I started to realize the importance of agriculture and how agriculture can really shape a child’s health and future. This is what really pushed me to pursue my career.”
Basnet went on to earn his master and doctoral degrees in plant breeding. After graduation in 2012 from Texas A&M University, Basnet joined CIMMYT as a postdoctoral fellow working in the bread wheat improvement program.
In 2014, Basnet began leading a project conducting research into hybrid wheat in collaboration with Syngenta, which involves researching and developing tools and technology for developing commercially viable hybrid CIMMYT wheat varieties.
Hybrid wheat is created when a breeder intentionally crosses two genetically distinct and stable wheat lines to produce an offspring that combines the best traits of the parents. The process of developing a hybrid can take years, as traits are carefully chosen to achieve desired characteristics, such as increased grain yield or stress tolerance.
The principle behind hybrid varieties is exploitation of heterosis, the superiority of the hybrid offspring over its parent varieties. This is a biological phenomenon observed in almost all living organisms. However, the magnitude of “heterosis” varies significantly based on several biological and environmental factors.
“Hybrid wheat has always fascinated me,” Basnet said, adding, “I really want to see the end results and to see this work succeed.”
Hybrid wheat varieties have proven to be tricky. In fact, CIMMYT’s first attempt to develop hybrid wheat occurred in the 1960s and despite stops and starts over the years, has been ongoing since 2010.
Increasing investment and long-term funding commitments are a key prerequisite to achieving success in crop improvement, especially in breeding, Basnet said. Unlike traditional wheat variety development, successful research into hybrid wheat varieties depends largely on the willingness and active engagement of private sectors into research and seed businesses.
Basnet is working to develop a hybrid wheat foundation at CIMMYT by using new technology and existing research on hybrids. This hybrid wheat foundation will create genetic diversity within wheat to increase genetic gains and develop tools that can produce large amounts of hybrid seed.
“Currently less than one percent of wheat crops globally are hybrid wheat,” Basnet explained. “We need to continue with this research, as hybrid crops could lead to 15 to 20 percent greater yield potential and in particular higher stability, a very important trait with climate change.”
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Reductions of spike-ethylene, a plant-aging hormone, could increase wheat yields by 10 to 15 percent in warm locations, according to a recent study published in New Phytologist journal.
Ravi Valluru observes wheat trials in the field at CIMMYT El Batán.
Ethylene is usually produced by plants at different developmental stages and can cause a wide range of negative effects on plant growth and development.
When hot weather hits a wheat field an increase in ethylene levels can lessen the amount of grains produced on ears or spikes by limiting the export of carbohydrates to pollen development.
“It was important to understand how different wheat varieties show yield responses to both ethylene gradients and ethylene inhibitors,” explained Ravi Valluru, wheat physiologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), adding that the research was primarily done in northwestern Mexico using both landraces and modern lines under heat-stressed field conditions.
Valluru is part of a collaborative team of scientists from CIMMYT and Britain’s Lancaster University investigating ways to reduce ethylene production in wheat plants as a means to improve yields in hot weather conditions.
The team treated a diverse set of wheat varieties with silver nitrate, an inorganic compound traditionally used for medicinal and other purposes and that has been shown to control ethylene levels in plants.
“We have known for a long time that ethylene has negative effects on crop yields, but efforts have been meager so far to bring this knowledge into breeding programs,” Valluru said. “It’s very exciting that CIMMYT has initiated the important steps toward bringing the ethylene story to wheat breeding through this project.”
The study has revealed that different wheat varieties responded differently to ethylene and ethylene inhibitors. That’s good news, because breeders can then select the appropriate lines for growing in warmer climates to incorporate into breeding programs.
According to Valluru, breeders have selected for high yield over many years that has inadvertently lowered ethylene expression in modern, improved varieties.
“Being a gas, ethylene is a kind of ‘ethereal’ plant growth regulator, but when produced at higher levels, has a major impact on grain setting and root growth,” said Matthew Reynolds, head of the wheat physiology team at CIMMYT and co-author of the study. “Understanding it and determining its genetic bases are significant steps forward, and we can expect that this knowledge will be applied in breeding.”
Farmer Bida Sen prepares rice seedlings for transplanting in Pipari, Dang. Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT
El BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Wheat, rice, maize, pearl millet, and sorghum provide over half of the world’s food calories. To maintain global food security under climate change, there is an increasing need to exploit existing genetic variability and develop crops with superior genetic yield potential and stress adaptation.
Climate change impacts food production by increasing heat and water stress among other environmental challenges, including the spread of pests, according to a recent study published by researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). If nothing is done to currently improve the crops we grow, wheat, maize and rice are predicted to decrease in both tropical and temperate regions. Wheat yields are already slowing in most areas, with models predicting a six percent decline in yield for every 1 degree Celsius increase in global temperature.
