research: Genetic resources

Bill Gates and Carlos Slim Partner to Support Innovation for Farmers

Written by on February 13, 2013. Posted in Features.

Daimoniz Miondo is one of 800 farmers in Chipeni, Mvera Extension Planning Area, Dowa District, Malawi, who has adopted conservation agriculture practices in recent years with joint support from Malawi’s Department of Agricultural Extension Services, the NGO Total LandCare, and CIMMYT. “I’m harvesting between 30 and 40 bags of maize now per acre, where I used to get only 15 or 20 bags,” says Miondo, who farms to support a household of seven. “Before conservation agriculture, there was a lot of erosion and the rain would wash away the fertilizer and affect the yields.” Conservation agriculture practices cut labor and other farm costs, as well as helping to capture and hold rainfall, thus salvaging harvests when drought hits. Photo credit: Trevor Samson/CIMMYT

Originally posted on the Impatient Optimists blog (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) on 13 February 2013.

We are extremely pleased to welcome Bill Gates and Carlos Slim Helú to CIMMYT headquarters near Mexico City today. They have come to inaugurate major infrastructure improvements for CIMMYT supported by their respective foundations. The nearly 20,000 square meters of construction include badly-needed advanced laboratories, greenhouses, and training facilities. They will be used for cutting-edge research by CIMMYT to help speed the access of developing country farmers to the benefits of science and innovation.

Where are we now and what have we learned?

The repeated food price hikes of recent years most sorely affect the poor, who spend as much as three-quarters of their daily income simply to eat. We know that 0.8 billion human beings are not eating enough.

We’ve not seen the last of food price crises. Widespread, severe droughts of 2012 have devastated global grain harvests, further reduced food stocks, made export markets skittish. Because the world relies heavily on a few, high-production “bread basket” countries, low stocks superimposed on financial speculation will surely bring further, seismic shocks to global food markets.

From the 2007-08 food price peaks, which fueled food riots in more than 30 countries, it should be clear that global food security is everyone’s concern, in both developed and developing countries.

Not all is gloom and doom: Innovation can support more precise and productive science and farming.

There is hope, and more bountiful harvests and sustainable agriculture are key parts of the solution. In many developing countries farming continues to employ large segments of the populace and plays a central role in national economies. There is enormous potential for farmers to boost productivity, reduce reliance on destructive practices, move beyond subsistence, and power development at large. Best of all, new, exciting science is available to adapt to small-scale farmers’ needs, and these farmers are actually looking to policymakers and research and extension organizations to support them.

CIMMYT partners with those actors and others worldwide to offer farmers improved options: better seed and knowhow, improved cropping systems, more secure crop storage methods. Progressive farmers begin to view their daily occupation as an enterprise, rather than mere subsistence, so the focus shifts onto science and innovation to gain precision. Several examples:

DNA analysis to home in on high-value maize and wheat traits for better yields, disease resistance, heat and drought tolerance.
Doubled haploids to speed the creation of genetically pure inbred lines and new maize hybrids.
Conservation and precision agriculture, including more targeted application of irrigation water and fertilizer to boost system output while saving resources and the environment.
Cell phone services so farmers can access precise, locally-tailored information on weather, markets, recommended crops and practices for their fields.

An extraordinary initiative funded by and co-coordinated with Mexico—known as MasAgro, the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture—is taking these and other innovations directly to Mexican farmers and sequencing the DNA of CIMMYT’s vast maize and wheat seed collections. Similarly innovative partnerships in Africa and Asia feature cropping systems approaches to increase yields and the resilience of the resource base, while supporting farmers’ direct involvement to test and promote new practices. Millions of smallholder farmers and consumers in sub-Saharan Africa are benefiting from the adoption of drought tolerant maize varieties developed using advanced breeding techniques.

The work of all these partners, including CIMMYT, would not be possible without the support of other key partners: national governments, foundations, development banks, and other public and private agencies, including the CGIAR Consortium, who represent the political will and commitment of their constituents through their donations and engagement. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provides not only momentous funding for our work, but invaluable technical guidance and political support.

Returning to today’s inauguration, thanks to the generous support of the Carlos Slim Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we have effectively doubled our research capacity here in Mexico.

We can accelerate our efforts to unlock the tremendous potential of wheat and maize using modern information and communications technology, combined with the improved and more sustainable agricultural practices. The very personal and proactive engagement in CIMMYT’s mission of visionary personalities such as Mr. Slim Helú and Mr. Gates, and the on-going support of their respective foundations for our relatively little-known research institute, send a strong signal to the world that something important must be going on here. Indeed there is.

Guest post: Partnering to Empower Poor Farming Families and Ensure Global Food Security

Written by on February 13, 2013. Posted in Features.

Originally posted on the Impatient Optimists blog (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) on February 8, 2013. By David Bergvinson – Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Mexican scientist and CIMMYT collaborator J. Arahón Hernández Guzmán examines a maize ear in Jala, Mexico. Photo courtesy of Eloise Phipps/CIMMYT

There is an African proverb that captures the importance of partnerships in the work we do at the Gates Foundation: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.”

Nowhere are partnerships more important than in efforts to help poor farming families around the world to increase their agricultural productivity. Helping farmers grow and sell more crops in a sustainable and equitable way is a catalyst for rural employment that helps address poverty, nutrition, and food security.

