The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is offering a new set of elite, improved maize hybrids to partners for commercialization in the tropical lowlands of Latin America and similar agro-ecological zones. National agricultural research systems (NARS) and seed companies are invited to apply for licenses to commercialize these new hybrids, in order to bring the benefits of the improved seed to farming communities. In some countries, depending on the applicable regulatory framework for commercial maize seed, successful applicants may first need to sponsor the products through the national registration / release process prior to commercialization.
The deadline to submit applications to be considered during the first round of allocations is September17, 2021. Applications received after that deadline will be considered during the following round of product allocations.
Information about the newly available CIMMYT maize hybrids from the Latin America breeding program, application instructions and other relevant material is available in the CIMMYT Maize Product Catalog and in the links provided below.
Applications must be accompanied by a proposed commercialization plan for each product being requested. Applications may be submitted online via the CIMMYT Maize Licensing Portal in English or Spanish.
Alternatively, applications may be submitted via email to GMP-CIMMYT@cgiar.org using the PDF forms available for download at the links below. Each applicant will need to complete one copy of Form A for their organization, then for each hybrid being requested a separate copy of Form B. (Please be sure to use these current versions of the application forms.)
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This month smallholder farmers in Myanmar’s central dry zones will be able to access drought-tolerant hybrid maize for the first time. The variety, known as TA5085, was jointly developed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and Syngenta, and has been commercially registered as ASC 108 by Ayeryarwady Seed in Myanmar. An initial, two-acre seed production pilot by Ayeyarwady Seed resulted in a yield of 1.2 tons per acre.
TA5085 was developed as an International Public Good as part of the decade-long Affordable, Accessible, Asian (“AAA”) Drought-Tolerant Maize project, a public-private partnership between CIMMYT and Syngenta and funded by the Syngenta Foundation. The project aims to make tropical maize hybrids accessible to Asian smallholders, especially those producing under rain-fed conditions in drought-prone areas.
An ear of the ASC 108 “AAA” drought-tolerant hybrid maize variety. (Photo: Soe Than/Ayeyarwady Seed)
“AAA maize is not just a product,” said B.S. Vivek, regional maize breeding coordinator and principal scientist at CIMMYT. “The development of affordable and accessible drought-tolerant maize hybrids helps drive the maize seed market in underserved maize markets in Asia.”
TA5084, the previous iteration of this variety, was first commercialized in central India, where climate change is driving rising temperatures and increasingly erratic rainfall. From 2018 to 2020, TA5084 adoption in the region grew from 900 to 8,000 farmers. In 2020, 120 metric tons of AAA-maize were planted on 6,000 hectares in central India. Farmers who switched to TA5084 earned an average of $100/ha more than those using conventional maize.
“Despite the unprecedented challenges we all faced in 2020, AAA hybrid maize sales more than doubled from the previous year, to 120 tons,” said Herve Thieblemont, head of Seeds2B Asia and Mekong Director at the Syngenta Foundation. “I’m delighted to report that the second country to introduce AAA maize is Myanmar. Our local seed partner Ayeyarwady Seed recently completed the registration and will proceed with the first sales this coming season.”
The AAA initiative is one of the few examples of a public-private partnership delivering International Public Goods benefiting smallholders in central India and now Myanmar. The chosen regions are rainfed and drought-prone. Seed marketing in these regions is considered risky and unpredictable, disincentivizing multinationals and large seed companies from entering the market.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has released a set of 12 new maize lines adapted to the tropical environments targeted by CIMMYT and partner institutions.
Maize ears of the newly released set of CIMMYT maize lines. (Photo: CIMMYT)
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is pleased to announce the release of a set of 12 new CIMMYT maize lines (CMLs). These lines were developed at various breeding locations of CIMMYT’s Global Maize program by a multi-disciplinary team of scientists in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. The lines are adapted to the tropical maize production environments targeted by CIMMYT and partner institutions.
CIMMYT seeks to develop improved maize inbred lines in different product profiles, with superior performance and multiple stress tolerance to improve maize productivity for smallholder farmers. CMLs are released after intensive evaluation in hybrid combinations under various abiotic and biotic stresses, besides optimum conditions. Suitability as either seed or pollen parent is also thoroughly evaluated.
