Maria Itria Ibba
Maria Itria Ibba is the Head of the Wheat Quality Laboratory and a Cereal Chemist at CIMMYT.
research: Wheat
Abdelfattah A. Dababat
Abdelfattah A. Dababat (Amer) is the CIMMYT Country Representative in Türkiye and the leader of the Soil Borne Pathogens.
In 2009, he received a second post doctorate offer from CIMMYT to work on the soil borne pathogens. More than 600 scientists/students were benefited from the symposiums, workshops, and courses which he has organized since 2010.
He has co-supervised/co-supervising more than 45 Master and PhD students from around the world and he has published more than 130 peer-reviewed articles and more than 150 proceedings, abstracts, and 2 manuals, books, and book chapters.
He obtained his BSc in 1996 from Al-Najah National University and his MSc in 1999 from the University of Jordan in Amman. From 2009 to 2013 he worked at the Palestinian Agriculture Research Center for a trilateral project among Germany, Israel, and Palestine. In 2003, he received a PhD scholarship offer from the German KAAD to complete his PhD studies at Bonn University where he also did his post doctorate from 2007 to 2009.
To manage El Nino-related crop distress in eastern and southern Africa, invest in drought-tolerant seeds and better soil and water care
NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) — To mitigate the impact of the current drought affecting millions of farmers living in Kenya and other areas of eastern and southern Africa, agriculture experts from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) call for intensively scaling up climate-resilient seeds and climate-smart innovations, including drought-tolerant seeds and soil and water conservation practices.
The U.S. National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center has just warned that abnormally dry conditions are affecting Kenya and other areas of eastern and southern Africa. This year’s El Niño, the second in a period of three years, has led to large pockets of drought across eastern and southern Africa, whose economies still rely heavily on rainfed smallholder farming. These recurrent climate shocks impede growth prospects in the region, as the World Bank recently announced.
In Kenya, farmers are eager to plant their maize seeds for the next cropping season. However, mid-April is already here, and farmers are still waiting for the long rains, which usually arrive by mid-March. The very late onset of the rainy season could lead to a poor cropping season and significantly reduced maize yields for farmers.
To avoid this, Stephen Mugo, CIMMYT’s regional representative for Africa, recommends that farmers shift to planting stress-resilient varieties, like early maturing maize varieties that just need 90 to 95 days to mature, instead of over four months for late maturing varieties. Seeds of such early maturing varieties are available from seed companies and agrodealers operating in maize growing areas.
“If more small farmers in Africa’s drought-prone regions grow drought-tolerant varieties of maize and other staple crops, the farming communities will be better prepared for prolonged dry spells and inadequate rainfall,” said Mugo.
Crop diversification and more sustainable soil and water conservation practices are also recommended to improve soil fertility and structure and avoid soil compaction. When the rains finally come, run-off will be less, and soils will have more capacity to retain moisture.
“Our research shows that conservation agriculture, combined with a package of good agronomic practices, offers several benefits that contribute to yield increases of up to 38 percent,” Mugo said.
To ensure large-scale adoption of sustainable and climate-resilient technologies and practices, farmers should have access to drought-tolerant seeds, as well as information and incentives to shift to climate-smart agricultural practices.
CIMMYT is engaged in many ways to help facilitate this agricultural transformation. The institute works with the African seed sector and national partners to develop and deploy stress resilient maize and wheat varieties through initiatives like Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa and the Wheat rust resistant seed scaling in Ethiopia.
Because late planting may expose maize crops to stronger attacks of pests like the fall armyworm, the research-for-development efforts initiated by the FAW R4D consortium against this invasive pest should be sustained.
More information about CIMMYT’s research on drought-tolerant seed and conservation agriculture can be found on the website of the Sustainable Intensification of Maize Legumes Systems in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project.
For more information or for media interviews, please contact
Jerome Bossuet, Communications Officer, CIMMYT.
J.Bossuet@cgiar.org
ABOUT CIMMYT
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is the global leader in publicly funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty. CIMMYT is a member of CGIAR and leads the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat, and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies.
Hamish Dunsford
Hamish Dunsford is the Program Manager of CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program.
Ravi Singh
Ravi Singh is a Distinguished Scientist and Head of Global Wheat Improvement.