While breeding efforts in the past have traditionally focused on increasing yield rather than survival under stresses, researchers are now working to use existing genetic diversity to create varieties that can withstand extreme weather events with yield stability in both “good” and “bad” years to better prepare our global food system for future climate variability.
The study “An integrated approach to maintaining cereal productivity under climate change” concludes the opportunity to share knowledge between crops and identify priority traits for future research can be exploited to increase breeding impacts and assist in identifying the genetic loci that control adaptation. The researchers also emphasize a more internationally coordinated approach to crop phenotyping and modeling, combined with effective sharing of knowledge, facilities, and data, will boost the cost effectiveness and facilitate genetic gains of all staple crops.
Learn more about this study and other recent publications from CIMMYT scientists, below.
Africa’s changing farm size distribution patterns: the rise of medium-scale farms. Jayne, T.S.; Chamberlin, J.; Traub, L.; Sitko, N.J.; Muyanga, M.; Yeboah, K.; Anseeuw, W.; Chapoto, A.; Ayala Wineman; Nkonde, C.; Kachule, R. Agricultural Economics 47 (Supple.): 197-214.
Application of unmanned aerial systems for high throughput phenotyping of large wheat breeding nurseries. Haghighattalab, A.; Gonzalez-Perez, L. Mondal, S.; Singh, D.; Schinstock, D.; Rutkoski, J.; Ortiz-Monasterio, I.; Singh, R.P.; Goodin, D.; Poland, J. Plant Methods 12: 35.
Effect of traditional and extrusion nixtamalization on carotenoid retention in tortillas made from provitamin A biofortified maize (Zea mays L.). 2016. Rosales-Nolasco, A.; Agama-Acevedo, E.; Bello-Pérez, L.A.; Gutiérrez-Dorado, R.; Palacios-Rojas, N. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 64 (44): 8229-8295.
Grain yield, adaptation and progress in breeding for early-maturingand heat-tolerant wheat lines in South Asia. Mondal, S.; Singh, R.P. Mason, E.R.; Huerta-Espino, J.; Autrique, E.; Joshi, A.K. Field Crops Research 192: 78-85.
The marketing of specialty corns in Mexico: current conditions and prospects. López-Torres, J.; Rendon-Medel, R.; Camacho Villa, T.C. Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Agricolas 15: 3075-3088.
Mining centuries old In situ conserved turkish wheat landraces for grain yield and stripe rust resistance genes. Sehgal, D.; Dreisigacker, S.; Belen, S.; Kucukozdemir, U.; Mert, Z.; Ozer, E.; Morgounov, A.I. Frontiers in Geenetics 7 : 201.
Molecular characterisation of novel LMW-m and LMW-s genes from four Aegilops species (Sitopsis section) and comparison with those from the Glu-B3 locus of common wheat. Cuesta, S.; Guzman, C.; Alvarez, J.B. Crop and Pasture Science 67: 938-947.
Relay intercropping and mineral fertilizer effects on biomass production, maize productivity and weed dynamics in contrasting soils under conservation agriculture. Mhlanga, B.; Cheesman, S.; Maasdorp, B.; Mupangwa, W.; Thierfelder, C. Journal of Agricultural Science. Online First.
The evolution of the MasAgro hubs: responsiveness and serendipity as drivers of agricultural innovation in a dynamic and heterogeneous context. Camacho Villa, T.C.; Almekinders, C.; Hellin, J.; Martinez-Cruz, T.E.; Rendon-Medel, R.; Guevara-Hernández, F.; Beuchelt, T.D.; Govaerts, B. The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension 22 (5) : 455-470.
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.
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – Carolina Sansaloni’s passion for genetics began when she was at Universidad de Misiones in Posadas, Misiones, Argentina, an interest that grew as she moved on to receive her master’s and doctoral degrees in molecular biology at Universidad de Brasilia in Brazil.
While completing her doctorate degree, Sansaloni travelled to Canberra, Australia to research the genomic structure of the eucalyptus tree at Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT), learning the ins and outs of sequencing technology.
In 2012, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) wanted to introduce the DArT genotyping technologies to Mexico to serve the needs of the Mexican maize and wheat research communities, and once Sansaloni finished her doctoral degree, she was an obvious choice to lead this initiative.
Working under the MasAgro Biodiversidad project in partnership with DArT, INIFAP and CIMMYT, Sansaloni helped to build the Genetic Analysis Service for Agriculture (SAGA in Spanish) from the ground up.