To increase the utilization of the CMLs in maize breeding programs of partner institutions, all the new CMLs have been tested for their heterotic behavior and have been assigned to specific heterotic groups of CIMMYT: A and B. As a new practice, the heterotic group assignment is included in the name of each CML, after the CML number — for example, CML604A or CML605B.
Release of a CML does not guarantee high combining ability or per se performance in all environments. Rather, it indicates that the line is promising or useful as a parent for pedigree breeding or as a potential parent of hybrid combinations for specific mega-environments. The description of the lines includes heterotic group classification, along with information on their specific strengths, and their combining ability with some of the widely used CMLs or CIMMYT lines.
Plants of the newly released set of CIMMYT maize lines. (Photo: CIMMYT)
For further details regarding the released CMLs, please contact B.M. Prasanna, Director of the Global Maize Program, CIMMYT, and the CGIAR Research Program on Maize.
Alinda Sarah shows a maize cob due for harvest on the farm she owns with her husband in Masindi, mid-western Uganda. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
The ultimate challenge for crop breeders is to increase genetic gain of a crop: literally, to increase the crop’s yield on farmers’ fields. Wheat and maize breeders from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and partner institutions are working to achieve this in record time, developing new varieties tailored for farmers’ needs that are also pest- and disease-resistant, climate-resilient, and nutritious.
This work is part of the Accelerating Genetic Gain in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (AGG) project. Among other methods, breeders are using state-of-the-art novel tools such as genomic selection to achieve this ambitious goal.
In genomic selection, breeders use information about a plant’s genetic makeup along with data on its visible and measurable traits, known as phenotypic data, to “train” a model to predict how a cross will turn out — information known as “genomic estimated breeding values (GEBV)” — without having to plant seeds, wait for them to grow, and physically measure their traits. In this way, they save time and costs by reducing the number of selection cycles.
However, research is still ongoing about the best way to use genomic selection that results in the most accurate predictions and ultimately reduces selection cycle time. A recent publication by CIMMYT scientist Sikiru Atanda and colleagues has identified an optimal genomic selection strategy that maximizes the efficiency of this novel technology. Although this research studied CIMMYT’s maize breeding programs, AGG scientists working on wheat genetic gain and zinc nutritional content see cross-crop impacts.
Shortening a lengthy process
In the typical breeding stages, breeders evaluate parental lines to create new crosses, and advance these lines through preliminary and elite yield trials. In the process, thousands of lines are sown, grown and analyzed, requiring considerable resources. In the traditional CIMMYT maize breeding scheme, for example, breeders conduct five stages of testing to identify parental lines for the next breeding cycle and develop high yielding hybrids that meet farmers’ needs.
In the current scheme using genomic selection, breeders phenotype 50% of a bi-parental population to predict the GEBVs of the remaining un-tested 50%. Though this reduces the cost of phenotyping, Atanda and his co-authors suggest it is not optimal because the breeder has to wait three to four months for the plant to grow before collecting the phenotypic data needed to calibrate the predictive model for the un-tested 50%.
Atanda and his colleagues’ findings specify how to calibrate a model based on existing historical phenotypic and genotypic data. They also offer a method for creating “experimental” sets to generate phenotypic information when the models don’t work due to low genetic connectedness between the new population and historical data.
This presents a way forward for breeders to accelerate the early yield testing stage based on genomic information, reduce the breeding cycle time and budget, and ultimately increase genetic gain.
Regional maize breeding coordinator for Africa Yoseph Beyene explained the leap forward this approach represents for CIMMYT’s maize breeding in Africa.
“For the last 5 years, CIMMYT’s African maize breeding program has applied genomic selection using the ‘test-half-and-predict-half’ strategy,” he said. “This has already reduced operational costs by 32% compared to the traditional phenotypic selection.”
“The prediction approach shown in this paper — using historical data alone to predict untested lines that go directly to stage-two trials — could reduce the breeding cycle by a year and save the cost of testcross formation and multi-location evaluation of stage-one testing. This research contributes to our efforts in the AGG project to mainstream genomic selection in all the product profiles.”
Effective for maize and wheat
Atanda, who now works on the use of novel breeding methods to enhance grain zinc content in CIMMYT’s wheat breeding program, believes these findings apply to wheat breeding as well.