One of our partners in this effort is the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (the Spanish acronym is CIMMYT). CIMMYT was the birth place of the first Green Revolution, which resulted from breakthroughs in the development of high yielding wheat varieties that first enabled Mexico to become self-sufficient in wheat production in the 1960s. This was then shared with farmers in India and Pakistan to avert mass starvation.

This success was made possible by bringing together innovation, strong partnerships between nations, and a clear end goal to address an urgent need – global food security.

Next week, we will see another tremendous step towards addressing this urgent need. Bill Gates and Mexican businessman and philanthropist Carlos Slim will inaugurate a new research complex at CIMMYT that will address the complex challenges facing maize and wheat farmers around the globe. How?

The new facilities will enable CIMMYT and its international partners to utilize the power of technology to store information on genetic makeup of plants to improve seed varieties for the benefit of millions. CIMMYT’s maize and wheat gene banks hold the keys that – through better seed varieties – can help farmers address the challenges posed by climate change, increase the efficiency of crops in the use of fertilizer and limited water resources, and improve the nutritional quality of staple crops.

This important work – to make better use of natural crop diversity – is the largest international effort of its kind. The project is supported by the Government of Mexico under the MasAgro project, and will benefit not only farmers in Mexico, but farmers around the globe, through a network of dedicated researchers – many of whom have been trained at CIMMYT over the past decades.

Information and genetic resources generated by MasAgro will be shared freely with the global maize and wheat community, and serve as a model for other crops that are vital to smallholder farm families. Generating these global public goods is a unique role that CIMMYT plays in the agricultural development ecosystem.

In Bill Gates’ Annual Letter, he emphasized the importance that innovation, goals, and measurement have played in enabling the world to work toward meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – including the goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.

The donation made by Carlos Slim to modernize CIMMYT’s research facility will help ensure its continued contribution to develop and delivering farmer-preferred solutions that increase productivity in a sustainable manner. Providing resources for agricultural innovation, building strong partnerships, and setting clear goals for productivity gives us good reason to be optimistic about the future of food security and increased farm productivity to help lift rural families out of poverty.

Congratulations to Germplasm Bank!

Written by on December 19, 2012. Posted in News.

The CIMMYT Maize and Wheat Germplasm Bank achieved ISO9001:2008 certification this week, after nearly two years of data gathering, intensive analysis, and assessment of processes and best practices. The ISO standards relate to quality management systems and are designed to help organizations ensure that they meet the needs of customers and other stakeholders, while meeting statutory and regulatory requirements. The CIMMYT Maize and Wheat Germplasm Bank is the first CGIAR germplasm bank to achieve ISO9001 certification, and is now one of only three genebanks globally to achieve certification (and the first outside of Europe). CIMMYT staff and areas involved in this certification included both the germplasm banks, human resources, purchasing, risk management, security, maintenance, and ICT departments. A special thanks is extended to Bibiana Espinosa and Paulina Gonzalez, both of whom sheparded the lengthy process to this noteworthy conclusion.

G20 recognizes Mexico and CIMMYT for creating MasAgro

Written by on October 11, 2012. Posted in News.

Mexico and CIMMYT were recognized by G20 agricultural development experts for presenting the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) initiative at the Meeting of Agricultural Chief Scientists (MACS) held on 26 September in Guadalajara, Jalisco, in the framework of the activities organized by the Mexican presidency of G20, which includes the largest economies in the world.

During the meeting “Strengthening international cooperation through agricultural research and development,” Karen García, Chief Executive of MasAgro at CIMMYT, expressed her gratitude for the distinction granted to MasAgro, which was included in a report delivered to the G20 Agricultural Vice- Ministers and described as a model of research and capacity building that promotes public-private partnerships in the food and farming sector.

Bram Govaerts, Associate Director of CIMMYT’s Conservation Agriculture Program and leader of the MasAgro component “Take It to the Farmer”, called upon the international community to commit to promoting collaborative research strategies that strengthen global food security. As an example, Govaerts cited the Global Programs WHEAT and MAIZE that CGIAR centers are collaboratively implementing to increase the productivity of small-scale farmers in different regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Marty Jones, representative of the Global Forum of Agricultural Research (GFAR), urged the participants to establish a mechanism to facilitate setting agricultural research and development priorities and create sustainable production systems with the capacity to bring about a 60 % increase in global food and agricultural productivity by 2050.

The participants also expressed their support of researchers who are developing the Germplasm Resource Information Network (GRIN–GLOBAL) and working to make genetic resources more accessible to the international scientific community. Simon Liu, representative of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), invited experts to cooperate in establishing policies giving open source access to genetic and genomic data obtained with public sector program support to benefit mainly farmers in developing countries.

CIMMYT at the 1st Agro-biodiversity and Agro-products Fair

Written by on September 27, 2012. Posted in News.

2012-09-08-15.22.26 National Service Seed Inspection and Certification (SNICS) and National Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (SINAREFI) organized the first Agro-biodiversity and Agroproducts Fair in Xochitla Ecological Park, Tepozotlan, Mexico, during 7-8 September 2012, to promote conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources of crop species which originated in Mexico (maize, squash, bean, avocado, tejocote, poinsettia, and vanilla). Production techniques, crop diversity, biodiversity, handicraft, agro-industrial processing, and culinary products were demonstrated to a large audience of farmers, educators, private entrepreneurs, policy-makers, donors, and international institutions representatives.