The service, managed by the CIMMYT-based Seeds of Discovery (SeeD) initiative, brings cutting edge genotyping capacity and genetic analysis capability to Mexico. The facility provides unique insights into the genetic variation of wheat and maize at a “sequence level.” Use of the vast quantities of data generated help understand genetic control of characteristics evaluated at a plant or crop level for example, height variations among wheat varieties.
SAGA’s services are available for all CIMMYT scientists, universities, national agriculture research programs and private companies. Worldwide, few other platforms produce this kind of data and most are inaccessible to scientists working at publicly funded institutions because their economic or logistics difficulties.
“When it comes to genotyping technology, it doesn’t matter what type of organism you are working with. It could be wheat, eucalyptus or chicken – the machine will work the same way,” explained Sansaloni.
Sansaloni has also been focusing her time on the wheat Global Diversity Analysis, which characterizes and analyzes seeds in genebanks at both CIMMYT and the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA). Her team has characterized approximately 100,000 wheat accessions including 40 percent of the CIMMYT genebank and almost 100 percent of the ICARDA genebank wheat collection. This is an incredible and unique resource for wheat scientists providing a genetic framework to facilitate selection of the most relevant accessions for breeding.
“Currently only five to eight percent of materials in the genebank are being used in the breeding programs,” Sansaloni said. “The Global Diversity Analysis could have huge impacts on the future of wheat yields. It is like discovering the pieces of a puzzle, and then beginning to understand how these pieces can fit together to build excellent varieties of wheat.”
Sansaloni’s goal is to combine information from CIMMYT and ICARDA, making the information accessible to the entire wheat community and eventually enhancing breeding programs across the globe.
“Working at CIMMYT has been an invaluable experience,” Sansaloni said. “I’ve had the opportunity to work and collaborate with so many different people, and it’s brought me from the laboratory into the wheat fields, which really brings me closer to my work.”
SeeD is a joint initiative of CIMMYT and the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture (SAGARPA) through the MasAgroproject. SeeD receives additional funding from the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize (MAIZE CRP) and Wheat (WHEAT CRP), and from the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
Breaking Ground is a regular series featuring staff at CIMMYT
Deepmala Sehgal, wheat geneticist and molecular breeder at CIMMYT. Photo: M. Listman/CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Molecular analysis research by Deepmala Sehgal, a wheat geneticist and molecular breeder who joined the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) as an associate scientist in 2013, has led to the discovery of novel genes for yield, disease resistance and climate resilience in previously little-used wheat genetic resources.
But getting to the point of applying cutting-edge DNA marker technology to support CIMMYT wheat breeding has involved a few dramatic moves for the New Delhi native, who studied botany throughout middle school and university. “I loved science and chose plant science, because I enjoyed the field trips and didn’t like dissecting animals,” Sehgal said, explaining her choice of profession.
It wasn’t until she was studying for her Ph.D. at Delhi University in 2008 that she first used molecular markers, which are DNA segments near genes for traits of interest, like drought tolerance, and which can help breeders to develop improved crop varieties that feature those traits.
“For my thesis, I used molecular markers in a very basic way to analyze the diversity of safflower species that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had in its gene bank but didn’t know how to classify. I found a place for some and, for several, had to establish completely new subspecies,” Sehgal said.
Later, as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Aberystwyth in Britain, Sehgal used an approach known as fine mapping of quantitative trait loci (QTL), for drought tolerance in pearl millet. “The aim of fine mapping is to get shorter QTL markers that are nearer to the actual gene involved,” she explained, adding that this makes it easier to use the markers for breeding.
As it turned out, Sehgal’s growing proficiency in molecular marker research for crops made her suited to work as a wheat geneticist at CIMMYT.
“By 2013, CIMMYT had generated a huge volume of new data through genotyping-by-sequencing research, but those data needed to be analyzed using an approach called “association mapping,” to identify markers that breeders could use to select for specific traits. My experience handling such data and working with drought stress gave me an in with CIMMYT.”
Based at CIMMYT’s Mexico headquarters, Sehgal currently devotes 70 percent of her time to work for the CIMMYT global wheat program and the remainder for Seeds of Discovery, a CIMMYT-led project supported by Mexico’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA), which aims to unlock new wheat genetic diversity able to address climate change challenges.
Over the last two years, she has served as lead author for two published studies and co-author for four others. One used genotyping-by-sequencing loci and gene-based markers to examine the diversity of more than 1,400 spring bread wheat seed collections from key wheat environments. Another applied genome-wide association analysis on a selection of landrace collections from Turkey.
“In the first, we discovered not only thousands of new DNA marker variations in landraces adapted to drought and heat, but a new allele for the vernalization gene, which influences the timing of wheat flowering, and new alleles for genes controlling grain quality, all in landraces from near wheat’s center of origin in Asia and the Middle East.”
