Jared Crain, a research assistant professor of plant pathology, collaborates with CIMMYT on wheat genomics. Leading the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Applied Wheat Genomics at K-State, Crain and his team annually analyze DNA from 19,000 plants.
Read the full story.
A systematic review conducted by a team of scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has revealed that many farmers around the world incorrectly identify their crop varieties, with significant impacts on their farming practices, yields, profits, and research.
The review, published this month in Outlook on Agriculture, brings together information from 23 published studies to sketch crop variety misclassification among farmers, its determinants, and the implications of classification errors on the farm and in research.
“We found that seven out of ten farmers incorrectly identified the grown variety when they were asked to identify the variety by its specific name. When farmers were asked if the grown variety was either improved or local, three out of ten farmers made incorrect classifications,” said Michael Euler, first author of the study and agricultural resource economist at CIMMYT.
Whether farmers correctly identify crop varieties has a knock-on effect on their farming practices, which in turn affects their crop yields and income. This can bleed into research, impacting experiments and evaluation studies of agricultural technologies and methods. For example, scientists might assign treatment and control groups based on incorrect farmer variety classification, potentially leading to biased estimates and data discrepancies.
“Varietal misidentification can lead to improper agronomic management, forgone farm revenue, and seed system malfunctioning. From a monitoring and evaluation perspective, the potential presence of bias in estimates due to varietal misclassification is problematic as it may mask the true costs and benefits of seed technologies,” said Euler.
The study is the first systematic review of the use of DNA fingerprinting – a method that uses molecular markers to identify crop varieties – to assess how accurate farmers are in identifying their varieties and the impacts this has on seed markets, crop performance, farm profits, and research.
“The use of DNA fingerprinting to identify crop varieties in farmers’ fields has emerged only recently. The review of existing literature, nonetheless, shows its potential to strengthen the functioning and effectiveness of seed markets, supply chains, and extension services,” said Vijesh Krishna, co-author of the study and senior scientist at CIMMYT.
The results of the review show that cases of farmers misidentifying varieties are widespread, causing problems for farm productivity and profits, as well as research. The authors also found that DNA fingerprinting can shed light on what drives farmers to misidentify varieties and how they can minimize misclassification.
“Varietal misidentification is not only related to farmer and farm characteristics but also depends on the properties of the seed system through which seeds are obtained. We need more comprehensive modeling approaches to improve our understanding of the system-level drivers of farmer varietal misclassification,” said co-author and CIMMYT senior agricultural economist Moti Jaleta.
However, like most technologies, DNA fingerprinting has its limitations. It may not always be feasible in all settings, and the costs may offset the benefits in areas where formal seed markets are already well-functioning.
“DNA fingerprinting is considered a reliable method to accurately identify varieties grown by farmers and is increasingly seen as the ‘gold standard’ for varietal identification. However, it requires a high-quality reference library, a well-designed sampling strategy, and accurate tracking of plant samples from collection sites to the point of analysis,” said CIMMYT senior scientist and co-author David Hodson.
Based on the results of the analysis, the authors recommend integrating DNA fingerprinting into existing national data collection toolboxes to accurately estimate adoption and turnover rates of improved crop varieties and to evaluate existing genetic crop diversity on farms. Understanding and promoting genetic crop diversity are crucial steps for enhancing food security and increasing the climate and pest and disease resilience of crops.
Having accurate estimates of adoption and turnover rates of varieties, combined with seed supply system assessment, can also help researchers and decision-makers pinpoint any bottlenecks or loopholes in the “lab to farm” process, according to the authors.
“The review aims at helping researchers and policymakers strategize to more effectively assess the functioning and effectiveness of seed diffusion systems to deliver modern seeds to smallholders,” concluded Krishna.
Read the full study: Because error has a price: A systematic review of the applications of DNA fingerprinting for crop varietal identification
Cover photo: Farmer examines wheat seed. Ciudad Obregon, Mexico 2017. (Photo: Peter Lowe/CIMMYT)
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.
A state-of-the-art study of plant DNA provides strong evidence that farmers in Ethiopia have widely adopted new, improved rust-resistant bread wheat varieties since 2014.
The results — published in Nature Scientific Reports — show that nearly half (47%) of the 4,000 plots sampled were growing varieties 10 years old or younger, and the majority (61%) of these were released after 2005.