2012-09-08-15.30.06 CIMMYT participated in the fair through its Seeds of Discovery (SeeD) initiative under the Genetic Resources Program. Martha Willcox (SeeD maize phenotyping coordinator) and Carolina Saint Pierre (SeeD wheat phenotyping coordinator) presented maize and wheat collections from the CIMMYT genebank and a poster prepared by Paulina González and Bibiana Espinosa from the germplasm bank emphasizing the importance of seed conservation and its long-term benefits for humanity. CIMMYT team was also represented by Isabel Peña, Institutional Relations Head, who provided visitors with information on CIMMYT. The CIMMYT booth was visited by many students, professors, and farmers. The students and professors expressed a particular interest in CIMMYT’s publications on maize and wheat diseases, conservation agriculture, the SeeD initiative, breeding for drought and low nitrogen tolerance, breeding of native maize (criollos), and grain storage techniques. Farmers were mostly interested in CIMMYT maize collections samples. They also shared their experience working with different types of maize.

The Fair’s program included many interesting presentations. SINAREFI highlighted their conservation networks including custodian farmers of native maize in the states of Sinaloa and Oaxaca. The farmers brought maize ears to demonstrate maize races they produce and maintain on their farms, and discussed the advantages of the dynamic on-site conservation system which allows for farmer selection and adaptation to changing environments. Other members of the agricultural research community were present at the Fair to discuss their recent research activities and demonstrate their products.

The Fair provided opportunities for interaction with local farmers and students from different parts of Mexico, and demonstrated various agro-products and sustainable technologies. CIMMYT’s participation raised public awareness of CIMMYT’s work and created a closer relationship with SNICS and SINAREFI.

Australia’s Grains Research & Development Corporation praises CIMMYT

Written by on August 22, 2012. Posted in News.

In a recent interview on Ground Cover TV, John Harvey, Managing Director of Australia’s Grains Research & Development Corporation (GRDC), described CIMMYT’s high value to the global wheat research community, calling it among other things “…a Mecca for wheat researchers.”

An Australian statutory corporation founded in 1990, GRDC is one of the world’s leading grains research organisations, responsible for planning, investing and overseeing research and development, delivering improvements in production, sustainability and profitability across Australia’s grains industry. As of 1994, GRDC has supported CIMMYT with a focus on targeting, importing, and evaluating CIMMYT wheat germplasm for use in Australia. More than 90% of the wheat grown in Australia is descended from varieties contained in CIMMYT’s genebank, yielding a net benefit to Australian farmers of nearly A$ 150 million per year. By the same token Australia, which has been renowned for wheat breeding for more than a century, has contributed high-quality germplasm and crucial technical expertise to CIMMYT in numerous areas of our work. The last minute of the video is devoted to CIMMYT .

CIMMYT-CAAS-Seed industry interface on rapid-cycle maize breeding

Written by on July 9, 2012. Posted in News.

To strengthen the modern technology-driven maize breeding in China, “CIMMYT-CAAS-Seed Industry Interface on Rapid-cycle Maize Breeding” was held on June 9, 2012 in CIMMYT-CAAS Joint International Research Center based in Beijing. Co-sponsored by CIMMYT, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), and the Generation Challenge Programme (GCP), the workshop was attended by 52 scientists and managers from 23 seed companies and public sector institutions in China. Their aim was to establish a dynamic interface between the CIMMYT-CAAS maize team and the seed industry to begin rapid-cycle, genomic selection-based maize breeding, under an initiative titled “Eight + One”—that is, eight seed companies plus the CAAS institute of crop sciences—as an industry/institution collaboration platform for commercial maize breeding.

Senior managers addressing participants included David Bergvinson, senior program officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; GCP director Jean-Marcel Ribaut; Shumin Wang, deputy director, CAAS-ICS; and from CIMMYT, Gary Atlin, associate director of the CIMMYT global maize program, and Kevin Pixley, director of the genetic resources program.

CAAS

Scientists presented on CIMMYT work in genomic selection (concept and CIMMYT activities, Xuecai Zhang), double haploid approaches in maize breeding (Daniel Jeffers), marker-assisted selection in maize breeding (Yunbi Xu), modeling and simulation in plant breeding (Jiankang Wang), bioinformatics and computing needs for genomic selection (Gary Atlin), and our breeding pipeline and examples from lowland tropical maize breeding (Xuecai Zhang). BGI-Shenzhen’s Gengyun Zhang described the company’s genotyping platforms and service. A group discussion addressed rapid-cycle maize breeding through industry-institution collaboration, such as the molecular breeding network in China, coordinated genotyping and phenotyping, use of temperate and tropical DH inducers, environmental data collection, and standardization of maize trials.

Participants also attended an “Open Day for Chinese Breeders,” a concurrent session of the 3rd Annual Meeting of Integrated Breeding Platform Project organized by GCP and CAAS, were introduced to IB FieldBook and IBP Analysis Tools. “(This workshop) came at a right time and brought us right information and knowledge for accelerating maize commercial breeding,” said Zanyong Sun, Vice president of Beijing Denong Seed Co. The workshop’s chief organizer, maize molecular breeder Yunbi Xu, sees it as an important first step for industry institution initiatives. “We’ll establish a common genotyping and MAS platform to serve the Chinese maize breeding community,” he said.

China-CIMMYT impact: celebrating 30 years of collaborations

Written by on June 25, 2012. Posted in News.