Wheat Yield Consortium
The Wheat Yield Consortium conducts research on wheat genetics and physiology to improve plant structure, increase the resilience and disease resistance of wheat, and its yield potential in Mexico and abroad. In 2015, main achievements included:
- More than 100 agronomic and physiological traits of 60 elite lines of high-yielding potential from CIMMYT Core Germplasm II set (CIMCOG II) were evaluated with high throughput phenotyping technologies.
- Five elite lines were selected after analyzing three years of data collected from consecutive trials of the CIMCOG I set. Some lines were chosen for their resistance to lodging.
- Aerial phenotyping platforms with remote sensors where used to identify five high-yielding and drought tolerant lines and seven outstanding heat tolerant lines from more than 600 elite lines tested in the field.
- Nine Mexican students undertook doctoral studies in prestigious international universities with the benefit of acknowledged experts as advisers and using data from the MasAgro Wheat field trials. Three students concluded their doctoral studies and two more are in line to achieve their degree in the first semester of 2016.
Objectives
- To raise wheat yield potential by 2 percent globally, with a view to increasing yield potential by 50 percent over 20 years.
- To raise wheat production by 350,000 tons (10 percent) in 10 years, 750,000 tons (22 percent) in 15 years and 1.7 million tons (50 percent) in 20 years, in the same area currently devoted to wheat production in Mexico.
Wheat Productivity Enhancement Program (WPEP)
The Wheat Productivity Enhancement Program aims to enhance and protect the productivity of wheat in Pakistan by supporting research that leads to the identification, adoption, and optimal agronomic management of new, high yielding, disease-resistant wheat varieties. The main goal of the project is to facilitate efforts of scientific institutions in Pakistan to minimize adverse effects of wheat rusts — including the highly virulent Ug99 stem rust disease — through surveillance and genetically resistant varieties.
As part of the U.S. government’s assistance to Pakistan, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Pakistan’s Ministry of Agriculture have identified the development of wheat varieties with resistance to virulent rust strains as a goal for improving food security and related agricultural production challenges. This document outlines a project for providing cereal rust protection for wheat production in Pakistan.
This wheat production enhancement project is a multi-partner, collaborative research and development program that includes human resource development. The primary external partners — USDA, CIMMYT, and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas — work cooperatively with Pakistan research organizations to refine work plans and implement research and development activities in rust surveillance, pre-breeding, breeding, seed, and agronomy as described in objectives section.
Objectives
- Rust pathogen surveillance
- Pre-breeding to enhance the diversity and utility of rust resistant wheat breeding parent
- Accelerated breeding to develop and test rust resistant, high performance candidate wheat varieties
- Seed multiplication and distribution
- Agronomic management practices
MasAgro Wheat
MasAgro Wheat, a component of CIMMYT’s MasAgro project, conducts research on wheat genetics and physiology to improve plant structure, increase the resilience and disease resistance of wheat, and its yield potential in Mexico and abroad. In 2015, main achievements of MasAgro Wheat included:
- More than 100 agronomic and physiological traits of 60 elite lines of high-yielding potential from CIMMYT Core Germplasm II set (CIMCOG II) were evaluated with high throughput phenotyping technologies.
- Five elite lines were selected after analyzing three years of data collected from consecutive trials of the CIMCOG I set. Some lines were chosen for their resistance to lodging.
- Aerial phenotyping platforms with remote sensors where used to identify five high-yielding and drought tolerant lines and seven outstanding heat tolerant lines from more than 600 elite lines tested in the field.
- Nine Mexican students continued their doctoral studies in prestigious international universities with the benefit of acknowledged experts as advisers and using data from the MasAgro Wheat field trials. Three students concluded their doctoral studies and two more are in line to achieve their degree in the first semester of 2016.
Objectives
- To raise wheat yield potential by 2 percent globally, with a view to increasing yield potential by 50 percent over 20 years.
- In the case of Mexico, to raise wheat production by 350,000 tons (10 percent) in 10 years, 750,000 tons (22 percent) in 15 years and 1.7 million tons (50 percent) in 20 years, in the same acreage currently devoted to wheat production.