Four of the top varieties sown were recently-released rust-resistant varieties developed through the breeding programs of the Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Adoption studies provide a fundamental measure of the success and effectiveness of agricultural research and investment. However, obtaining accurate information on the diffusion of crop varieties remains a challenging endeavor.
DNA fingerprinting enables researchers to identify the variety present in samples or plots, based on a comprehensive reference library of the genotypes of known varieties. In Ethiopia, over 94% of plots could be matched with known varieties. This provides data that is vastly more accurate than traditional farmer-recall surveys.
This is the first nationally representative, large-scale wheat DNA fingerprinting study undertaken in Ethiopia. CIMMYT scientists led the study in partnership with EIAR, the Ethiopian Central Statistical Agency (CSA) and Diversity Array Technologies (DArT).
“When we compared DNA fingerprinting results with the results from a survey of farmers’ memory of the same plots, we saw that only 28% of farmers correctly named wheat varieties grown,” explained Dave Hodson, a principal scientist at CIMMYT and lead author of the study.
The resulting data helps national breeding programs adjust their seed production to meet demand, and national extension agents focus on areas that need better access to seed. It also helps scientists, policymakers, donors and organizations such as CIMMYT track their impact and prioritize funding, support, and the direction of future research.
“These results validate years of international investment and national policies that have worked to promote, distribute and fast-track the release of wheat varieties with the traits that farmers have asked for — particularly resistance to crop-destroying wheat rust disease,” said Hodson.
Ethiopia is the largest wheat producer in sub-Saharan Africa. The Ethiopian government recently announced its goal to become self-sufficient in wheat, and increasing domestic wheat production is a national priority.
Widespread adoption of these improved varieties, demonstrated by DNA fingerprinting, has clearly had a positive impact on both economic returns and national wheat production gains. Initial estimates show that farmers gained an additional 225,500 tons of production — valued at $50 million — by using varieties released after 2005.
The study results validate investments in wheat improvement made by international donor agencies, notably the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ethiopian government, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO, formerly DFID), the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the World Bank. Their success in speeding up variety release and seed multiplication in Ethiopia is considered a model for other countries.
“This is good news for Ethiopian farmers, who are seeing better incomes from higher yielding, disease-resistant wheat, and for the Ethiopian government, which has put a high national priority on increasing domestic wheat production and reducing dependence on imports,” said EIAR Deputy Director General Chilot Yirga.
The study also confirmed CGIAR’s substantial contribution to national breeding efforts, with 90% of the area sampled containing varieties released by Ethiopian wheat breeding programs and derived from CIMMYT and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) germplasm. Varieties developed using germplasm received from CIMMYT covered 87% of the wheat area surveyed.
“This research demonstrates that DNA fingerprinting can be applied at scale and is likely to transform future crop varietal adoption studies,” said Kindie Tesfaye, a senior scientist at CIMMYT and co-author of the study. “Additional DNA fingerprinting studies are now also well advanced for maize in Ethiopia.”
This research is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and CGIAR Fund Donors. Financial support was provided through the “Mainstreaming the use and application of DNA Fingerprinting in Ethiopia for tracking crop varieties” project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Grant number OPP1118996).
RELATED PUBLICATIONS:
Ethiopia’s Transforming Wheat Landscape: Tracking Variety Use through DNA Fingerprinting
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION OR INTERVIEW REQUESTS:
Dave Hodson, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), d.hodson@cgiar.org
ABOUT CIMMYT:
The International Maize and What 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 the CGIAR System and leads the CGIAR 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. For more information visit staging.cimmyt.org
Cesar Petroli, High-throughput Genotyping Specialist with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), develops genomic profiles of DNA samples, generating tens or even hundreds of thousands of molecular markers. This helps the team to set up genetic diversity analysis, improve genebank collections management and identify genomic regions associated with the expression of important agronomic traits.
Watch him explain how this molecular information can help the breeding process, to ultimately help farmers face climate change and food security challenges.
Using the full wheat genome map published in 2018, combined with data from field testing of wheat breeding lines in multiple countries, an international team of scientists has identified significant new chromosomal regions for wheat yield and disease resistance and created a freely-available collection of genetic information and markers for more than 40,000 wheat lines.