CIMMYT director general Tom Lumpkin, Global Wheat Program director Hans Braun, and Global Maize Program director B M Prasanna visited the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS) during 16-18 May 2012. As part of the visit, CAAS President Li Jiayang highlighted CIMMYT’s contributions to Chinese agricultural development and named CIMMYT as a CAAS strategic partner for international collaboration. An agreement was also signed between CAAS and CIMMYT to further promote collaboration on applied biotechnology in crop improvement. A workshop was held on 18 May 2012 to celebrate the 30-year China-CIMMYT collaboration. There were more than 60 participants, including Ren Wang, CAAS vice president, deputy director general Liu Zhiming from the Ministry of Science and Technology, and division director Yinglan Zhang from the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Lumpkin described CIMMYT’s new development and collaboration role with China, followed by presentations from CIMMYT liaison officer Zhonghu He and five partners from CAAS and from the provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, Shandong, and Ningxia.

MOA As indicated in Ren Wang’s speech, CIMMYT has the largest investment in China among CGIAR centers. Five collaborative research programs led by CIMMYT scientists stationed in China have been established at CAAS, Yunnan and Sichuan. This has created a new model for CGIAR-China collaboration and increased CIMMYT’s impact in China. CIMMYT is also the first international center to establish collaborative projects with the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

CIMMYT wheat germplasm has contributed significantly to wheat production in China. More than 90,000 wheat accessions were introduced to China and 14,000 genotypes were stored in national and provincial genebanks, accounting for around 55% of introduced wheat germplasm in China. More than 260 improved varieties were released from CIMMYT germplasm, and the accumulated planting area for these varieties has reached 45 million hectares.

More than 1,000 tropical inbred lines and populations from CIMMYT were introduced to China. CIMMYT germplasm has played a significant role in subtropical maize breeding in Yunnan, Guangxi, Guizhou, and Sichuan provinces. CIMMYT tropical maize germplasm has also been used as a donor for breeding temperate maize in northern China, as occurred in the two leading temperate hybrids Nongda 108 and Zhengdan 958.

CIMMYT-China collaborations have also had an impact on the application of molecular technology. Forty functional markers were developed, validated, and used in various wheat breeding programs, and three advanced lines developed from molecular markers are expected to be released in the next few years. These markers have been widely used to characterize Chinese and CIMMYT germplasm. A novel method for mapping quantitative trait genes, the ICIM, was developed and used in many countries. Breeding simulation tools are used to optimize the complicated breeding strategies. Nine training courses have been held in China, Mexico, IRRI, and Australia to promote new tools and methods. QTL analysis through joint linkage-LD mapping was developed and used to understand molecular mechanisms for drought tolerance. The genes related to the biosynthesis of proV A have been cloned and used to develop functional markers for molecular breeding. Chip-based and sequencing-based genotyping techniques have been used for genetic diversity analysis, haplotype map construction, and association mapping in maize. More than 400 papers have been published in peer-reviewed journals, including several papers in high-impact journals such as Genetics (2007), PNAS (2010), and Nature Genetics (2010, 2012).

CHINA-CIMMYT-30years-collaboration-seminar Bed planting has produced significant impact in the provinces of Gansu, Ningxia, Sichuan, Shandong, and Henan, bringing among other benefits a 30% reduction in input use. Bed planting is particularly advantageous at saving water. Conservation agriculture techniques combined with new winter wheat varieties have been broadly extended in traditional spring wheat areas, allowing farmers to take advantage of climate change to increase yields and reduce input use.

CIMMYT trained scientists play a leading role in China. Over 800 Chinese scientists and administrators have visited CIMMYT and more than 200 scientists have participated in various training courses or visiting scientist programs and more than 60 postgraduates were trained. Among them, more than 60 serve at a research professor level or became presidents of provincial academies or directors of research institutes. As of 2012, more than 20 training courses and international conferences have been jointly organized, with more than 3,500 participants.

Defining priorities for quality research in native maize

Written by on June 6, 2012. Posted in News.

In order to define the research priorities for the Seeds of Discovery initiative in maize quality of landraces (a Strategic Initiative of both CRPs MAIZE and WHEAT funded by Mexico), a diverse group of food scientists, chemists, maize breeders, genebank curators, social scientists, and representatives of research institutions such as UNAM and Chapingo, met for a workshop to discuss future research on quality characteristics within native Mexican maize.

Held during 23-24 April 2012, at Mansión del Quijote, the workshop recognized the need to preserve cultural customs and identify market niches in order to ensure the conservation and use of germplasm. Many native maize landraces are grown by farmers for specific culinary uses. Tlayudas, for example, are normally prepared using native maize from Raza bolita, whilst Pozole is only prepared with pozolero maize belonging to the ancho, cacahuacintle, and eloteros occidentales races. These culinary and cultural niches are not easily filled by standard
commercial hybrids.

The workshop was organized by Martha Willcox (Genetic Resources Program) and Natalia Palacios (Global Maize Program). “We wanted to prioritize specific uses and areas of research,” said Natalia Palacios. “By discussing state of the art research on quality, germplasm conservation
and characterization, and the uses and applications of landraces, we were able to identify some starting points for further research,” she added. Whilst a great deal of work has focused on landrace quality, much of this research has gone undocumented. Therefore, one of the key focuses for 2012 will be on data analysis, documentation, and publication.

