Scientists at CIMMYT expect to sharply ramp up new wheat varieties enriched with zinc that can boost the essential mineral for millions of poor people with deficient diets, the institute’s head told Reuters.
In 1966, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) hosted a training event that was unlike any class the students had attended before. The students came from all over the world, the classroom moved between different environments in Mexico, and their teacher was Norman Borlaug. Over the course of 6 months, national agricultural partners, graduate students, and future research leaders from all over the world studied under Borlaug, one of the most famous and impactful agronomists in history.
Since its inception in 1966, the CIMMYT Global Wheat Program (GWP) annual training has hosted more than 1700 scientists from 99 countries. The aim of this program is to improve the breeding skills and research capacity of national partners, research staff and graduate students from countries where wheat is a major staple food crop. Along the way, the researchers expand their professional networks and share experiences in agronomy from around the world.
The CIMMYT GWP training program staff recently caught up with some graduates from the course to find out what their biggest takeaways were from the experience.
Meet the students
Muhammad Ishaq, a senior research officer working in wheat breeding at the Barani Agricultural Research Station (BARS) in Pakistan participated in the training program in 2019. The most important lesson he brought home was that the success of a wheat breeding program depends on problem-based breeding for target environments. He will always remember the interactions with CIMMYT scientists during his stay in Mexico. “This is a clear example of working together in partnership for global impact,” said Ishaq.
Lezaan Hess, a young academic and plant breeder at Stellenbosch University in South Africa participated in the program in 2019. Lezaan emphasizes the importance of this training in starting her professional career and says she will always remember the hard work and dedication of the CIMMYT wheat breeding teams. “It will keep inspiring me to work hard, stay committed and dedicated, and to collaborate to achieve greater success in the fight against world hunger,” said Hess.
Vijay Dalvi, a young professional at DCM Shriram LtD in India, attended the training program in 2013. His biggest takeaway from the training period was improving his knowledge on selecting individual plants in early generations, rust scoring and selecting grains. “The training not only helped us understand wheat breeding, but also showed us how to work in a team,” he said. “I am still replicating CIMMYT’s way of work at my current organization, and am sharing data from CIMMYT trials to discuss ideas.”
Saima Mir, a 2017 participant, currently works as a senior scientist with the Nuclear Institute of Agriculture (NIA) in Pakistan, where two new CIMMYT-derived wheat varieties with tolerance to water-stressed environments were released in 2020. Mir was very enthusiastic about her experience in the training program.
“I wish I would have received this training at the beginning of my research career,” she explained. “[It] was a combo of conventional and highly advanced breeding techniques, lectures and hands-on practice in the laboratories, green houses and in the field.”
Dario Novoselovic, who is now a senior researcher at the Agricultural Institute Osijek in Croatia, attended the wheat training course in 2000. Novoselovic said he particularly enjoyed the immersive nature of the training, saying that it paved the way for his future professional career. “We were among the lucky generations [with] the opportunity to interact with and enjoy the lectures from Dr. Borlaug, you can imagine the kind of feeling and spirit [we had] after his lectures,” he said.
Sundas Waqar, who works as a scientific officer for the National Agriculture Research Centre in Islamabad, Pakistan, recalls the technical training in the CIMMYT program. “The training provided me the opportunity to connect with the world. I got promoted to my current position after completing training at CIMMYT.”
Naresh Kumar, a senior wheat breeding scientist in the Genetics Division at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR) in New Delhi, India, took the course in 2019. “I am utilizing all the skills in my research and management activities. Collaboration with CIMMYT scientists is now quite direct and friendly,” he explained. “A key lesson was sharing knowledge and experience with partners across the world.”
A different experience for 2021
This year, CIMMYT’s signature training program looks quite different as both students and trainers navigate challenging travel and safety restrictions due to the pandemic. Since on-site training this year was not possible, GWP decided to continue these capacity building activities as many other schools have: virtually. The 2021 Basic Wheat Improvement Course went online on January 18, and — echoing the spirit of its far-reaching legacy — 68 participants from 21 different countries will still receive training this year.