“The implications of the research in maize are the same in wheat: accelerating early testing stage and reducing the breeding budget, which ultimately results in increasing genetic gain,” he said.
CIMMYT Global Wheat Program director Alison Bentley is optimistic about the crossover potential. “It is fantastic to welcome Atanda to the global wheat program, bringing skills in the use of quantitative genetic approaches,” she said. “The use of new breeding methods such as genomic selection is part of a portfolio of approaches we are using to accelerate breeding.”
CIMMYT’s wheat breeding relies heavily on a time-tested and validated method using managed environments to test lines for a range of growing environments — from drought to full irrigation, heat tolerance and more — in CIMMYT’s wheat experimental station in Ciudad Obregón, in Mexico’s state of Sonora.
According to CIMMYT senior scientist and wheat breeder Velu Govindan, using the approaches tested by Sikiru can make this even more efficient. As a specialist in biofortification — using traditional breeding techniques to develop crops with high levels of micronutrients — Govindan is taking the lead mainstreaming high zinc into all CIMMYT improved wheat varieties.
“This process could help us identify best lines to share with partners one year earlier — and it can be done for zinc content as easily as for grain yield.”
If this study seems like an excellent fit for the AGG project’s joint focus on accelerating genetic gain for both maize and wheat, that is no accident.
“The goal of the AGG project was the focus of my research,” Atanda said. “My study has shown that this goal is doable and achievable.”
Haploids — which are produced naturally in maize — were first identified in the crop about a century ago. Today they are used widely in different breeding programs, particularly in the development of doubled haploids, which are highly uniform, genetically pure and stable. Doubled-haploid technology has simplified logistics to make the maize breeding process more efficient and intuitive, facilitated studies at the molecular and genomic level, and increased genetic gains in different breeding programs.
In a recent review article, scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) examine strategies for haploid induction and identification, chromosome doubling and production of doubled haploid seed through self-fertilization. They also discuss the potential applications and key challenges linked with doubled haploid technology in maize, and suggest future research directionsfor people involved in fast-track maize breeding, the seed industry, and academia.
Extensive studies of haploids and doubled haploids have increased our understanding of the genetic basis and mechanisms involved in haploid induction, the factors that affect haploid induction, different markers to identify putative haploids, and different chemicals agents that can be used for chromosome doubling.
The technology is useful because the resulting plants are free from different social issues and legal regulations associated with transgenic crops. It maximizes genetic gains in breeding programs, is one of the fastest tools available for developing large numbers of inbred lines quickly and reduces the cost of breeding programs.
“Deployment of doubled haploid technology is much needed for commercial hybrid maize breeding programs to make them more efficient and economical,” says article co-author Abdurahman Beshir, a maize seed systems specialist based in Nepal. “The technology is also useful to have accelerated varietal turnover and a higher maize seed replacement rate in different market segments.”
Many multinational seed companies have adopted doubled haploid technology for the wide-scale production of inbred lines. The development of novel techniques for haploid induction and the subsequent production of doubled haploid plants holds significant potential for the management of genetic resources, germplasm enhancement and the development of novel plant populations.Researchers at CIMMYT have also made significant efforts to help national breeding programs adopt this technology, especially in South Asia, where the organisation has shared haploid inducers with numerous partners in Pakistan.
But, while this technology can accelerate maize breeding, it still faces challenges at each step of doubled haploid line development and the authors argue there is a need to extensively explore the genetic potential of this technology to continue increasing the genetic gains associated with different breeding programs.
Cover image: A mixture ofdoubledhaploidmaizekernelsseen in close-up at CIMMYT’s Agua Fria experimental station in Mexico. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)
Read more new publications from CIMMYT researchers:
In an op-ed, Martin Kropff, Director General of CIMMYT, and Nteranya Sanginga, Director General of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), discuss how higher-yielding, stress-tolerant maize varieties can not only help smallholder farmers combat climatic variabilities and diseases, but also effectively diversify their farms.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is offering a new set of elite, improved maize hybrids to partners in eastern Africa and similar agro-ecological zones. National agricultural research systems (NARS) and seed companies are invited to apply for licenses to pursue national release of, and subsequently commercialize, these new hybrids, in order to bring the benefits of the improved seed to farming communities.
The deadline to submit applications to be considered during the first round of allocations is 9 February 2021. Applications received after that deadline will be considered during the following round of product allocations.