“Overall, we hope to identify and characterize accessions with exceptional quality parameters to be used in breeding, both at the landrace level and to introgress into improved breeding lines, in order to provide an economic benefit to farmers,” stated Martha Willcox.

Genetic resources information and analytical system (GRIS) for wheat and triticale

Written by on May 31, 2012. Posted in News.

20120509_120632 GRIS (http://wheatpedigree.net) is designed to study the diversity of wheat through analysis of pedigrees, and provides information services for breeding and research programs. The database contains pedigree and genetic allele information on 160,000 genotypes (varieties and breeding lines). All data are accompanied by standardized reference citations.

The author of the GRIS database, Sergey Martynov of Vavilov Research Institute, and programmer of the web application Dmitriy Dobrotvorskyi, recently met in Istanbul with a group of CIMMYT scientists involved in the development of Wheat Atlas, Rust Spore and IWIS-bib, to discuss collaboration on further development of these web-based tools. The key outputs of the meeting were agreements on (1) incorporation of the GRIS search into the Wheat Atlas and (2) further development of web-based modules to broaden the use of GRIS to conduct various genealogical and statistical analyses. Compatibility of GRIS with external statistical software (ANOVA, various algorithms of cluster analysis, etc.) is also considered essential in order to extend the opportunities for use of GRIS.

Thanks go to the CIMMYT-Turkey office, and to Alexei Morgounov in particular for facilitating this meeting.

CIMMYT team wins CCAFS recognition

Written by on May 25, 2012. Posted in News.

On 29 April, CIMMYT had a double reason to celebrate, picking up the award for “Best gender paper” and “Best science paper” (along with Bioversity), at the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) Science Conference in Copenhagen. The conference was part of a series of CCAFS meetings held from 29 April – 02 May, and was attended by various CIMMYT staff.

The best gender paper, titled ‘Adoption of Agricultural Technologies in Kenya: How Does Gender Matter?’ and co-authored by Simon Wagura Ndiritu, Menale Kassie and Bekele Shiferaw, highlighted the differences between technologies adopted on female- and male-managed farm plots in Kenya. They found that whilst there were gender differences in the adoption of technologies such as the use of animal manure, soil and water conservation, other differences in the use of chemical fertilizers and improved seed may stem from the varying levels of access to resources for men and women, rather than gender itself. “This recognition inspires me to put more effort to produce more quality research that will bring excellent distinction to CIMMYT and myself,” said Kassie, while Ndiritu said “it is an encouragement to a young scientist,” adding that he is looking forward to having the paper published.

The winning science paper, ‘Assessing the vulnerability of traditional maize seed systems in Mexico to climate change’, was authored by David Hodson (FAO), and Mauricio Bellon (Bioversity) and Jonathan Hellin from CIMMYT. With climate change models predicting significant impacts in Mexico and Central America, particularly during the maize growing season (May – October), the paper assessed the capacity of traditional maize seed systems to provide farmers with appropriate genetic material, under the anticipated agro-ecological conditions. Their results indicated that whilst most farmers will have easy access to appropriate seed in the future, those in the highlands will be more vulnerable to climate change and are likely to have to source seed from outside their traditional supplies, entailing significant additional costs and changes to the traditional supply chain.

To share the good news, the Socioeconomics program hosted a get-together with the team in Nairobi, Kenya. During the cake cutting ceremony, the best gender paper award was dedicated to women farmers from Embu and Kakamega in Kenya’s Eastern and Western Provinces, where the data was collected. The Nairobi team also took the opportunity to initiate monthly seminars in order to share research findings hosted by the Global Maize Program and the Socioeconomics program and promote regular interaction among the team. The program directors, Bekele Shiferaw and B. M. Prasanna nominated Dan Makumbi, Hugo De Groote, Sika Gbegbelegbe, Fred Kanampiu, and Sarah Kibera, to form the organizing committee for the seminars.

Earliest Mexican wheats supply latest useful traits

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features.

CIMMYT E-News, vol 5 no. 6, June 2008

jun05 Centuries ago, Spanish monks brought wheat to Mexico to use in Roman Catholic religious ceremonies. The genetic heritage of some of these “sacramental wheats” lives on in farmers’ fields. CIMMYT researchers have led the way in collecting and characterizing these first wheats, preserving their biodiversity and using them as sources of traits like disease resistance and drought tolerance.

“I’d say to Bent: ‘Let’s look for the cemetery,’ ” recalls Julio Huerta, CIMMYT wheat pathologist, of his trips to villages in Mexico with his late colleague Bent Skovmand, CIMMYT wheat genetic resource expert. “And the sacramental wheats would be there, sometimes hundreds of types.”

The first wheat was brought to Mexico in 1523 around the area now occupied by Mexico City. The crop soon spread outside the central plateau with the help of Catholic monks: it traveled to the state of Michoacán in the 1530s with the Franciscans, while the Dominicans took wheat to the state of Oaxaca in 1540 and gave grains to the native inhabitants to produce flour for unleavened bread used during Roman Catholic religious ceremonies. “Still today, many church ornaments in Michoacán have wheat straw in them,” says Huerta.

Huerta and Skovmand went on sacramental wheat-gathering expeditions in 19 Mexican states. “Many people thought we were just collecting trash,” he says. “But we wanted to collect sacramental wheats before they disappeared. I’m not that surprised that some have very valuable attributes for breeding programs.”