Through regenerative agriculture prices, Grupo Bimbo, a partner of CIMMYT, is revitalizing and ensuring the sustainability of Mexico’s agricultural sector.
Read more: https://www.forbes.com.mx/ad-agricultura-regenerativa-ruta-sustentable-grupo-bimbo/
Health has certainly been in the spotlight over the past year. And how could it not be?
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has thrown into sharp relief the fact that many groups across the world struggle to make ends meet with little daily income, have poorer housing conditions and education, fewer employment opportunities, and have little or no access to safe environments, clean water and air, food security and health services.
In light of this, the World Health Organization (WHO) is calling on leaders worldwide to ensure that everyone has living and working conditions that are conducive to good health. For many the focus will, understandably, be on access to quality health care services. But there are myriad other factors that influence our ability to lead healthy lives — from how we care for our soil, to what we eat and the air we breathe.
Joining this year’s World Health Day campaign, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is highlighting five areas where it pays to think about health, and the solutions we can use to help build a healthier world for everyone.
Crop yields fall dramatically when soil conditions aren’t right, but digital nutrient management tools providing tailored fertilizer recommendations can boost farmers’ profits and productivity while reducing emissions.
How do we ensure that germplasm reserves are not potential vectors of pest and disease transmission? The second instalment in the CGIAR International Year of Plant Health Webinar Series tackles the often-overlooked issue of germplasm health.
By growing maize simultaneously for both human consumption and quality animal feed, farmers can get the most out of their crops and conserve natural resources like land and water.
The traditional milpa intercrop — in which maize is grown together with beans, squash or other vegetable crops — can furnish a vital supply of food and nutrients for marginalized, resource-poor communities in the Americas.
Compared to conventional tillage practices, sowing wheat directly into just-harvested rice fields without burning or removing straw or other residues can reduce severe air pollution while lessening irrigation needs.
Interested in learning more about CIMMYT’s health-related work? Check out our archive of health and nutrition content.
Featured image: A farmer inspects a drought-tolerant bean plant on a trial site in Malawi. (Photo: Neil Palmer/CIAT)
Through the Sustainable Wheat and Sustainable Maize projects, Bimbo strives to ensure the sustainability of Mexico’s agricultural sector, benefitting over 940 smallholder farmers through yield enhancement and cost reduction strategies.
Read more: https://www.milenio.com/content/bimbo-impulsa-agricultura-regenerativa-maiz-trigo-mexico
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) will rename one of its most historic and successful wheat experimental stations in honor of Sanjaya Rajaram, a former Wheat Program director, distinguished scientist and World Food Prize laureate.
Rajaram, one of the most successful and influential wheat breeders ever, passed away in Mexico on February 17, 2021. The wheat experimental station managed by CIMMYT in Toluca, Mexico, will be renamed “Centro Experimental Sanjaya Rajaram” in his honor.
Rajaram joined CIMMYT in 1969, working alongside Nobel Prize Laureate and scientist Norman Borlaug in Mexico. Recognizing his talent and initiative, Borlaug appointed Rajaram as head of CIMMYT’s wheat breeding program when he was 29 years old. His career accomplishments include overseeing the development of more than 480 high-yielding, disease-resistant wheat varieties, which are sown today on 58 million hectares in 51 countries.
The wheat experimental station is located on the outskirts of Mexico’s fifth largest city, Toluca, about 60 kilometers southwest of Mexico City. It is a key testing location in the shuttle breeding process that Borlaug developed in the 1960s in his quest for high-yielding wheat to avert global famine — a breeding process that successfully continues to this day. It is also the site where Borlaug famously received news of his 1970 Nobel Peace Prize win.
“Dr. Rajaram was a world-renowned wheat breeder and scientist and a true hunger fighter. In 2014, he was recognized with one of the highest honors in agriculture, the World Food Prize, in acknowledgement for improving the lives of hundreds of millions of people through his work on high-yielding and disease-resistant wheat varieties grown on more than 58 million hectares throughout the world,” said CIMMYT Director General Martin Kropff. “He was an inspiring and cherished presence at CIMMYT for 40 years. His loss is felt by all of us and I am delighted to be able to honor him this way.”
