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research: Genetic resources

CIMMYT mourns the passing of Bent Skovmand

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After years of battling illness, former CIMMYT scientist Bent Skovmand died on 06 February 2007 in KĂ€vlinge, Sweden, at the age of 62. Born in Frederiksberg, Denmark, Skovmand did his undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Minnesota, USA, obtaining a PhD in plant pathology, with a minor in genetics and plant breeding, in 1976. That same year he joined CIMMYT as a postdoctoral fellow with the Wheat Program, working as a breeder and pathologist. After a four-year posting in Turkey, in 1988 he assumed leadership of the Wheat Genetic Resources Unit, where he remained until leaving CIMMYT in early 2004 for an appointment as Director of the Nordic Gene Bank. Known for his mordant humor and enthusiasm for science, Bent will be sorely missed by all who knew him. The CIMMYT community sends its sincere condolences to his wife, Eugenia, and their children.

Published February 2007.

From labs to farmer’s lots: mapping impact pathways for CIMMYT

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How do CIMMYT research products reach farmers, and how can we make that happen better, more quickly, and more often? Those are a few of the issues that CIMMYT staff, with logistical and technical support from the Impacts Targeting and Assessment Unit (ITAU), gathered to consider at a workshop in El BatĂĄn during 11-14 December 2006.

“We got together to specify pathways for the 8 CIMMYT projects, considering the problems they’re addressing and the networks within which they operate,” says Sofia Álvarez, impact assessment specialist from CIAT who facilitated the workshop.

Outputs included network maps and diagrams known as “problem and objective trees.” According to Álvarez, the trick was to strike the middle ground between too generic and too specific. “We hope that people will be able to use the tools and methodologies they acquired here to go deeper into specific products for specific regions.”

Álvarez was particularly impressed with the fact that CIMMYT staff were so concerned about achieving impacts in farmers’ fields. “I thought it would be less likely for, say, scientists in the Genetic Resources and Enhancement Unit to be thinking about impacts. That probably has to do partly with the pro-active work of the ITAU, which has gotten them thinking about things that I don’t know if even other centers are thinking about.”

Visit to the maize and wheat germplasm bank

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M.C. Vidal FernĂĄndez, one teacher, and 10 students from De Roque Technological Institute, Advanced studies on seed, Celaya, Guanajuato. Our colleagues VĂ­ctor H. ChĂĄvez and Eduardo HernĂĄndez guided the visitors through the facilities of the bank to show them innovative approaches to safeguard plant genetic resources, the economic importance of seed, and proper storage methods.

Visit builds links with China

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On Friday, November 17, El BatĂĄn played host to a delegation from the National Nature Science Foundation of China (NSFC), accompanied by Zhong-Hu He, regional wheat coordinator for East Asia based at CIMMYT China. The visitors were Jie Wang, Vice President, Feng Feng, Deputy Director General (life science department), and Yinglan Zhang, Division Director (department of international collaboration).

The visit aimed to develop collaborative research projects between scientists from NSFC and CIMMYT’s wheat and maize programs and genetic resources and enhancement unit. Priority research areas include durable disease resistance, yield potential and grain quality in wheat, and disease resistance, drought tolerance, and high oil content in maize.

The visitors met with key scientists from headquarters for presentations and discussions. The group also saw CIMMYT’s work in action, visiting the Plant Genetic Resources Center, the biotechnology laboratories, the Crop Research Informatics Laboratory, and the Grain Quality Laboratory. On Saturday, November 18, the group spent the day at Tlaltizapán experiment station, where the research focus is on breeding mid-altitude and subtropical maize.

Paper wins award

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A scientific paper which includes among its authors CIMMYT scientists Jose Crossa, Suketoshi Taba and Uruguayan researcher and CIMMYT partner Jorge Franco has been given an award by the prestigious journal, Crop Science as one of the three outstanding papers of 2005 in plant genetic resources.

The paper is titled “A Sampling Strategy for Conserving Genetic Diversity when Forming Core Subsets” and furthers the science of genetic resource conservation statistics, a science in which this team is a world leader.

In 2005, 31 papers were eligible. An awards committee selected the three outstanding plant genetic resources papers by secret ballot. Reviewers identified outstanding papers based on scientific merit and innovation in discovery of novel agronomic genes from exotic germplasm by classical or molecular methods, statistical or molecular methods for quantifying genetic diversity, methods to improve germplasm regeneration and maintenance, and new approaches in the study of genetic diversity.

This is the second year in a row a paper from CIMMYT has won this award. Congratulations!