Farmers in Mexico and elsewhere face water shortages and rising temperatures due to climate change. CIMMYT scientists are looking to sacramental wheats as one source of drought-tolerance. Field trials at the center’s Cuidad Obregón wheat research facility show some sacramental wheats have better early ground cover, quickly covering the soil and safeguarding moisture from evaporating. Others have enhanced levels of soluble stem carbohydrates which help fill the wheat grain even under drought, while some show better water uptake in deep soils thanks to their deep roots.

As farmers gain access to improved varieties or migrate to cities, sacramental wheats are disappearing from fields. With the hope of conserving these rare and valuable varieties, Huerta and Skovmand started collecting them in 1992, collaborating with the Mexican National Institute for Forestry, Agriculture, and Livestock Research (INIFAP) and supported by the Mexican Organization for the Study of Biodiversity (CONABIO). Their efforts were not in vain—10,000 samples from 249 sites in Mexico were added to the CIMMYT germplasm bank, and duplicate samples deposited in the INIFAP germplasm bank.

Only the strongest survive

The deep volcanic soils of Los Altos de Mixteca, Oaxaca, and the dry conditions in some parts of Mexico were not ideal for growing wheat. “If the wheats didn’t have deep roots and it didn’t rain, they were dead,” says CIMMYT wheat physiologist, Matthew Reynolds. The wheat genotypes that survived for centuries were perhaps the ones with drought-tolerance traits for which farmers selected. “Say the farmer had a mixture of sacramental wheats that looked reasonably similar—similar enough that he could manage them but diverse enough to adapt to local conditions,” explains Reynolds. “One year certain lines would do better than others and the farmer might harvest just the best-looking plants to sow the next year.”

jun01

Sacramental wheats often grew in isolated rural areas, meaning that some never crossed with other varieties, leaving their genetic heritage intact. They are often tall and closely adapted to local conditions, according to Huerta, and farmers who still grow them say they taste better than modern varieties.

Reynolds is combining the old and the new—crossing improved modern cultivars with sacramental wheats to obtain their drought-tolerance attributes. “We now have several lines that are candidates for international nurseries,” he says. “They’ll go to South Asia and North Africa, and will be especially useful for regions with deep soils and residual moisture.”

Old wheats come back in style

In 2001, a new leaf rust race appeared on Altar 84, the most widely-grown wheat cultivar in Sonora State, Mexico. The CIMMYT wheat genetic resources program immediately looked for sources of resistance in the germplasm bank. The durum collection of sacramental wheats from Oaxaca, Mexico, proved extremely useful: all but one displayed minor gene or major gene resistance to the new leaf rust race, confirming that sacramental wheats are a valuable breeding resource.

CIMMYT researchers are still unlocking the potential of sacramental wheats. “We started to characterize them for resistance to leaf and yellow rust, and the collections from the state of Mexico for wheat head scab and Septoria,” says Huerta. We were surprised to find many, many resistant lines. “But until we finish characterizing all of them, we won’t know what else is there.”

For more information on sacramental wheats: Julio Huerta, wheat pathologist (j.huerta@cgiar.org) or Matthew Reynolds, wheat physiologist, ( m.reynolds@cgiar.org).

Global partnership protects Africa’s maize from parasitic plant

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features.

CIMMYT E-News, vol 5 no. 9, September 2008

sep01 Looks can deceive. Striga, a deadly parasitic plant, produces a lovely flower but sucks the life and yields out of crops across Africa and Asia. A new strain of improved maize seed is helping farmers reclaim their invaded crop lands.

Striga, which typically attacks cereal crops, launches its takeover from the ground up: its deadly seedlings attach to sprouting maize plants and begin siphoning off water and nutrients before either plant emerges from the soil. The parasite also poisons its host, further stifling crop development.

Worse, Striga seems to seek out the farmers least suited to control it.

“Striga thrives in low-fertility soils, which are typically owned by the poorest farmers,” says Fred Kanampiu, CIMMYT maize agronomist. National experts estimate 14% of the maize area in sub-Saharan Africa is infested with Striga, amounting to 3.64 million hectares.

Big benefits seen for Kenya

Work by a multilateral partnership has resulted in a promising Striga control measure that has recently started moving from the laboratory to farmers’ fields. The practice is based on a type of maize with a natural mutation that allows it to resist the chemical imidazolinone—active ingredient in many herbicides. Seeds of this imidazolinone-resistant (IR) maize are coated with a herbicide and, when sown, the coated seed kills sprouting Striga, allowing the crop to flourish.

“Economic studies estimate that if a third of the Striga-infested area were planted with herbicide-coated seed, benefits to farmers in Kenya would be between USD 51 million and 102 million, after production costs,” says Kanampiu, who coordinates the Striga Management Project. “This would be topped off by a yield effect of similar magnitude, because the herbicide resistance comes in seed of improved, locally-adapted varieties.”

A complex, multilateral effort

The idea of using herbicide-resistant maize to control Striga was first proposed by the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel in the 1990s. CIMMYT worked with that organization, as well as the Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), BASF, the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), non-governmental organizations, and seed companies including Pioneer to develop, evaluate, and spread the practice, particularly among small-scale farmers for whom other control methods, such as spraying, are expensive or impractical. A key part of the work involved developing high-yielding, locally-adapted maize varieties that were also herbicide tolerant. The coating method was fine-tuned by Weizmann and the company Hi-Cap Formulations.