International Winter Wheat Improvement Program (IWWIP)
The International Wheat Improvement Program was established as a cooperative international research effort by the Turkish national wheat research program and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in 1986. The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Rural Areas (ICARDA) joined the program in 1990, integrating its highland wheat breeding program.
The main objective of IWWIP is to develop winter/facultative wheat germplasm for the region of Central and West Asia. IWWIP is fully integrated into the national Turkish wheat program, with a strong connection to partners within and outside the region, such as eastern Europe and the United States.
The program is governed by a steering committee. Three coordinators — Beyhan Akin from CIMMYT, Mesut Keser from ICARDA and Fatih Ozdemir from the Turkish national wheat research program — provide technical leadership.
IWWIP focuses on the development of elite wheat lines for rainfed and irrigated areas in Central and West Asia.
Since the inception of the program, more than 105 winter wheat varieties originating from IWWIP germplasm have been released. Germplasm from IWWIP is sent each year to approximately 100 cooperators in 50 countries, making it an important vehicle for the global exchange of winter wheat germplasm.
Core traits for rainfed areas are yield and yield stability, drought and heat tolerance, resistance to three cereal rusts and soil-borne diseases — nematodes, crown and root rots —, and end-use quality. Other traits considered for specific areas are resistance to Septoria leaf blight and insects. For irrigated and high-rainfall areas, breeding focuses on yield potential, cereal rusts, Septoria and quality.
Germplasm with special traits, such as resistance to stem rust and Russian wheat aphid, and Sun pest vegetative stage resistance, is developed in nurseries and shared with IWWIP cooperators. IWWIP distributes four International Winter Wheat Nurseries each year, targeted for semiarid and irrigated conditions: Facultative and Winter Wheat Observation Nurseries (FAWWONs) FAWWON-SA and FAWWON-IRR, and the replicated International Winter Wheat Yield Trials (IWWYTs) IWWYT-SA and IWWYT-IRR.
In 2018, IWWIP established a speed-breeding facility at the Aegean Agricultural Research Institute in Menemen, Izmir, with the capacity to grow 20,000 plants in one cycle. This facility allows for greater genetic gain by increasing the number of generations per year and reducing the time it takes to incorporate new traits into elite germplasm.
IWWIP uses multi-location testing in Turkey as well as shuttle breeding globally, serving as a successful model for a jointly operated breeding program between national and international institutes. Shuttle breeding to improve drought and heat tolerance and cold tolerance has been working well and produces novel germplasm with abiotic stresses tolerance.
Major IWWIP contributions:
- Close cooperation with CIMMYT’s Soil Borne Pathogens Group to identify genotypes with resistance to nematodes and root rots, used in breeding programs in the region and beyond.
- A national inventory of wheat landraces in Turkey (2009-2014), with collections from over 1,500 farmers from 68 provinces. The collected material was characterized and deposited in the Turkish Gene Bank in Ankara. The best accessions are currently used as parents, undergoing further study by the Turkish National Program and IWWIP, and being used in the development of primary synthetic winter wheat for breeding diverse and resilient wheat varieties.
- High-quality data that has increased selection efficiency to develop yellow-rust-resistant cultivars.
- Substantial improvement in stem rust resistance through shuttle methodology between Turkey and Kenya.
- Publication of NDVI and digital photos for germplasm evaluation under irrigated and drought conditions.
IWWIP has played a major role in building the capacity of young researchers through long-term practical training at CIMMYT, ICARDA, and Turkish national wheat breeding programs; participation in traveling seminars; support for participation in regional conferences and IWWIP annual meetings; and on-site visits of IWWIP breeders.
Ethiopia Wheat Rust Scaling
Wheat is a traditional crop cultivated by about five million households on 1.6 million hectares in Ethiopia. Despite the country’s huge potential, the average wheat productivity of 2.5 tonnes per hectare is lower than the global average of 3 tonnes per hectare. Stem rust and yellow rust diseases caused by Pucccinia spp. are the major biotic constraints for wheat production in the country and recent recurrent outbreaks have debilitated many wheat varieties in major production areas in Ethiopia.
Projects to accelerate seed multiplication of rust resistant varieties funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others contributed to the replacement of the widely grown susceptible varieties Kubsa and Galama. However, in 2013–2014, a new Pgt race, identified as TKTTF, unrelated to the highly virulent Ug99 rust disease, which is also present in Ethiopia, caused 100 percent yield losses on bread wheat variety Digalu in some regions.