“It is only fitting that a wheat experimental station crucial to Borlaug’s pioneering work be named for Dr. Rajaram, who followed in his footsteps,” said CIMMYT Chief Operating Officer, Deputy Director General for Research, and Integrated Development Program Director Bram Govaerts.
A virtual event to remember Rajaram and officially dedicate the Toluca station in his honor is tentatively planned for May.
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.”
Read the study:
Maximizing efficiency of genomic selection in CIMMYT’s tropical maize breeding program
Sanjaya Rajaram, a University of Sydney alumnus recognized with the World Food Prize, was a world-renowned wheat breeder and scientist. One of the world’s leading food scientists, he died on February 17 from COVID-19 in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico.
A leader of wheat breeding and later director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program, Sanjaya Rajaram passed away at the age of 78.
Recognized with the World Food Prize in 2014, he personally oversaw the development of more than 480 high-yielding, disease-resistant varieties sown on 58 million hectares in 51 countries, increasing global wheat production by more than 200 million tons during his lifetime in diverse regions across the globe.
Wheat is not just an essential part of the Pakistani diet, but also absolutely critical to the country’s economy and to the farmers who cultivate it. The government of Pakistan’s goal to achieve self-sufficiency in wheat production just became more attainable with the release of five new wheat varieties. These new seeds could help the country’s 8.8 million hectares of wheat-farmed area become more productive, climate-resilient and disease-resistant — a welcome development in a region where new climate change scenarios threaten sustained wheat production.
With multiple years of on-station and on-farm testing, the Wheat Research Institute (WRI) in Faisalabad, the Arid Zone Research Institute (AZRI) in Bhakhar, and the Barani Agricultural Research Institute in Chakwal released five varieties: Subhani 2021, MH-2021, Dilkash-2021, Bhakkar-20 and MA-2020.
The varieties, drawn from germplasm from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), were developed for different production environments in the Punjab province of Pakistan.
Dilkash-2021 was developed by WRI from a cross with a locally developed wheat line and a CIMMYT wheat line. MH-2021 and MA-2020 were selected from the CIMMYT wheat breeding germplasm through international trials and nurseries.
Subhani-21 and MA-2020 were selected from special trials assembled by CIMMYT for expanded testing, early access and genomic selection under the USAID-funded Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Applied Wheat Genomics at Kansas State University, in partnership with Cornell University and four South Asian countries (Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan).
Over the course of multiple years and locations, the new varieties exhibited a yield potential that is 5 to 20% higher than current popular varieties such as Faisalabad 2008, in addition to good grain quality and attainable yields of over 7 tons per hectare. They also showed an impressive resistance to leaf and yellow rusts, compatibility with wheat-rice and wheat-cotton farming systems, and resilience to stresses.
“It is exciting to see new varieties coming out of these collaborative projects between the Pakistani breeding programs, CIMMYT and the university teams,” said Jesse Poland, associate professor at Kansas State University and director of the Wheat Genomics Innovation Lab.
Closing the yield gap between research fields and smallholder fields
Despite all of these encouraging traits, releasing a new variety is just half of the battle. The other half is getting these new, quality seeds to markets quickly so that wheat growers can realize the benefits. A fast-track seed multiplication program for each of these varieties has been designed and implemented.
“Pakistan has started to multiply early-generation seeds of rust-resistant varieties. These will be available to seed companies for multiplication and provision to farmers in the shortest possible time,” agreed wheat breeder and WRI Director Javed Ahmad and the National Wheat Coordinator Atiq Rattu.
However, the current seed replacement rate is still low, mainly because new, quality seeds are rarely available at the right time, location, quantity, and price for smallholders. Strengthening and diversifying seed production of newly released varieties can be done by decentralizing seed marketing and distribution systems and engaging both public and private sector actors. Additionally, marketing and training efforts need to be improved for women, who are mostly responsible for household-level seed production and seed care.