Support for more recent tests and promotion came from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the Rockefeller Foundation. By 2006 CIMMYT and KARI scientists had provided almost 300 herbicide-tolerant maize varieties for regional testing. Studies in randomly-selected farmers’ fields showed that with 30 grams (a little more than 1 ounce) of imazapyr herbicide per hectare as a seed coat in heavily infested fields, Striga was reduced by 81% and farmers enjoyed a 63% net return.

sept02

Striga meets its match

“The IR-maize reduces the Striga seed bank in the soil, lessening the need for future Striga control measures,” says Gospel Omanya, a Stewardship Manager from AATF, which is leading region-wide public awareness campaigns, field testing, and risk assessment. In addition, smallholder farmers who have tested the new maize and seed-coating practice on their land have obtained as much as a five-fold increase in grain yield.

Positive results like these led to the release of five IR varieties to farmers in Kenya, and nine other varieties are in performance evaluations for eventual release in Tanzania and Uganda.

More than 50,000 packages of IR-maize seed were distributed to farmers at 140 locations in Kenya for comparison with other Striga control practices. AATF surveyed more than 5,000 farmers and found they overwhelming favored the IR-maize seed. At least 10 seed companies, including Western Seed Company in Kenya and Tanseed International in Tanzania, are using IR maize and 60 tons of certified seed were marketed during 2007-2008.

“It was years of intense research and collaboration between partners dedicated to a unified objective, in addition to a willingness to invest human and financial resources, that allowed this concept to become a reality,” says Kanampiu. “The practice offers real, life-changing benefits for subsistence farmers like many in western Kenya, who tend 1.5 hectare plots of mostly maize just to feed their families. Their crops are normally so decimated by Striga that they harvest barely enough.”

Meanwhile, CIMMYT is working with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), a leader in the effort to identify and breed maize strains that contain genetic resistance to Striga. The aim is to offer farmers yet another way of controlling this lovely but lethal pest.

For more information, contact Fred Kanampiu (f.kanampiu@cgiar.org).

Improved maize varieties and partnerships welcomed in Bhutan

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features.

CIMMYT E-News, vol 5 no. 11, November 2008

nov02 Sandwiched between China and India, the Kingdom of Bhutan is a small country that relies on maize in a big way. But maize yields are typically low due to crop diseases, drought, and poor access to seed of improved varieties, among other reasons. CIMMYT is committed to improving Bhutan’s food security by providing high-yielding, pest-resistant maize varieties to farmers and capacity-building for local scientists.

“If there is no maize there is nothing to eat,” says Mr. S. Naitein, who farms maize on half a hectare of land in Bhutan. But it’s not easy to grow, he says, citing challenges such as animals (monkeys and wild boars), insects, poor soil fertility, drought, poor access to improved seed varieties, and crop diseases like gray leaf spot (GLS) and turcicum leaf blight (TLB).

But since planting Yangtsipa—an improved maize variety derived from Suwan-1, a variety introduced from CIMMYT’s former regional maize program in Thailand—Naitein has seen a real improvement in his maize yields. The local maize variety yielded 1,700 kilograms per hectare, whereas Yangtsipa gave him 2,400 kilograms per hectare, a 40% yield increase.

“It’s no wonder that Yangtsipa is by far the most popular improved variety among Bhutanese farmers,” says Guillermo Ortiz-Ferrara, CIMMYT regional cereal breeder posted in Nepal. “Nonetheless, many local varieties of maize still occupy large areas of the country and don’t yield well.”

Maize is a staple food in Bhutan. Many people eat Tengma (pounded maize) as a snack with a cup of tea and Kharang (maize grits) are also popular. “Among the food crops, maize plays a critical role in household food security, especially for the poor,” says Ortiz-Ferrara. About 38% of the rural Bhutanese population lives below the poverty line and some 37,000 households cultivate maize. It’s estimated that 80% of this maize is consumed at the household level, according to Bhutan’s Renewable Natural Resources Research Center (RNRRC).

Leaf us alone: CIMMYT maize varieties help combat foliar diseases

Many farmers in Bhutan have been struggling with crop diseases that cut maize yields. “The recent outbreak of gray leaf spot and turcicum leaf blight affected 4,193 households and destroyed over 1,940 hectares of maize crop,” says Thakur Prasad Tiwari, agronomist with CIMMYT-Nepal. He estimates that maize is grown on 31,160 hectares in the country.

Gray leaf spot is a devastating leaf disease that is spreading fast in the hills of Bhutan and Nepal. To deal with this threat, CIMMYT sent more than 75 maize varieties with possible resistance to GLS and TLB to Bhutan in 2007. Tapping into the resources of its global network of research stations, CIMMYT sent seed from Colombia, Zimbabwe, and Mexico that was planted in GLS and TLB ‘hot spot’ locations in the country.

Ortiz-Ferrara and Tiwari then worked with Tirtha Katwal, national maize coordinator-Bhutan, and his team to evaluate these materials for their resistance.

“Together we identified the top performing lines for gray leaf spot and turcicum leaf blight which will be excellent candidates for Bhutan’s maize breeding program,” says Ortiz-Ferrara. “We are now combining their disease resistance with Yangtsipa, because we know it is high-yielding and well-adapted to Bhutan.”