The Ethiopia Wheat Rust Scaling seed and surveillance project aims to develop, demonstrate and scale up high-yielding wheat varieties with adult plant resistance to prevailing rust pathogens with the following objectives: enhancement of rust surveillance; early warning and phenotyping; fast-track variety testing and pre-release seed multiplication to assure availability of rust resistant improved wheat varieties for distribution in targeted districts; accelerating seed multiplication of durable rust resistant wheat varieties through the formal and informal seed systems; demonstration and scaling up of improved wheat varieties and improving linkages between small scale durum wheat producers and agro-industries with the aim of creating market access to smallholder durum wheat producers.
The project includes conducting wheat rust surveys, training and field days. Farmer cooperative unions are being organized in clusters and women and youth groups will participate in informal seed production. The number of private seed enterprises and women farmers participating in the accelerated informal seed multiplication program will be increased as the project progresses in consultation with stakeholders.
CIMMYT worked with the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project to import of 5 tons of stem rust resistant bread wheat variety “Kingbird” and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Cereal Disease Laboratory, the University of Minnesota and Washington State University in phenotyping and genotyping of commercial cultivars and elite materials from the national wheat research program, respectively.
Objectives
- Enhancement of rust surveillance, early warning and phenotyping.
- Fast-track variety testing and pre-release seed multiplication to assure availability of rust resistant improved wheat varieties for distribution in targeted districts.
- Accelerating seed multiplication of durable rust resistant wheat varieties through the formal and informal seed systems.
- Demonstration and scaling up of improved wheat varieties.
- Improving linkages between small scale durum wheat producers and agro-industries with the aim of creating market access to smallholder durum wheat producers in 10 districts.
Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat
The Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project, a collaborative effort begun in April 2008, which now includes 22 research institutions around the world and is led by Cornell University, seeks to mitigate the threat of rust diseases to wheat. It aims to do so through coordinated activities that will replace susceptible varieties with durably resistant varieties, created by accelerated multilateral plant breeding and delivered through optimized developing country seed sectors. The project also aims to harness recent advances in genomics to introduce non-host resistance (immunity) into wheat.
Improved international collaboration in wheat research to meet growing world demand for food — an estimated 50 percent production increase in wheat alone is needed by 2020 — is another major goal of this project.
Objectives
- Reduce systematically the world’s vulnerability to stem rust diseases of wheat through an international collaboration unprecedented in scale and scope.
- Mitigate that threat through coordinated pathogen surveillance activities, and breeding initiatives.
- Make efforts that will replace susceptible varieties in farmer’s fields with seed of durably resistant varieties, created by accelerated multilateral plant breeding, and delivered through optimized developing country seed sectors.
Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat (DGGW)
Climate-change-induced heat stress and disease pathogens migrating across borders threaten the world’s wheat supply and food security in Africa and the Middle East. Building on the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat (DRRW) global partnership, Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat (DGGW) will mitigate serious threats to wheat brought about by climate change and develop and deploy new strains of wheat that are heat tolerant as well as resistant to wheat rusts and other diseases.
Cornell University has been awarded a $24 million grant by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to continue to fund and expand the work of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI).
DGGW uses modern tools of comparative genomics and big data to develop and deploy varieties of wheat that incorporate climate resiliency as well as improved disease resistance for smallholder farmers in these politically vulnerable regions.”
The four-year grant builds on the successes of the BGRI, led by the DRRW project, funded by the UK Department for International Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from 2008 to 2016.
Deadly wheat pathogens have been moving from the wheat fields of northern and East Africa into the Middle East. In their rush to identify genes that can resist evolving and virulent new strains of the disease known as stem rust, BGRI scientists have developed collaborative arrangements and facilities, with the crucial support of national governments and agencies, to screen thousands of samples of wheat each year from every continent under rust infection, to identify resistant lines.
DGGW is based at Cornell University and acts as the secretariat for the BGRI. Collaborations continue with national partners in Kenya and Ethiopia, as well as scientists at international agricultural research centers that focus on wheat, including CIMMYT and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas.