Sehgal acknowledges the as-yet limited impact of molecular markers in wheat breeding. “Individual markers generally have small effects on genetically complex traits like yield or drought tolerance; moreover, many studies fail to account for “epistasis,” the mutual influence genes have on one another, within a genome.”
To address this, she and colleagues have carried out the first study to identify genomic regions with stable expression for grain yield and yield stability, as well as accounting for their individual epistatic interactions, in a large sample of elite wheat lines under multiple environments via genome wide association mapping. A paper on this work has been accepted for publication in Nature Scientific Reports.
Sehgal has found her experience at CIMMYT enriching. “I feel free here to pursue the work I truly enjoy and that can make a difference, helping our center’s wheat breeders to create improved varieties with which farmers can feed a larger, more prosperous global population in the face of climate change and new, deadly crop diseases.”
Ulrich Schurr (L), of Germany’s Forschungszentrum Jülich research center and chair of the International Plant Phenotyping Network, and Matthew Reynolds, wheat physiologist with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, are promoting global partnerships in phenotyping to improve critical food crops, through events like the recent International Crop Phenotyping Symposium. Photo: CIMMYT/Mike Listman
EL BATÁN, Mexico (CIMMYT) — Global research networks must overcome nationalist and protectionist tendencies to provide technology advances the world urgently needs, said a leading German scientist at a recent gathering in Mexico of 200 agricultural experts from more than 20 countries.
“Agriculture’s critical challenges of providing food security and better nutrition in the face of climate change can only be met through global communities that share knowledge and outputs; looking inward will not lead to results,” said Ulrich Schurr, director of the Institute of Bio- and Geosciences of the Forschungszentrum Jülich research center, speaking at the 4th International Plant Phenotyping Symposium
Adapting medical sensors helps crop breeders see plants as never before
“Phenotyping” is the high-throughput application of new technology — including satellite images, airborne cameras, and multi-spectral sensors mounted on robotic carts — to the age-old art of measuring the traits and performance of breeding lines of maize, wheat and other crops, Schurr said.
“Farmers domesticated major food crops over millennia by selecting and using seed of individual plants that possessed desirable traits, like larger and better quality grain,” he explained. “Science has helped modern crop breeders to ‘fast forward’ the process, but breeders still spend endless hours in the field visually inspecting experimental plants. Phenotyping technologies can expand their powers of observation and the number of lines they process each year.”
Adapting scanning devices and protocols pioneered for human medicine or engineering, phenotyping was initially confined to labs and other controlled settings, according to Schurr.
“The push for the field started about five years ago, with the availability of new high-throughput, non-invasive devices and the demand for field data to elucidate the genetics of complex traits like yield or drought and heat tolerance,” he added.
Less than 10 years ago, Schurr could count on the fingers of one hand the number of institutions working on phenotyping. “Now, IPPN has 25 formal members and works globally with 50 institutions and initiatives.”
Cameras and other sensors mounted on flying devices like this blimp provide crop researchers with important visual and numerical information about crop growth, plant architecture and photosynthetic traits, among other characteristics. Photo: E. Quilligan/CIMMYTMany ways to see plants and how they grow
So-called “deep” phenotyping uses technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission and computer tomography to identify, measure and understand “invisible” plant parts, systems and processes, including roots and water capture and apportionment.
In controlled environments such as labs and greenhouses, researchers use automated systems and environmental simulation to select sources of valuable traits and to gain insight on underlying plant physiology that is typically masked by the variation found in fields, according to Schurr.
“Several specialists in our symposium described automated lab setups to view and analyze roots and greenhouse systems to assess crop shoot geometry, biomass accumulation and photosynthesis,” he explained. “These are then linked to crop simulation models and DNA markers for genes of important traits.”
Schurr said that support for breeding and precision agriculture includes the use of cameras or other sensors that take readings from above plant stands and crop rows in the field.
“These may take the form of handheld devices or be mounted on autonomous, robotic carts,” he said, adding that the plants can be observed using normal light and infrared or other types of radiation reflected from the plant and soil.
“The sensors can also be mounted on flying devices including drones, blimps, helicopters or airplanes. This allows rapid coverage of a larger area and many more plants than are possible through visual observation alone by breeders walking through a field.”
In the near future, mini-satellites equipped with high-resolution visible light sensors to capture and share aerial images of breeding plots will be deployed to gather data in the field, according to symposium participants.
Bringing high-flying technologies to earth
As is typical with new technologies and approaches to research, phenotyping for crop breeding and research holds great promise but must overcome several challenges, including converting images to numeric information, managing massive and diverse data, interfacing effectively with genomic analysis and bringing skeptical breeders on board.