Reported today in Nature Genetics, the results will speed up global efforts to breed more productive and climate-resilient varieties of bread wheat, a critical crop for world food security that is under threat from rising temperatures, rapidly-evolving fungal pathogens, and more frequent droughts, according to Philomin Juliana, wheat scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and first author of the new study.
“This work directly connects the wheat genome reference map with wheat lines and extensive field data from CIMMYT’s global wheat breeding network,” said Juliana. “That network in turn links to over 200 breeding programs and research centers worldwide and contributes to yield and other key traits in varieties sown on nearly half the world’s wheat lands.”
The staple food for more than 2.5 billion people, wheat provides 20% of human dietary calories and protein worldwide and is critical for the nutrition and food security of hundreds of millions of poor persons in regions such as North Africa and South Asia.
“Farmers and societies today face new challenges to feed rising and rapidly-urbanizing populations, and wheat epitomizes the issues,” said Ravi Singh, CIMMYT wheat breeder and corresponding author of the study. “Higher temperatures are holding back yields in major wheat-growing areas, extreme weather events are common, crop diseases are spreading and becoming more virulent, and soil and water are being depleted.”
Juliana said the study results help pave the way to apply genomic selection, an approach that has transformed dairy cow husbandry, for more efficient wheat breeding.
“Molecular markers are getting cheaper to use; meanwhile, it’s very costly to do field testing and selection involving many thousands of wheat plants over successive generations,” Juliana said. “Genome-wide marker-based selection can help breeders to precisely identify good lines in early breeding generations and to test plantlets in greenhouses, thereby complementing and streamlining field testing.”
The new study found that genomic selection could be particularly effective in breeding for wheat end-use quality and for resistance to stem rust disease, whose causal pathogen has been evolving and spreading in the form of highly-virulent new races.
The new study also documents the effectiveness of the global public breeding efforts by CIMMYT and partners, showing that improved wheat varieties from this work have accumulated multiple gene variants that favor higher yields, according to Hans-Joachim Braun, director of CIMMYT’s global wheat program.
“This international collaboration, which is the world’s largest publicly-funded wheat breeding program, benefits farmers worldwide and offers high-quality wheat lines that are released directly to farmers in countries, such as Afghanistan, that are unable to run a full-fledged wheat breeding program,” Braun explained.
The study results are expected to support future gene discovery, molecular breeding, and gene editing in wheat, Braun said.
Together with more resource-efficient cropping systems, high-yielding and climate-resilient wheat varieties will constitute a key component of the sustainable intensification of food production described in Strategy 3 of the recent EAT-Lancet Commission recommendations to transform the global food system. Large-scale genomics will play a key role in developing these varieties and staying ahead of climate- and disease-related threats to food security.
Funders of this work include USAID’s Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Applied Wheat Genomics. Contributing to the research described are research teams engaged in wheat improvement at CIMMYT, and the lab of Jesse Poland, Associate Professor at Kansas State University and Director of the USAID Applied Wheat Genomics Innovation Lab.
For more information, or to arrange interviews with the researchers, please contact:
Marcia MacNeil, Wheat Communications Officer, CIMMYT
M.MacNeil@cgiar.org, +52 (55) 5804 2004, ext. 2070
How to track adoption and assess the impact of maize and wheat varieties? Some of the methods used until now, like farmers’ recall surveys, have various limitations. In addition to relying exclusively on people’s memory and subjectivity, they are difficult to replicate and prone to errors.
DNA fingerprinting, on the other hand, allows objective evaluation and is considered the “gold standard” method for adoption and impact assessments.
It consists of a chemical test that shows the genetic makeup of living things, by separating strands of DNA and revealing the unique parts of their genome. The results show up as a pattern of stripes that can be matched against other samples.
This technique is extremely helpful in tracking crop varieties and monitoring their adoption. It can be used to assess the impact of research-for-development investments, guide breeding and seed system strategies, implement the intellectual property rights of breeders, assess the use of crop genetic resources, and informing policy.
On June 25, 2019, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) held a half-day workshop in Addis Ababa to discuss the use and application of DNA fingerprinting in Ethiopia for the tracking of crop varieties.
High-level government officials and major players in the agricultural sector were interested in learning more about the policy implications of this tool and how to mainstream its use.
Introducing DNA fingerprinting in Ethiopia
The main DNA fingerprinting project in Ethiopia has been in operation since January 2016, focusing on the country’s two major staple crops: wheat and maize. The project covers the Amhara, Oromia, SNNPR, and Tigray regions, which together account for 92% and 79% of the national wheat and maize production.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has funded the project, which was jointly implemented by CIMMYT, the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), Ethiopia’s Central Statistical Agency (CSA) and Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT).