Outcomes of Nairobi MC and Board meetings

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The management committee (MC) met in Nairobi, 28-29 September, prior to the Board of Trustees meeting, and had an excellent discussion on research planning, resource allocation, and budgeting processes in CIMMYT. The CGIAR Science Council requires centers to plan, budget, and implement all research activities within the context of the medium-term plan (MTP) Projects. For this and other reasons, the MC agreed in Nairobi on some new policies and procedures with regard to research priority setting, research planning, resource allocations, and budgeting.

The previous portfolio of 11 MTP Projects has been reduced to 8, with each director responsible for two:
P1: Genetic resources (GREU, Jonathan Crouch)
P2: Breeding tools (GREU, Jonathan Crouch)
P3: Abiotic and biotic stress maize (Marianne BĂ€nziger)
P4: Quality and specialty maize (Marianne BĂ€nziger)
P7: Water use efficient wheat (Hans Braun)
P8: Wheat yield and quality (Hans Braun)
P10: Maize and wheat systems (John Dixon)
P11: Impacts and targeting (John Dixon)

The regional maize Projects (Africa and Latin America/ Asia) have been rolled into trait-based Projects. The wheat Projects have been aggregated along with the core aspects of conservation agriculture applicable to both maize and wheat systems. The latter will be managed as a cross-cutting Project, similar to the impacts and targeting Project. The numbering for the Projects retained is the same as in the MTP, following CGIAR requirements. Directors will explain in greater detail the implications of the changes, particularly with respect to restricted projects that may be re-allocated. Apart from bringing CIMMYT in line with Science Council requirements, the changes more closely align our flagship products with the Projects that deliver them.

Mexican authorities monitor seed health at CIMMYT

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On August 9 and 10 the Seed Health Laboratory received an inspection from the Direction General of the Phytosanitary Office (dependence of SAGARPA). This is a yearly routine for the lab, which operates under Mexican regulations for laboratories that apply quarantine procedures on imported seed and conduct seed testing to obtain the International Phytosanitary Certificate for exported seed.

In a few days, the Mexican Phytosanitary Office will report officially to CIMMYT regarding outcomes of this inspection. However, I feel safe to say that, despite a few tough moments, the two inspectors found no serious examples of non-compliance and had no objections about our quarantine procedure. Therefore I would like to thank the seed health laboratory staff who helped me on this occasion and all those who carefully and correctly labeled the introduced materials being grown in the field. ISO accreditation is progressing, but these routine inspections are additional.

Asian Cereals Conference

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The 2nd Central Asian Cereals Conference took place on June 13-16, 2006 in Aurora Sanatorium near Cholpon-Ata town of Issyk-Kul Lake region in the Kyrgyz Republic. The Lake Issyk-Kul is a natural pearl of the country and the region. Surrounded by the mountains at the altitude of almost 1600 m it is a memorable location. The natural beauty of the mountains and the lake contributed to the productive atmosphere of the conference of which CIMMYT was a co-organizer.

The main conference objective was to assess the status of research and cooperation on cereals in Central Asia in the fields of cereals breeding, genetics, physiology, seed production, grain quality, plant protection, biotechnology, cultivation technologies under irrigated and rainfed conditions, and genetic resources including information exchange between scientists from Central Asia and foreign countries.

There were 210 participants from 17 countries, including the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Western countries. Representatives came from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Turkey, Belgium, Australia, USA, Brazil, Mexico, Syria, Nepal, UAE, and Zimbabwe. Sanjaya Rajaram (ICARDA CIMMYT Wheat Program) and Alexei Morgounov (Regional Representative of CIMMYT in CAC, Kazakhstan but now at the CIMMYT office in Turkey) attended and spoke at the event.

During the technical researchers and crop science specialists reported on achievements and current research conducted at their institutions and on the progress in joint international projects with, among others, CIMMYT and ICARDA.

Wheat genetic resource experts at CIMMYT plot global strategy

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The world’s keepers of wheat genetic resources must provide better access to seed and information from their collections, as well as meeting the rising demand for wheat’s wild relatives, DNA mapping populations, and genetic stocks. These conclusions emerged from a meeting of 12 internationally respected experts on the genetic resources of wheat, rye, and triticale. The specialists—who came from Asia, Europe, Australia, and North America—gathered at CIMMYT in Mexico 20-22 June 2006 to develop a global strategy for the conservation and use of the genetic resources of wheat and related species.