Advanced research laboratories in the U.S., Canada, China, Turkey, Denmark, Australia and South Africa collaborate on the project. So far, more than 2,000 scientists from 35 international institutions spread across 23 countries are involved in the consortium, and 37 countries contribute data to the surveillance network.
Objectives
- Mitigate serious threats to wheat brought about by climate change
- Develop new strains of heat-tolerant wheat
- Develop rust and disease resistant wheat
- Monitor spread of stem rust and other windborne wheat diseases
Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA)
The Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) is a non-profit international research institute dedicated to food, nutrition and livelihood security as well as environmental rehabilitation in South Asia, which is home to more than 300 million undernourished people. BISA is a collaborative effort involving the CIMMYT and the Indian Council for Agricultural Research. The objective of BISA is to harness the latest technology in agriculture to improve farm productivity and sustainably meet the demands of the future. BISA is more than an institute. It is a commitment to the people of South Asia, particularly to the farmers, and a concerted effort to catalyze a second Green Revolution.
BISA was established on October 5, 2011, through an agreement between the Government of India (GoI) and CIMMYT and was bolstered by the globally credible name of Nobel Laureate Norman Ernest Borlaug. The institution draws on the decades of experience and success by CIMMYT, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), and a global network of partners in using research to generate tangible benefits for farmers internationally. BISA is supported by a growing number of national stakeholders in South Asia. It is committed to stronger collaborations for accelerated impact, most prominently with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the three state governments (Punjab, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh) where BISA farms are located.
Objectives
- Ensure access to the latest in research and technologies that are currently not available in the region
- Strategize research aimed at doubling food production in South Asia while using less water, land and energy
- Strengthen cutting-edge research that validates and tests new technologies to significantly increase yield potential
- Develop technologies for higher productivity in rice, maize and wheat based farming systems
- Design research outputs targeted to small and marginal farmers across the region
- Build on CIMMYT’s vast germplasm resources, and make research products and know-how developed by BISA freely available to stakeholders
- Create a new generation of scientists to work with new technologies through training programs that will retain them in South Asia
- Enable researchers to pursue multiple strategies and research possibilities while simultaneously allowing for more meaningful collaboration with national institutions
- Build a forum with partners from all sectors – research centers, governments, science community, businesses and farmers – to transform farmers’ lives and improve food security in the region
- Develop a policy environment that embraces new technologies and encourages investments in agricultural research
- Develop and utilize BISA as a regional platform that focuses on agricultural research in the whole of South Asia
Download the BISA Annual Report 2022.
For more information:
Meenakshi Chandiramani
Office Manager
CIMMYT-BISA
m.chandiramani@cgiar.org
Richa Sharma Puri
Communication Specialist
CIMMYT-BISA
r.puri@cgiar.org
International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP)
In 2011, agriculture ministers from the Group of 20 nations committed to developing an international initiative to coordinate worldwide research efforts in wheat genetics, genomics, physiology, breeding and agronomy.
The result, the Wheat Initiative, aims to encourage and support the development of a vibrant global public-private research community by sharing resources, capabilities, data and ideas to improve wheat productivity, quality and sustainable production around the world.
One of the Wheat Initiative’s key aims – increasing wheat yield and developing new wheat varieties adapted to different geographical regions – will be delivered by the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP) – an international partnership of research funders and research organizations.
The partnership was initiated by CIMMYT, the Britain’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Mexico’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food and the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2012. IWYP represents a long-term, global endeavor that utilizes a collaborative approach to bring together funding from public and private research organizations from a large number of countries.
The partnership supports both core infrastructure and facilitates transnational open calls for research, all targeted at raising the yield potential of wheat.
All partners are committed to transparency, collaboration, open communication of results, data sharing as well as improved coordination to maximize global impact and eliminate duplication of effort.
IWYP is an independent research activity but, as with all public wheat research activities, IWYP will help the Wheat Initiative to fulfill its mission to “co-ordinate wheat research and contribute to global food security.”
This partnership builds on previous work of the Wheat Yield Consortium.
Objectives
- Increasing wheat yield and developing new wheat varieties adapted to different geographical regions
- Support core infrastructure and facilitate transnational open calls for research, all targeted at raising the yield potential of wheat