The main objective of the project was to generate a knowledge base for the practical use of DNA fingerprinting, to mainstream the use of this technology, and to offer policy options and recommendations.
Better monitoring for wheat self-sufficiency
At the workshop, researchers presented two policy briefs specific to Ethiopia: one focusing on policy implications of DNA fingerprinting for tracking bread wheat varieties and another one on how to revitalize the durum wheat sub-sector.
Speaking at the workshop, Eyasu Abraha, Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources, noted that the government planned to achieve wheat grain self-sufficiency in the next few years by increasing wheat productivity in the highlands and expanding wheat production to the lowlands through irrigation. In this regard, improved crop variety development and dissemination is one of the key elements to increase agricultural productivity and improve the livelihood of millions of smallholder farmers.
According to Abraha, more than 130 wheat varieties have been released or registered in Ethiopia since the late 1960s, in collaboration with international research organizations. Public and private seed enterprises have multiplied and distributed these varieties to reach smallholder farmers.
Even though adoption studies have been conducted, there is still a strong need for more accurate and wider studies. In addition to tracking adoption and demand, using DNA fingerprinting could help understand the distribution of varieties across space and time.
Despite the severe social and political unrest that constrain agriculture in Afghanistan, many farmers are growing high-yielding, disease resistant varieties developed through international, science-based breeding and made available to farmers as part of partnerships with national wheat experts and seed producers.
These and other findings have emerged from the first-ever large-scale use of DNA fingerprinting to assess Afghanistan farmers’ adoption of improved wheat varieties, which are replacing less productive local varieties and landraces, according to a paper published yesterday in the science journal BMC Genomics.
The study is part of an activity supported between 2003 and 2018 by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, through which the Agricultural Research Institute of Afghanistan and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) introduced, tested, and released improved wheat varieties.
“As part of our study, we established an extensive ‘reference library’ of released varieties, elite breeding lines, and Afghan wheat landraces,” said Susanne Dreisigacker, wheat molecular breeder at CIMMYT and lead author of the new paper.
“We then compared wheat collected on farmers’ fields with the reference library. Of the 560 wheat samples collected in 4 provinces during 2015-16, farmers misidentified more than 40%, saying they were of a different variety from that which our DNA analyses later identified.”
Wheat is the most important staple crop in Afghanistan — more than 20 million of the country’s rural inhabitants depend on it — but wheat production is unstable and Afghanistan has been importing between 2 and 3 million tons of grain each year to meet demand.
Over half of the population lives below the poverty line, with high rates of malnutrition. A key development aim in Afghanistan is to foster improved agronomic practices and the use of high quality seed of improved wheat varieties, which together can raise yields by over 50%.
“Fungal diseases, particularly yellow rust and stem rust, pose grave threats to wheat in the country,” said Eric Huttner, research program manager for crops at the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and co-author of the present paper. “It’s crucial to know which wheat varieties are being grown where, in order to replace the susceptible ones with high-performing, disease resistant varieties.”
Varietal adoption studies typically rely on questionnaires completed by breeders, extension services, seed producers, seed suppliers, and farmers, but such surveys are complicated, expensive, and often inaccurate.
“DNA fingerprinting resolves uncertainties regarding adoption and improves related socioeconomic research and farm policies,” Huttner explained, adding that for plant breeding this technology has been used mostly to protect intellectual property, such as registered breeding lines and varieties in more developed economies.
This new study was commissioned by ACIAR as a response to a request from the Government of Afghanistan for assistance in characterizing the Afghan wheat gene bank, according to Huttner.
“This provided the reference library against which farmers’ samples could be compared,” he explained. “Accurately identifying the varieties that farmers grow is key evidence on the impact of introducing improved varieties and will shape our future research
Joint research and development efforts involving CIMMYT, ACIAR, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the International Centre of Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), French Cooperation, and Afghanistan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) and Agricultural Research Institute (ARIA) have introduced more than 400 modern, disease-resistant wheat varieties over the last two decades. Nearly 75% of the wheat grown in the areas surveyed for this study comes from these improved varieties.