Participants decided on five priorities to reach the goals above: (1) developing an integrated information system on the world’s collections; (2) addressing deficiencies in the management of important collections; (3) ensuring that key collections are adequately backed-up; (4) addressing gaps in the genetic diversity conserved in global collections, with particular emphasis on wild relatives; and (5) augmenting collections of genetic stocks—materials that contain specific genetic characters, genes, or gene constructs.

The meeting was sponsored by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, an initiative founded by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI). “Wheat is probably the largest and most important crop, in terms of number of collections and accessions conserved by national programs around the world,” says Brigitte LalibertĂ©, scientist at the Trust, which seeks to ensure the conservation and availability of crop diversity for food security worldwide. “The proposed global wheat conservation strategy will guide the allocation of funds from the Trust to secure key reference collections in perpetuity.”

Payne on the radio

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payne en el radioTom Payne, head of the CIMMYT wheat collection in the Wellhausen-Anderson Genetic Resources Center will be heard on the stations of National Public Radio in the United States later this month. He was interviewed this week for a story about the launching of a new genebank project in Norway. The interview was conducted over the telephone by NPR journalist Dan Charles from a studio in Washington DC. NPR sent their Mexico City journalist, Karina Pais to record Tom’s answers to the questions.

Norway announced that it will dig a large cave deep inside a frozen mountain on the arctic island of Svalbard with the capacity to hold copies of all the world’s crop seed varieties. Norway says the arctic cold will provide a failsafe backup for the world’s major genebanks, like the one at CIMMYT, which depend on electricity to keep their refrigeration equipment running. The Norwegian project is expected to be ready in 2007.

Conserving the genetic heritage of maize

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Experts from around the world met at headquarters this week to begin hammering out a strategy to ensure the long-term conservation of the genetic diversity of maize, a central pillar of humanity’s food security. Pivotal to this issue is the well-being of gene banks. Both national and international gene banks have not fared well, as investment in public sector agricultural research has steadily declined and fierce competition for dwindling resources in the agricultural sciences has risen.

The meeting, sponsored by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, the World Bank, and CIMMYT, was called to initiate a global response to this growing crisis, with nothing less at stake than the survival of the genetic heritage of this essential crop. At a time when molecular genetics opens new opportunities daily to exploit genetic resources carrying resistance to combat plant diseases, insect pests, and threats such as drought, soil salinity, and heat stress, collecting and preserving the basic sources of resistance traits takes on added importance.

Given the global distribution and subsequent evolution of maize, the job is too large for a single institution or nation—thus the need for a broad-based solution, says maize genetics expert and meeting co-organizer Major Goodman of North Carolina State University.

“With the experience and expertise at this meeting,” says Suketoshi Taba, director of the CIMMYT maize gene bank, “we are posed to discuss and make recommendations, based on ground-level reality, to address the threats to conserving the genetic treasures of maize and to focus our efforts and resources.”

 

 

Published 2006

Minister visits

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Mr. M.K. Anwar, Minister of Agriculture for Bangladesh visited CIMMYT for two days this week. In addition to a welcome presentation by the Director General, he toured the Genebank, Biotech, and Cereal Quality labs and saw the Crop Research Informatics Lab (CRIL). The minister noted that wheat production in Bangladesh was declining and hoped CIMMYT could assist in solving the leaf blight problem plaguing Bangladeshi wheat farmers. CIMMYT is currently working with the Bangladesh Wheat Research Centre on this problem.

A World Tour: Program Director Profile

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CIMMYT E-News, vol 2 no. 7, July 2005

JCrouchNow that all of CIMMYT’s new program directors have been officially installed, it is time to get acquainted with them, as well as their ideas and plans for the programs. This month we feature Jonathan Crouch, director of the Genetic Resources Program.

“Probably the best drought team in the world,” raves Jonathan Crouch, director of CIMMYT’s Genetic Resources Program, referring to his new CIMMYT colleagues. Ever since working in the Negev desert breeding heat and salinity tolerant potatoes, Crouch has been interested in harnessing biotechnologies for improving dryland agriculture. “There are many exciting advances in genomics that now offer the possibility of helping to breed better crops for these harsh environments” he says.

He started his career, however, in a very different environment, the swamps of West Africa, using tissue culture and molecular markers in the breeding of plantains and bananas at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria. Soon realizing that he needed more practical experience in plant breeding, he joined the private sector to set up a European canola breeding program. This gave him a better perspective of the realities of biotechnologies in modern crop breeding. From there, going to the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), it was obvious that in many developing countries a chasm exists between the outputs of international public goods research and the inputs of private sector product development. “By working with the private sector, we hope to populate that gap with interdisciplinary scientists, who will bring prestige to this area of research,” says Crouch, who also champions a similar approach in his half-time position in the management group of the Generation Challenge Programme.