In 2020, Pakistan harvested 25.7 million tons of wheat, up from 23.3 million tons a decade ago in 2010, which roughly matches its annual consumption of the crop. Pakistan is coming close to its goal of self-sufficiency, as outlined in the Pakistan Vision 2025, Food Security Policy 2018 and Vision for Agriculture 2030. Research shows that the public sector cannot extensively disseminate seeds alone; new policies must create an attractive environment to private sector partners, so that entrepreneurs are also attracted to the seed business. With continued efforts and a bold distribution and training effort, new releases like these will contribute to narrowing the yield gap between research stations and farmers’ fields.
As scientists study and learn more about the complicated genetic makeup of the wheat genome, one chromosomal segment has stood out, particularly in efforts to breed high-yielding wheat varieties resistant to devastating and quickly spreading wheat diseases.
Known as the 2NvS translocation, this segment on the wheat genome has been associated with grain yield, tolerance to wheat stems bending over or lodging, and multiple-disease resistance.
Now, thanks to a new multi-institution study led by wheat scientist Liangliang Gao of Kansas State University, we have a clearer picture of the yield advantage and disease resistance conferred by this chromosomal segment for wheat farmers — and more opportunities to capitalize on these benefits for future breeding efforts.
The Aegilops ventricosa 2NvS segment in bread wheat: cytology, genomics and breeding, published in Theoretical and Applied Genetics, summarizes the collaborative effort by scientists from several scientific institutions — including International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) head of global wheat improvement Ravi Singh and wheat scientist Philomin Juliana — to conduct the first complete cytological characterization of the 2NvS translocation.
A rich background
The 2NvS translocation segment has been very valuable in disease-resistance wheat breeding since the early 1990s. Originally introduced into wheat cultivar VPM1 by the French cytogeneticist Gerard Doussinault in 1983 by crossing with a wild wheat relative called Aegilops ventricosa, the segment has been conferring resistance to diseases like eye spot (Pch1 gene), leaf rust (Lr37 gene), stem rust (Sr38 gene), stripe rust (Yr17 gene), cereal cyst (Cre5 gene), root knot (Rkn3 gene) and wheat blast.
The high-yielding blast-resistant CIMMYT-derived varieties BARI Gom 33 and WMRI#3 (equivalent to Borlaug100),released in Bangladesh to combat a devastating outbreak of wheat blast in the region, carry the 2NvS translocation segment for blast resistance.
Earlier research by Juliana and others found that the proportion of lines with the 2NvS translocation had increased by 113.8% over seven years in CIMMYT’s international bread wheat screening nurseries: from 44% in 2012 to 94.1% in 2019. It had also increased by 524.3% in the semi-arid wheat screening nurseries: from 15% in 2012 to 93.7% in 2019. This study validates these findings, further demonstrating an increasing frequency of the 2NvS translocation in spring and winter wheat breeding programs over the past two decades.
New discoveries
The authors of this study completed a novel assembly and functional annotation of the genes in the 2NvS translocation using the winter bread wheat cultivar Jagger. They validated it using the spring wheat cultivar CDC Stanley and estimated the actual size of the segment to be approximately 33 mega base pairs.
Their findings substantiate that the 2NvS region is rich in disease resistance genes, with more than 10% of the 535 high-confidence genes annotated in this region belonging to the nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) gene families known to be associated with disease resistance. This was a higher number of NLRs compared to the wheat segment of the Chinese Spring reference genome that was replaced by this segment, adding further evidence to its multiple-disease resistant nature.
In addition to being an invaluable region for disease resistance, the study makes a strong case that the 2NvS region also confers a yield advantage. The authors performed yield association analyses using yield data on lines from the Kansas State University wheat breeding program, the USDA Regional Performance Nursery —comprising lines from central US winter wheat breeding programs — and the CIMMYT spring bread wheat breeding program, and found a strong association between the presence of the segment and higher yield.
Global benefits
The yield and disease resistance associations of the 2NvS genetic segment have been helping farmers for years, as seen in the high proportion of the segment present in the improved wheat germplasm distributed globally through CIMMYT’s nurseries.