Kevin Pixley, associate director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program, helped to develop a detailed breeding scheme or work plan for Bhutan’s national GLS breeding program. “We want to provide capacity-building for local maize scientists so they themselves can identify and breed varieties that show resistance to crop diseases,” he says.

“We feel more confident in moving forward with the next steps in our breeding program,” said Katwal. He and his team also attended a training course on seed production, de-tasselling, and pollination given by Dr. K.K. Lal, former CIMMYT maize trainee and former chief of the Seed Quality Control Center at the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoAC) in Nepal.

nov03

That’s what friends are for: CIMMYT, Nepal, and Bhutan collaboration

In 2001, Bhutan began collaborating on maize research with CIMMYT-Nepal, the National Maize Research Program (NMRP) of Nepal, and the Hill Maize Research project (HMRP) funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in Nepal. The terrain and agro-climatic conditions of Bhutan and the Nepalese highland are similar, meaning that technologies adapted for Nepal will likely work well in neighboring Bhutan.

CIMMYT aims to facilitate regional and national partnerships that benefit farmers. For instance, during the past 7 years CIMMYT-Nepal has worked with NMRP and RNRRP to introduce 12 open-pollinated varieties (OPVs) to Bhutan. These modern varieties yield more than the local varieties whose seed farmers save to sow from year to year. Included in these 12 OPVs were several quality protein maize (QPM) varieties; these have nearly twice as much usable protein as other traditional varieties of maize.

nov04 “Our CIMMYT office in Nepal has assisted Bhutan with maize and wheat genetic material, technical backstopping, training, visiting scientist exchange, and in identifying key consultants on research topics such as grey leaf spot and seed production,” says Tiwari.

Simply put, CIMMYT has useful contacts. For example, at the request of Bhutan’s Renewable Natural Resources Research Center (RNRRC), CIMMYT-Nepal put forward Dr. Carlos De Leon, former CIMMYT regional maize pathologist, to conduct a course on identifying and controlling maize diseases in February 2007. In September 2008, CIMMYT and HMRP also recommended two researchers (Dr. K.B. Koirala and Mr. Govinda K.C.) from Nepal’s NMRP to give a course on farmer participatory research that has been successful in the dissemination of new technologies.

“Ultimately, our goal is to improve the food security and livelihood of rural households through increased productivity and sustainability of the maize-based cropping system,” says Thakur Prasad Tiwari.

For information: Guillermo Ortiz-Ferrara, cereal breeder, CIMMYT-Nepal (g.ortiz-ferrara@cgiar.org) or Thakur Prasad Tiwari, agronomist, CIMMYT-Nepal (tptiwari@mos.com.np)

Biotech in Bogor

Written by on May 14, 2012. Posted in Features.

CIMMYT E-News, vol 2 no. 11, November 2005

indo2 Young Indonesian researchers are reaping the benefits of collaboration with CIMMYT and at the same time helping farmers in their country.

It could be a biotech laboratory almost anywhere in the world, but this one is the Indonesian Center for Agriculture Biotechnology and Genetic Resources Research and Development in Bogor, Indonesia. What makes it remarkable is that just ten years ago Indonesia had virtually no agricultural biotechnology capacity at all. At the lab benches, in standard issue white lab coats, two of Indonesia’s brightest students, each with a strong commitment to helping their country, are doing the painstaking work that molecular biology requires and their PhD supervisors demand.

Marcia Pabendon is doing a maize diversity study, using DNA fingerprinting to identify maize germplasm from diverse sources to use as parents in a breeding program to find resistance for downy mildew and drought tolerance. These are the two most serious production constraints for maize in Indonesia, where half of all maize is grown in dry land areas. By analyzing the DNA she can be sure male and female parents in the breeding program are not closely related, which is detrimental to the hybrids.

Mohamed Azrai wants to convert local maize varieties into quality protein maize, maize with higher levels of the amino acids lysine and tryptophan, which occur at low levels in most maize and could result in protein deficiencies for anyone who relies heavily on maize in their diet. “I want my research to result in quality protein maize varieties that farmers will use,” he says. “Maybe quality protein maize can help solve the problem of protein malnutrition on my country.”

indonesia1 “This is the untold story of the quiet biotech revolution going on in maize breeding in Asia,” says CIMMYT’s Luz George. “It is a successful transfer of technology from CIMMYT to developing countries which has now found direct application in the work of national program maize breeders.”

It began with the Asian Maize Biotechnology Network, AMBIONET, which was funded by the Asian Development Bank and which George coordinated. K.R. Surtrisno, the Director of the biotech center in Bogor, says the capacity enhancement the network provided was vitally important. “The network has given us, through CIMMYT, genotype data and training in mapping. Now the government of Indonesia has made a commitment to support and improve our facility, just in time to do useful work for farmers.”

His thoughts are echoed by Marsum Dahlan, the head of the Breeding and Germplasm section of the Indonesian Cereals Research institute. “When AMBIONET came we thought not only to help farmers but also to create capacity,” he says. “This technology will help us, though we must still combine it with tests in the field.”

AMBIONET and the work with CIMMYT have proven very valuable to agricultural biotechnology in Indonesia. “Even though the AMBIONET program is over, we still maintain collaboration with CIMMYT,” says Surtrisno. That is good news for Indonesia and good news for promising young researchers like Mohamed and Marcia.

For further information, contact Luz George (m.george@cgiar.org).