“The demands of crop breeding are diverse — identifying novel traits, studies of genetic resources and getting useful diversity into usable lines, choosing the best parents for crosses and selecting outstanding varieties in the field, to name a few,” Schurr explained. “From the breeders’ side, there’s an opportunity to help develop novel methods and statistics needed to harness the potential of phenotyping technology.”
A crucial linkage being pursued is that with genomic analyses. “Studies often identify genome regions tied to important traits like photosynthesis as ‘absolute,’ without taking into account that different genes might come into play depending on, say, the time of day of measurement,” Schurr said. “Phenotyping can shed light on such genetic phenomena, describing the same thing from varied angles.”
Speaking at the symposium, Greg Rebetzke, a research geneticist since 1995 at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), said that the effective delivery in commercial breeding of “phenomics” — a term used by some to describe the high-throughput application of phenotyping in the field — is more a question of what and when, not how.
“It’s of particular interest in breeding for genetically complex traits like drought tolerance,” Rebetzke said. “Phenomics can allow breeders to screen many more plants in early generations of selection, helping to bring in more potentially useful genetic diversity. This genetic enrichment with key alleles early on can significantly increase the likelihood of identifying superior lines in the later, more expensive stages of selecting, which is typically done across many different environments.”
Moreover, where conventional breeding generally uses “snaphot” observations of plants at different growth stages, phenotyping technology can provide detailed time-series data for selected physiological traits and how they are responding to their surroundings—say, well-watered versus dry conditions—and for a much greater diversity and area of plots and fields.
Phenotyping is already being translated from academic research to commercial sector development and use, according to Christoph Bauer, leader of phenotyping technologies at KWS, a German company that breeds for and markets seed of assorted food crops.
“It takes six-to-eight years of pre-breeding and breeding to get our products to market,” Bauer said in his symposium presentation. “In that process, phenotyping can be critical to sort the ‘stars’ from the ‘superstars’.”
Commercial technology providers for phenotyping are also emerging, according to Schurr, helping to ensure robustness, the use of best practices and alignment with the needs of academic and agricultural industry customers.
“The partnership triad of academia, commercial providers and private seed companies offers a powerful avenue for things like joint analysis of genotypic variation in the pre-competitive domain or testing of cutting-edge technology,” he added.
On the final morning of the symposium, participants broke off into groups to discuss special topics, including the cost effectiveness of high-throughput phenotyping and its use to analyze crop genetic resources, measuring roots, diagnostics of reproductive growth, sensor technology needs, integrating phenotypic data into crop models, and public-private collaboration.
Schurr said organizations like CIMMYT play a crucial role.
“CIMMYT does relevant breeding for millions of maize and wheat farmers — many of them smallholders — who live in areas often of little interest for large-scale companies, providing support to the national research programs and local or regional seed producers that serve such farmers,” Schurr said. “The center also operates phenotyping platforms worldwide for traits like heat tolerance and disease resistance and freely spreads knowledge and technology.”
Researchers are seeking to re-engage rural youth who are increasingly abandoning agriculture to work in cities, raising the question who will grow our food in the future? Photo: P.Lowe/CIMMYT
EL BATAN, Mexico (CIMMYT) – More than 60 percent of the population in developing countries is below the age of 25, a demographic that is projected to grow. In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, the number of young people is expected to triple by 2050.
Despite large numbers of youth, farmers worldwide are an average age of about 60 as young people are being pushed out of their rural homes, due to factors like lack of access to land or credit. This is causing a dangerous trend that could result in a shortage of farmers in the coming decades, just as global food demand is projected to increase 70 percent by 2050.
However, when given the opportunity and access to resources, young men and women often prefer to stay in their rural homes and have proven to be more likely to adopt the new technologies needed to sustainably increase agricultural productivity than older farmers.
In an effort to address this age disparity and encourage young people to get involved in farming, youth in agriculture experts are developing a new framework with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) that aims to help boost interest in research on maize and wheat farming systems.
Youth in agriculture experts from the Institute of Development studies (IDS), the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) and the Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD) visited CIMMYT headquarters near Mexico City to discuss prospects and implications for maize and wheat farming systems – building on efforts to produce a collaborative draft framing paper by IDS with the CGIAR Research Programs MAIZE and WHEAT to help think about how both programs want to engage with youth as part of their research agendas.
Jim Sumberg, agriculturalist and research fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, discusses how we can support youth and build up rural society at large. Photo: G. Renard/CIMMYT
In some situations young people are resorting to occupations other than farming due to lack of land or employment options in rural areas, according to Jim Sumberg, research fellow at IDS and an agriculturalist with over 25 years’ experience working on small-scale farming systems and agricultural research policy.
The response of agricultural research should not just be simply to make youth another target group, Sumberg said.