“The high frequency of the valuable 2NvS translocation in CIMMYT’s internationally distributed germplasm demonstrates well how CIMMYT has served as a key disseminator of lines with this translocation globally that would have likely contributed to a large impact on global wheat production,” said study co-author Juliana.
Through CIMMYT’s distribution efforts, it is likely that national breeding programs have also effectively used this translocation, in addition to releasing many 2NvS-carrying varieties selected directly from CIMMYT distributed nurseries.
With this study, we now know more about why the segment is so ubiquitous and have more tools at our disposal to use it more deliberately to raise yield and combat disease for wheat farmers into the future.
In 2005, preeminent wheat breeder and Nobel Laureate Norman E. Borlaug sounded the alarm to bring the world’s attention to the outbreak of a new variant of stem rust, Ug99, that threatened to wipe out 80% of the world’s wheat.
The result was the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI), a global community that pioneered innovative ways for scientists and smallholder farmers around the globe to collaborate on meeting challenges brought about by wheat disease and climate change.
As a founding member of BGRI, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and, later, the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat, played a crucial role in the core work of the initiative. They led breeding and large-scale international testing to develop disease resistant wheat varieties, coordinated closely with longstanding national partners to facilitate the release and spread of the varieties to farmers, and contributed to critical disease monitoring and tracking initiatives.
The BGRI has documented these efforts and related resources in a newly released interactive story map: Inside the global network safeguarding the world’s wheat from disease and climate change. The map highlights the BGRI’s efforts from 2005 to 2020 to introduce climate-resilient, disease-resistant wheat to resource-constrained wheat growers around the world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
When a disease threatens to destroy the world’s most important food crop, who do you call?
The map highlights work undertaken by scientists on the front lines of the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat (DRRW) and Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat (DGGW) projects from 2005 to 2020. These achievements formed the foundation for the work that continues today under the auspices of the CIMMYT-led Accelerating Genetic Gains In Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (AGG) project.
BGRI scientists from more than 22 national and international agricultural research centers infused resilience into wheat and largely staved off large-scale rust epidemics, working with farmers in East Africa, South Asia and other important bread baskets of the world. The BGRI community improved breeding pipelines, created the world’s most sophisticated pathogen surveillance network, increased capacity in germplasm testing nurseries while conserving and sharing genetic resources, and training new generations of young scientists.
Through videos, photos, interviews, journal articles, blogs, news stories and other resources, the map allows visitors to explore the multifaceted work from hunger fighters in Australia, Canada, China, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and other countries.
Written and produced by BGRI cinematographer Chris Knight and associate director for communications Linda McCandless, the map is linked to multimedia and resources from contributors around the world.
Browse the interactive story map:
Inside the Global Network Safeguarding the World’s Wheat from Disease and Climate Change
The DRRW and DGGW projects received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, national research institutes, and Cornell University.
Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (AGG) brings together partners in the global science community and in national agricultural research and extension systems to accelerate the development of higher-yielding varieties of maize and wheat — two of the world’s most important staple crops. Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), AGG fuses innovative methods that improve breeding efficiency and precision to produce and deliver high-yielding varieties that are climate-resilient, pest- and disease-resistant, highly nutritious, and targeted to farmers’ specific needs.
Research reported in this story was supported by the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research under award number Grant ID COTF0000000001. The content of this publication is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research.
Wheat breeders from across the globe took a big step towards modernizing their molecular breeding skills at a recent workshop sponsored by the Wheat Initiative, with the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
The workshop focused on three open-source tools used in molecular breeding: GOBii-GDM for genomic data management, Flapjack for data visualization and breeding analysis, and Galaxy for Genomic Selection. These tools help breeders make selections more quickly and precisely, and ultimately lead to more cost effective and efficient improvement of varieties.