The Genetic Resources program aims to foster more diverse and intimate relationships with multinational corporations and small- and medium-sized enterprises. “We also want to build a strong product development pipeline from the genebank to the farmer. The Genetic Resources program will start the reaction, which will then reach farmers through our regional programs and national partners, giving them the traits and tools they need.”

This global research program houses three important aspects of CIMMYT’s work—the maize and wheat genebanks, the biotechnology group, and prebreeding activities, which create suitable starting material for plant breeding programs from tens of thousands of possible unimproved plants. Crouch is excited about this organizational unit, the first of its kind in the CGIAR: “It offers tremendous opportunities for capturing synergies in all disciplines. The regional programs identify priorities, such as drought tolerance, and we work on identifying novel useful genetic variation and the tools required to efficiently manipulate it.”

And considering he is building on CIMMYT’s existing legacy of quality biotechnological science, Crouch’s confidence in this program is not unfounded.

A World Tour: Program Director Profiles

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noticias4Now that all of CIMMYT’s new program directors have been officially installed, it is time to get acquainted with them, as well as their ideas and plans for the programs. This month we feature Marianne BĂ€nziger, director of the African Livelihoods Program.

She recently made history by becoming CIMMYT’s first ever female director, yet Marianne BĂ€nziger, director of the African Livelihoods Program (ALP), refers to herself as “a smallholder farmer at heart.” Fortunate, then, that she heads a program with smallholder African farmers at its heart.

The ALP is one of CIMMYT’s largest and most multifaceted programs, working in and for a continent where, despite strides in agriculture in the rest of the world, food security still eludes 150 million people. “African agriculture continues to struggle under the interrelated constraints in infrastructure, education, politics, policies, technology, and health issues,” says BĂ€nziger, speaking from nearly a decade’s experience living and working in the continent. “However, through combined efforts, Africa could solve its food security issues, and even become a net exporter of goods originating from a vibrant agricultural sector,” she says.

BĂ€nziger has a track record of building strong teams from diverse quarters. She envisions the ALP as drawing on and focusing CIMMYT’s maize and wheat expertise to improve the livelihoods of the smallholder farmer in Africa. “It’s people who must power the process, so our program puts effective partnerships at the fore of its agenda,” she says. She expects ALP impacts to show up soon in several key areas, including:

  • New maize varieties and production packages that stabilize and increase farm-level productivity, improve nutrition, help farmers deal with climate and market variability, add value, and replenish natural resources.
  • Partnerships with other researchers, farming communities, extension staff, policy makers and civil society at large to increase resource-poor farmers’ access to input and produce markets.
  • An “honest broker” approach on genetically modified food crops.
  • True enhancement of Africa’s human and institutional capacities.

After spending much of her childhood on a 14-hectare farm in the hills of her native Switzerland, BĂ€nziger joined the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, where she earned BSc, MSc, and PhD degrees, the latter in crop physiology in 1992. She joined CIMMYT as a postdoctoral fellow soon afterwards. In 1996, she was posted to the center’s research program in Zimbabwe—the first female scientist of the organization to work in a regional program—where she launched the Southern Africa Drought and Low Soil Fertility (SADLF) project. As part of this, she coordinated the work of CIMMYT and partners to develop improved, drought tolerant maize varieties for small-scale farmers in Africa. Always keeping the small-scale farmer in mind, she fostered the adoption of new approaches whereby breeders replicate farmers’ actual constraints on research stations and farmers take part in varietal testing and selection. The “stress-breeding” methodology and “mother-baby” participatory trials have spread to 16 countries in eastern and southern Africa. Most importantly, enough seed of the drought-tolerant maize, which yields 30% more than previously-sown varieties under dry conditions, has been produced to sow a million hectares in southern Africa alone in 2005.

Often asked whether gender has constrained her career, BĂ€nziger responds philosophically: “As a newcomer in any field, you have to establish your credentials, irrespective of your gender. In Africa, I find myself in the company of many strong, high-ranking, and well respected women in various professions.” This year BĂ€nziger relocated to the CIMMYT-ALP office in Nairobi, Kenya. “Wherever I am, I will continue doing my bit to help smallholder farmers in Africa achieve their hopes for the future—a decent standard of living, a better life for their children, and independence from food aid,” she says.