“We want to develop a more nuanced story, particularly in relation to the interests of MAIZE and WHEAT, and how these align with the interests and capabilities of different groups of young people – men and women, rich and poor, better and less well educated,” Sumberg said.
However, Sumberg cautioned against youth becoming just another box for donors to tick.
“There is a real danger that if we identify young people as a separate target group, as has been done before with women,” Sumberg said. “For each new box you put people in, you are chopping up rural society into separate pieces, as if youth aren’t related to the adults, older people and kids. But in fact everyone is embedded in social relations and networks and are connected to each other.”
What young people do economically, what they’re able to do both in farming and other occupations, has a lot to do with the nature of those relationships.
You need to consider questions like “Does a son or daughter receive land from a father or uncle? Does a wife lend money to her husband to start a business? If you only think in terms of isolate groups, you’re not getting the full picture,” he said.
Sumberg believes that we are early enough in youth involvement in agricultural research that we can avoid the mistake of making them a distinct and separate target. The real challenge is to work our way back to a more holistic image of rural society, which includes understanding the dynamic relationships between individuals and groups in each context in which we operate.
“It’s a great challenge, but the benefits are huge if we can pull this off,” Sumberg said.
The collaborative framing paper on youth for MAIZE and WHEAT will be published in 2017.
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.
Healthy soils are vital for a healthy and food secure future. (Photo: CIMMYT)
At the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) we care deeply about one of the Earth’s most precious resources: soils. Humanity relies on soils not only for food production, but also for a range of vital ecosystem services. Soil is the vital substrate for terrestrial ecosystems, whether natural or agricultural.
Increasing population and related food demand are putting tremendous pressure on soils and too often lead to unsustainable practices jeopardizing their long term productivity. When increasing food demand is met by clearing new lands, it often occurs on more fragile soils, and/or at the expense of natural habitats. This short-term solution puts future livelihoods at risk and cannot continue.
For several decades, conservation agriculture (CA) has been a main research topic for CIMMYT’s agronomists. CA, as we define it, is based on three principles: 1) reduced or no tillage; 2) permanent soil cover; 3) crop rotation. Empirical evidence demonstrates the large benefits of CA on soil conservation/reclamation and soil health.
Work has been carried out and knowledge generated in very diverse agro-ecologies and socio-economic environments in the regions where CIMMYT works (Latin America, Southeast Asia, East and Southern Africa). Since many people use the term CA in a less scientific way, I sometimes call it innovation agriculture. I have seen many fields worldwide where our scientists work alongside farmers on sustainable intensification with a focus on these elements.
Agronomic “proof of concepts” is not sufficient, and we cannot just rely on results obtained at the field level to expect adoption at scale. Placing technical innovations, such as CA, into a farming systems context is needed to understand its adoptability and potential contribution to soil conservation, productivity, and climate change adaptation. One major adoption constraint of CA for many smallholder farmers is keeping a permanent crop cover with crop residues (zero tillage without proper soil cover can do more harm than good with regard to soil erosion).
Crop residues are often used to feed livestock, but these materials left in the field after a crop has been harvested are also essential to maintaining rich and fertile soil. Feeding the soil versus feeding animals is often a difficult choice farmers have to make. Through farming system research and participatory approaches, CIMMYT and its partners are working with farmers to develop technological and management options that provide higher profitability, improved resource use efficiency, while maintaining or improving their production base; soils.
The 2016 U.N. World Soil Day theme on Dec. 5, is “Soils and pulses, a symbiosis for life,” which resonates very well with our work: CIMMYT conducts research in maize and wheat based systems and is a strong proponent of diversification through the improved use of legumes in rotation or intercropping.
Soils draw a great deal of interest on the climate change mitigation front. They are a huge carbon reservoir with the potential to store even more under better land management and land use practices, as shown by the recent 4 per thousand initiative launched during the COP21 2015 U.N. climate talks in Paris. However, those mitigation options need to be better quantified to assess sequestration potential and not oversell options and technologies. CIMMYT scientists have recently contributed to several studies on that topic, helping to shed the light on greenhouse gas sequestration potential from technical innovations such as CA and reduced tillage.
Increased productivity through improved varieties of maize and wheat with better management practices is not only soil friendly but also provides land sparing opportunities; reducing the pressure on clearing new land preserving natural ecosystems.
L-R: Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation; Bram Govaerts, CIMMYT Latin America Regional Representative at the World Food Prize. CIMMYT/Ricardo Curiel
DES MOINES, Iowa (CIMMYT) – Transforming subsistence agriculture and unsustainable farming systems into productive and sustainable operations has been the key focus of scientist Bram Govaerts, 2014 recipient of the Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application at the World Food Prize
Govaerts manages the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), which aims to enable farmers to produce high quality staple grains in sufficient quantities to meet the needs of the Mexican market.