The Wheat Initiative — a global scientific collaboration whose goals are to create improved wheat varieties and disseminate better agronomic practices worldwide — and its Breeding Methods and Strategies expert working group had planned to host these trainings during the 2020 Borlaug Global Rust Initiative Technical Workshop in the United Kingdom. After it became obvious that in-person trainings were not possible, the course organizers — including CIMMYT molecular wheat breeder Susanne Dreisigacker and EiB Adoption Lead and former GOBii project director Elizabeth Jones — decided to come together to host online workshops.
Many of the tools will be incorporated into EiB’s Enterprise Breeding System (EBS), a new integrated data management system being developed for CGIAR breeders. Jones plans to also design training modules for these molecular breeding tools that will be accessible to anyone through the EiB Toolbox.
In the meantime, the tools used in the workshop are all freely available: DArTView, Flapjack (training videos), GOBii-GDM (request access through the web form or by email), and Galaxy Genomic Selection.
Powering data analysis around the world
The workshop series, “Transforming Wheat Breeding Through Integrated Data Management with GOBii and Analysis in Flapjack,” aimed to benefit breeders from wheat producing countries all over the world, with sessions over two different time zones spread out over three days to reduce “Zoom fatigue.” Participants joined the first session from Australia, Canada, Ethiopia, France, India, Ireland, Italy, Morocco, Pakistan, Switzerland, Tunisia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
“It was wonderful to see the diversity of participants that we were able to train through an online workshop, many of whom otherwise might not have been able to travel to the UK for the original meeting,” said Jones. “Participants were very engaged, making the workshop so rewarding.”
The workshop was guided by Teresa Saavedra, Wheat Initiative coordinator. Apart from Dreisigacker and Jones, other trainers explained specific tools and approaches. Iain Milne from the James Hutton Institute in Scotland gave more details about the Flapjack genotyping visualization tool, which includes analysis for pedigree verification, marker assisted backcrossing and forward breeding. Andrew Kowalczyk, developer at Diversity Arrays Technology, spoke about the genotyping data QC tool DArTView.
Clay Sneller, wheat breeder at Ohio State University, contributed training materials for important molecular breeding tools. Carlos Ignacio, previously based at the International Rice Research Center (IRRI) and now working on a PhD in Genomic Selection at Ohio State University, contributed his experience as a GOBii team member and a major contributor towards the design of Flapjack tools. Star Gao, application specialist with GOBii and now a requirements analyst for the Enterprise Breeding System, also facilitated the sessions.
Gilles Charmet, research director at the France’s National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), introduced the sessions in the Americas/Europe time zone with welcome remarks and overview of the goals of the Wheat Initiative. Alison Bentley, director of the CIMMYT Global Wheat Program, briefed on the achievements and goals of the CIMMYT Wheat program and the Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (AGG) project.
“This training will contribute towards us reaching our AGG goals of accelerating gains in wheat, by sharing technical knowledge, and allowing our beneficiary partners to have state-of-the-art know-how in the use of genetic and genomic data,” Bentley said.
Participant Stéphane Boury from Caussade Semences, France commented, “This was a very effective way to learn about new tools in wheat breeding.”
The sessions continue in Australasia next week, and will be introduced by Peter Langridge, chair of the Scientific Board for the Wheat Initiative, and EiB director Michael Quinn. Sanjay Kumar Singh, incoming chair of the Breeding expert working group for the Wheat Initiative, will close the event.
With great sorrow, we report the passing of Sanjaya Rajaram, former Wheat Program director and distinguished scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), in Mexico on February 17, 2021, at the age of 78. Rajaram was one of the most successful and influential wheat breeders ever, and was distinguished with the World Food Prize in 2014.
As leader of bread wheat breeding and later director of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program, Rajaram — affectionately known by his colleagues as “Raj” — personally oversaw the development of more than 480 high-yielding, disease-resistant varieties sown on 58 million hectares in 51 countries, increasing global wheat production by more than 200 million tons during his lifetime in diverse regions across the globe.
“At CIMMYT, we all remember Raj as a great and humble colleague helping the team to perform at the highest levels of science with impact. Many of us within CIMMYT, as well in national programs worldwide, have been inspired by him,” said Martin Kropff, CIMMYT Director General. “We will also remember him as a friend who cared for others and treated all people alike.”