“New sequencing technologies are increasingly affordable and their cost will continue to fall,” said Dreisigacker. “Expanded use of DNA fingerprinting can easily and accurately identify the wheat cultivars in farmers’ fields, thus helping to target breeding, agronomy, and development efforts for better food security and farmer livelihoods.”
For more information, or to arrange interviews with the researchers, please contact:
Marcia MacNeil, Wheat Communications Officer, CIMMYT
M.MacNeil@cgiar.org, +52 (55) 5804 2004, ext. 2070
Rodrigo Ordóñez, Communications Manager, CIMMYT
r.ordonez@cgiar.org, +52 (55) 5804 2004, ext. 1167
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.
About ACIAR
As Australia’s specialist international agricultural research for development agency, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) brokers and funds research partnerships between Australian scientists and their counterparts in developing countries. Since 1982, ACIAR has supported research projects in eastern and southern Africa, East Asia, South and West Asia and the Pacific, focusing on crops, agribusiness, horticulture, forestry, livestock, fisheries, water and climate, social sciences, and soil and land management. ACIAR has commissioned and managed more than 1,500 research projects in 36 countries, partnering with 150 institutions along with more than 50 Australian research organizations.
About Afghanistan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock
The Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan works on the development and modernization of agriculture, livestock and horticulture. The ministry launches programs to support the farmers, manage natural resources, and strengthen agricultural economics. Its programs include the promotion and introduction of higher-value economic crops, strengthening traditional products, identifying and publishing farm-tailored land technologies, boosting cooperative programs, agricultural economics, and export with marketing.
DNA is often referred to as the blueprint for life. It contains codes to make the proteins, molecules and cells essential for an organism’s growth and development. Over the last decade, scientists have been figuring out how specific sections of DNA in maize and wheat are associated with physical and genetic traits, such as grain size and drought resistance.
Quantitative geneticist Huihui Li with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) helps link this new genetic knowledge with traditional crop breeding, to speed up the development of improved maize and wheat varieties. Li’s research uses cutting-edge genomics, computational biology and statistical tools to turn data into useful information for plant breeders.
“Breeders always accumulate big amounts of data, most of the time they need efficient tools to mine the stories from this data. That’s part of our job in the Biometrics and Statistics Unit,” she explained.
Her research helps breeders more quickly and accurately predict which maize and wheat varieties in the CIMMYT gene bank have the traits they seek to create improved varieties. For example, if a plant breeder wanted to develop a hybrid maize variety with high protein levels and pest resistance, Li could help by identifying which parental varieties would have these traits.
It takes about ten years for crop breeders to develop a new hybrid. Removing some of the guesswork during the early stages of their experiments could reduce this time significantly. With increasing environmental pressures from climate change and population growth, releasing better crop varieties more quickly will be vital to ensure there is enough food in the future.
Li says her family and experience growing up in China greatly influenced her career choice.
“Through my grandfather’s experience as the head of the Bureau of Agriculture and Forestry, I learned that there were many people in China suffering from hunger, poverty and malnutrition,” she said.
Li realized that these issues were prevalent throughout the developing world when her mother left China for two years to serve as a foreign aid doctor in Cameroon.
“As a ten-year-old girl, I told myself that I should make my contribution to reduce hunger and poverty, and improve human nutrition in the future,” Li recalled. “I always ask myself, ‘What’s my value to humanity?”
She studied bio-mathematics and quantitative genetics at Beijing Normal University and Cornell University before joining CIMMYT in 2010 as a consultant.
“I wanted to join CIMMYT because it works throughout the developing world to improve livelihoods and foster more productive, sustainable maize and wheat farming,” Li explained. “Also, CIMMYT provided a platform where I could collaborate with scientists worldwide and receive academic and career-boosting trainings.”
She became staff in 2012 and is currently based out of the CIMMYT office in Beijing. In addition, Li is an adjunct associate professor with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS). She helps CAAS scientists improve their experimental design and better incorporate genetic information into their crop breeding.
“I love doing research,” Li said. “I’m a curious person so if I can solve a problem, I feel very happy, but I really want my research to have value – not just for myself – but for the world.”
Huihui Li’s work contributes to Seeds of Discovery (SeeD), a multi-project initiative comprising: MasAgro Biodiversidad, a joint initiative of CIMMYT and the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA) through the MasAgro (Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture) project and the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize (MAIZE) and Wheat (WHEAT).