“Starting five years ago, MasAgro and, in particular, its work on technological innovation in farmers’ fields, have been acting upon the infamous instructions of Dr. Norman Borlaug, founder of CIMMYT and of the World Food Prize,” said Govaerts, Latin America Regional Representative of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) while participating in the Borlaug Dialogue panel “Borlaug–Rockefeller: Inspiring a new generation,” coordinated by the World Food Prize Foundation.
“Borlaug told his acolytes to ‘take it to the farmer,’ which is exactly what we have been doing through MasAgro,” Govaerts said.
On the panel hosted by Rockefeller Foundation President Judith Rodin, which included three other young researchers who are also Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application laureates, Govaerts added that MasAgro has produced successful results because its applied field research and capacity building activities transfer technologies to the farm sector through decision-making processes based on reliable and objective data.
“We demand scientific excellence of ourselves because agriculture can only be transformed through innovation networks, mechanisms and smart tools that enable farmers to realize their full potential,” Govaerts said.
Each year, more than 1,000 private and public sector leaders from the international community meet in Des Moines, the state capital of Iowa in the United States, to participate in the Borlaug Dialogue. The conference precedes the presentation of the World Food Prize, which was established by Borlaug, who reached the pinnacle of his career when he was awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize, in recognition of exceptional leaders who have contributed to the fight against world hunger.
Previously, three CIMMYT researchers—Evangelina Villegas, Surinder Vasal and Sanjaya Rajaram—have been awarded this important prize. This year, the World Food Prize Foundation recognized Maria Andrade from Cape Verde, Robert Mwanga from Uganda, and Jan Low and Howarth Bouis, both from the United States, for their work developing and disseminating micronutrient-rich crops, including the biofortified, vitamin A-enriched orange-fleshed sweet potato.
Andrew Mude received the 2016 Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application for developing an insurance program for previously uninsured communities whose livelihoods depend on herding cattle, goats, sheep and camels in the remote, arid and drought-prone lowlands of the Horn of Africa. The field award is sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation.
Forging major change is never simple, but one of my top priorities upon taking the helm at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) as director general last year was to develop a new five-year institutional strategy. CIMMYT must continuously change in order to adapt to an increasingly complex world and address urgent agricultural challenges. Not only do almost 800 million go to bed hungry each night, but to cite just a few examples, this year severe drought in southern Africa exacerbated by an El Niño weather system took its toll on crops, deadly wheat blast disease emerged in South Asia for the first time and scientists ratcheted up the fight against virulent maize lethal necrosis disease.
To learn more about the CIMMYT work environment, I sent an email to our key donors and partners seeking answers to some simple questions: What is CIMMYT doing well? What can CIMMYT do better? What new areas of research or collaboration should we explore? I met with staff at headquarters near Mexico City and visited regional offices to get a well-rounded set of responses. The answers I received have become the basis for the new CIMMYT Strategic Plan 2017-2022: “Improving Livelihoods through Maize and Wheat Science.”
From crops to agri-food systems
The new strategy marks a shift in thinking of maize and wheat simply as crops, recognizing that they play a major role in agri-food systems in which they operate. Modern agriculture is increasingly diverse, complex and unpredictable and we need to look beyond science alone to understand the ecological, economic and social forces that are driving change in farming systems. The shift from commodity-based research to an integrated approach centering on agri-food systems is a critical change allowing our community to work more effectively to strengthen food security, reduce poverty and enhance human nutrition.
Contributing to international development goals
Simultaneously, as CIMMYT has been undergoing changes, the CGIAR system of agricultural research centers is also going through a transition. The aim is to improve efficiency, benefiting relationships with our global network of donors and partners. These changes build on past successes, articulating an ambitious new direction known as the “CGIAR Strategy and Results Framework 2016-2030” We have gone through a process of refining our strategy to ensure alignment with the CGIAR strategy and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. The strategies emphasize the need to assign higher priority to reducing malnutrition, empowering female farmers, developing new public-private partnerships and sharing knowledge with partners and farmers.
A new strategic direction
The new strategy identifies four interlinked areas of work, each highlighting CIMMYT’s strengths: scientific excellence; impact through partnerships; capacity building and the “ONE CIMMYT” concept, which reflects efforts to synthesize both internal and external activities. To achieve scientific excellence we will further develop our practice of conducting research of the highest quality and create innovations that farmers can readily put to use. CIMMYT will steadily improve the scope and quality of partnerships to accelerate the adoption of technology. CIMMYT’s leadership of the CGIAR Research Programs on MAIZE and WHEAT and the Excellence in Breeding Platform, which will help modernize breeding programs in the developing world by providing access to cutting-edge tools, services, best practices, application-oriented training and practical advice.