“Dr. Rajaram built a generation of wheat breeders at CIMMYT, ICARDA and national research institutions, who are carrying on his legacy and ensuring that new wheat varieties continue to reach farmers. We will deeply miss his presence and encouragement,” said Ravi Singh, head of the Wheat Improvement program once led by Rajaram.
A life devoted to wheat breeding
Born on a small farm in India in 1943, Rajaram studied genetics and plant breeding at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Sydney, he joined CIMMYT in 1969, diligently working as a wheat breeder alongside Nobel Prize Laureate and scientist Norman Borlaug in Mexico. Recognizing his talent and initiative, Borlaug appointed Rajaram as head of CIMMYT’s wheat breeding program at just 29 years of age.
Borlaug described Rajaram as “a scientist of great vision who made a significant contribution to the improvement of world wheat production, working for the benefit of hundreds of thousands of farmers in countries across the globe.”
Among Rajaram’s many accomplishments include being awarded the prestigious World Food Prize in 2014 for his role in increasing global wheat production and alleviating world hunger. His crossing of spring and winter wheat varieties led to new advances in wheat varieties that were stable across a wide range of environments, as well as featuring high yields and resistance to wheat diseases, particularly rust and foliar blight.
In 2015, he was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman award, the highest honor conferred on Indians overseas. He also received the highly prestigious Padma Shri award from the government of India in 2001, the Friendship Award from the government of China in 1998, numerous fellowships from scientific societies and doctorates from various universities.
Rajaram recognized the importance of sharing his knowledge and cultivating the talents of the next generation of plant scientists, training and mentoring more than 700 scientists from developing countries worldwide.
Rajaram also served as Director of the Integrated Gene Management Program at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) before formally retiring in 2008. In his retirement, he continued as a special scientific advisor to CIMMYT and ICARDA, residing in his home of Mexico.
In addition to his successful career as a plant scientist, Rajaram launched and operated Resource Seeds International, a company to study and market seed of improved wheat varieties.
The CIMMYT community sends our deepest condolences to Rajaram’s family during this period.
If you wish to share a message of condolences with the family, please use this email address.
The Heat and Drought Wheat Improvement Consortium (HeDWIC) is a global research and capacity building network that takes wheat research from the theoretical to the practical by incorporating the best science into real-life breeding scenarios.
By harnessing the latest technologies in crop physiology, genetics and breeding, HeDWIC makes it easier for wheat scientists to work together on solutions to the complex problems of heat and drought adaptation, contributing to the development of new, climate-resilient wheat varieties for farmers. HeDWIC-associated scientists examine current breeding material and collections held in germplasm banks and apply genomic and phenomic tools to identify novel diversity for heat, drought adaptative traits. This results in novel pre-bred lines in terms of genetic diversity for key stress-adaptive traits suitable for use in breeding programs and/or re-selection as cultivars.
The consortium delivers these lines to public and private wheat programs worldwide via the International Wheat Improvement Network (IWIN) — coordinated for more than half a century by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) — as international public goods whose global impacts are well documented. Through PhD sponsorships and other opportunities for involvement in research, HeDWIC also provides hands-on training to young scientists, preparing a new generation of crop experts to tackle the pressing issues of crop adaptation under future climate scenarios.
HeDWIC adds value to developing more climate-resilient wheat varieties by:
HeDWIC is directly funded by the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) and is supported by in-kind contributions from IWIN, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation/UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)-funded Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat for Improved Livelihoods (AGG) project, the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT), the International Wheat Yield Partnership, the Wheat Initiative’s AHEAD, and many international partners who support research and capacity building activities through ongoing collaboration.
It also builds on decades of breeding and collaborative research under abiotic stress coordinated by CIMMYT, with support from agencies including Mexico’s Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER), the CGIAR Trust Fund —in particular the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) — Australia’s Grains Research Development Corporation (GRDC), Germany’s Ministry of Agriculture (BMEL), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and others.