Information about the newly available CIMMYT maize hybrids from Eastern Africa breeding program, application instructions and other relevant material is available below.
To apply, please fill out the CIMMYT Improved Maize Product Allocation Application Forms, available for download at the links below. Each applicant will need to complete one copy of Form A for their organization, then for each hybrid being requested a separate copy of Form B. (Please be sure to use these current versions of the application forms.)
Researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) have identified new genomic regions associated with maize stover quality, an important by-product of maize which can be used in animal feed.
The results of the study, published this month in Nature Scientific Reports, will allow maize breeders to select for stover quality traits more quickly and cost-effectively, and to develop new dual purpose maize varieties without sacrificing grain yield.
The researchers screened diverse Asia-adapted CIMMYT maize lines from breeders’ working germplasm for animal feed quality traits. They then used these as a reference set to predict the breeding values of over a thousand doubled haploid lines derived from abiotic stress breeding programs based on genetic information. Based on these breeding values, the scientists further selected 100 of these double haploid lines and validated the performance of stover quality traits through field-based phenotyping.
The results demonstrate the feasibility of incorporating genomic prediction as a tool to improve stover traits, circumventing the need for field or lab-based phenotyping. The findings significantly reduce the need for additional testing resources — a major hindrance in breeding dual-purpose maize varieties.
Interestingly, the researchers found that increased animal feed quality in maize stover had no impact on grain yield, a concern raised by scientists in the past.
“The main purpose of this study and overall purpose of this CIMMYT and ILRI collaboration was to optimize the potential of maize crops for farm families, increase income, improve livelihoods and sustainably manage the crop livestock system, within limited resources,” said P.H. Zaidi, a maize physiologist at CIMMYT and co-author of the study.
“More than 70% of the farmers in the tropics are smallholders so they don’t have a lot of land to grow crops for grain purposes and separate stover for animal feed, so this is a very sustainable model if they grow dual purpose maize.”
By growing maize simultaneously for both human consumption and animal feed, farmers can get the most out of their crops and conserve natural resources like land and water.
A farmer works in a maize field close to the Pusa site of the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), in the Indian state of Bihar. (Photo: M. DeFreese/CIMMYT)
Fodder for thought
The findings from this study also validate the use of genomic prediction as an important breeding tool to accelerate the development and improvement of dual-purpose maize varieties, according to CIMMYT Maize Breeder and first author of the study, M.T. Vinayan.
With the demand for animal feed increasing around the world, crop scientists and breeders have been exploring more efficient ways to improve animal feed quality in cereals without compromising grain yields for human consumption.
“Not all maize varieties have good stover quality, which is what we realized when we started working on this project. However, we discovered that there are a few which offer just as good quality as sorghum stover — a major source of livestock fodder particularly in countries such as India,” said Zaidi.
The publication of the study is a fitting tribute to the late Michael Blummel, who was a principal scientist and deputy program leader in the feed and forage development program at ILRI and co-author of this study.
“A couple of years back Dr Blummel relocated from the Hyderabad office at ILRI to its headquarters at Addis Ababa, but he used to frequently visit Hyderabad, and without fail met with us on each visit to discuss updates, especially about dual-purpose maize work. He was very passionate about dual-purpose maize research with a strong belief that the additional income from maize stover at no additional cost will significantly improve the income of maize farmers,” Zaidi said. “Michael was following this publication very closely because it was the first of its kind in terms of molecular breeding for dual purpose maize. He would have been very excited to see this published.”
A new publication in Virus Research shows that these second-generation MLN-resistant hybrids developed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) offer better yields and increased resilience against MLN and other stresses.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) has developed new maize hybrid varieties showing promising resistance to the destructive fall armyworm pest, which has been causing huge crop losses ever since the pest was first reported in Africa in 2016.
Maize yields in sub-Saharan Africa are less than a third of what they are in the US—in large part because of drought. A new seed developed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is helping farmers in Africa catch up with their counterparts elsewhere.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is offering a new set of elite, improved maize hybrids to partners in eastern Africa and similar agro-ecological zones. National agricultural research systems (NARS) and seed companies are invited to apply for licenses to pursue national release of, and subsequently commercialize, these new hybrids, in order to bring the benefits of the improved seed to farming communities.