These initiatives will form a key part of a new partnership strategy. By creating agricultural knowledge communities, CIMMYT develops capacity and empowers collaborators to help farmers advance to a more food-secure, sustainable future. Finally, “ONE CIMMYT” values have far reaching implications on the way we work, unifying teams and building a common understanding across regions.
Launching this strategy marks the beginning of an evolutionary way of working, which will continue over the next five years to 2022. Its successful implementation requires collaboration across disciplines and the involvement of our vast network of partners. As we move forward, I will continue to consult with key stakeholders to gather insights and assessments about how we can continue to create even more impact in farmers’ fields.
A scientist examines wheat grain. CIMMYT/Nathan Russell
Gideon Kruseman is CIMMYT’s ex-ante and foresight specialist.
Over the next few decades, projections indicate global population will grow from more than 7 billion to more than 9 billion people by 2050. A large proportion of that world population will be living in low- and middle-income countries in urban environments – often huge — cities.
In India, the country with the largest rural population, for instance, the percentage of urban population is expected to increase from 37 percent in 2011 to 56 percent by 2050. Globally it will grow from 55 percent in 2011 to 70 percent in 2050. The trends we anticipate in India are comparable to Africa as a whole where urban population is projected to increase from less than 40 percent to around 55 percent, although there are differences between countries and regions.
Meeting the sustainable development goals (SDGs) established in 2015 by the United Nations and the global community will be challenging. The 17 goals with 169 targets aim to solve problems related to climate change, hunger, education, gender equality, sanitation, jobs, justice and shared peace by 2030.
In particular, SDG 2, which aspires to eliminate hunger, and SDG 3, which aims to establish good health and well-being, will be challenging even if we concentrate only on climatic, environmental and biophysical constraints. If we also take into account all the implications of urbanization and economic growth on diets and dietary change a new dimension of complexity becomes apparent.
Whether model calculations are based on current consumption patterns and trends, healthy diets or a variety of ecologicalsustainability criteria, maize and wheat will play a significant dietary role. Currently, these two staple crops feed two-thirds of the world population and will continue to be the main supply of energy in human diets in all scenarios.
However, scenarios for maize and wheat will not ensure decrease in quantitative and qualitative malnutrition unless we act upon projected future demands now. Diets, dietary change and their effects on health and nutritional status form complex interactions with socio-economic and environmental drivers.
In the future, diets will inevitably change as they have in previous decades. Basic commodities in food consumed in urban areas require different traits than food consumed in rural areas where the chain between production and consumption is shorter. The reason for this is that in rural areas in low and middle income countries staple grains are milled and processed locally, while in urban areas people tend to eat industrialized processed or pre-processed food.
In urban areas in Africa and South Asia wheat-based products are starting to replace traditional staples such as maize and rice to some extent. Moreover, research reveals that in urban centers people tend to eat energy dense food, which can help prevent quantitative malnutrition in terms of calorie intake, but does not ensure a healthy diet. Healthy eating requires a wide range of nutrients that traditionally are found in diverse foods. When people opt for less diversity and more convenience, this requires nutrient-dense as well as calorie-dense food. A significant trend that points to convenience food is the increased consumption levels of snacks and fast food, in low- and middle-income countries.
Maize-based snacks are important components of urban diets. Moreover, maize is a key ingredient found in convenience food made by the food industry in the form of starch and syrup. Ensuring that maize and wheat can meet nutritional demands in less diverse diets requires the introduction of new traits into the varieties comparable to the ongoing efforts of maize and wheatbiofortification at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
The development of nutrient-dense varieties takes time since they must also incorporate traits that address environmental conditions, climate change and resistance to pests and diseases as well as feature favorable post-harvest characteristics such as milling and processing quality.
Crucial to this process are the genetic resources that allow the traits to be combined in the breeding done at CIMMYT.
How do we do this? Billions of seeds, expertly and carefully conserved for humankind, are housed in our seed bank. They are freely available to breeders and other researchers around the world who may use them to uncover solutions to some of the challenges that face humanity in the future. Any one seed could help secure the food of our future.
While the potentially desirable traits hidden in the seeds in the seed bank are very valuable, there are costs involved in maintaining this diversity. Diversity is important for finding traits that will allow maize and wheat to be more nutritious than they are already today and so aid in meeting the demands of the future. Today, everyone can be part of this future by joining the “save a seed movement.”
![Cameras and other sensors mounted on flying devices like this blimp [remote-control quadcopter] provide crop researchers with important visual and numerical information about crop growth, plant architecture and photosynthetic traits, among other characteristics. Photo: Emma Quilligan/CIMMYT](http://staging.cimmyt.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Blimp-EmmaQuilligan.jpg)
A new strategic direction