CIMMYT’s Bread Wheat Breeding Program analyzed top wheat genotypes over 14 years, aiming to boost grain yield (GY) and stability. Results at the Norman E. Borlaug Research Station in Mexico showed an annual GY gain of 0.96%, driven by enhancements in biomass, grain filling rate, and radiation use efficiency. This underscores CIMMYT’s success in delivering high-yielding wheat varieties globally and suggests potential future gains through diverse genotype intercrossing.
New drought-resistant sorghum varieties bring hope for farmers in Africa
Scientists have identified drought-resistant, high-yielding sorghum genotypes that have the potential to revolutionize agriculture in dry regions of Africa. Sorghum, a staple food for millions in sub-Saharan Africa, has long been threatened by devastation from drought.
But now, researchers from the African Centre for Crop Improvement, the Institute of Agricultural Research (IAR), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), and the University of Life Sciences have discovered genetic resources that thrive under adverse conditions, yielding promising results and providing hope for a future that is more sustainable.
The study looked at 225 sorghum genotypes in various conditions, including non-stressed conditions and pre- and post-anthesis drought stress. The researchers used advanced statistical analysis, such as the additive main effects and multiplicative interaction (AMMI) method, to identify the most resilient and high-yielding genotypes.
The results revealed a vast diversity in the genetic resources of sorghum and provided a pathway for selecting promising genotypes for regions prone to drought. In addition, the study highlighted the significant impact of environmental conditions on grain yield, with genotypes showing variable responses to different growing environments.
A farmer inspecting sorghum on his farm in Tanzania. (Photo: CBCC)
For example, genotypes G144 (Kaura Short Panicle-1) and G157 (Kaura Mai Baki Kona) displayed higher grain yield in drought-stressed environments and were among the top performers. Not only do these genotypes outperform registered cultivars, but they also possess traits valued by farmers, making them ideal candidates for future breeding programs. In addition to drought tolerance, genotypes G119 and G127 displayed remarkable stability and high yield under non-stressed conditions, showing their potential as all-around performers in a variety of environments.
Farmers in dry areas of sub-Saharan Africa that are characterized by pre- and post-anthesis drought stress stand to gain a great deal from these newly identified sorghum strains. Adoption of these high-yielding and drought-resistant genotypes could increase food production and strengthen farmers’ resilience against the effects of climate change.
The findings of these super sorghum genotypes offer farmers facing the challenges of climate change a glimmer of hope. By adopting these new drought-resistant strains, African farmers can improve their food security and strengthen their communities, paving the way for a more resilient and sustainable future.
Sitting at the cutting edge of science, the crop breeding domain has been improving and refining tools, technologies and techniques. But adoption by public breeding programs focusing on Africa, Asia, and Latin America has often been slow. This has hindered progress on developing the new varieties needed for farmers to overcome climate impacts, build livelihoods, and feed their communities.
But One CGIAR’s new integrated approach is changing that. Building on the work of CGIAR Excellence in Breeding, the Breeding Resource Initiative can point to major progress in 2022, moving forward on an array of shared services, capacity development programs and technical support. Here are five significant milestones helping CGIAR and its national partners deliver better results:
1. Regional hubs are on their way: CGIAR’s vision is to have regional hubs coordinating and delivering services across crops. AfricaRice is set to grow into a regional service provider and coordinator for multiple crops in West Africa. After discussions, planning and site visits with BRI, AfricaRice leadership committed to working with the BRI team to start by providing regional nutritional analysis services, aimed to launch for selected partners in 2023. The plan is to then expand AfricaRice’s role as a coordinator of other competitive services like genotyping and capacity building. This is a major step toward CGIAR’s vision of not just improving breeding stations, but serving all CGIAR/National Agricultural Research and Extension Services (NARES) partners regionally. The aim is collaboration, efficiency and results in farmers’ fields.
2. Operations teams are amping up skills and knowledge: Breeding success hinges on good operational practices leading to accurate data. To ensure the heritability of breeding trials, BRI has offered resources, trainings and on-the-ground support for operational teams. Through its Breeding Operation Network for Development (BOND), BRI/EiB, along with IITA, ran three weeklong workshops for partners across Africa (watch all 22 sessions on plotmanship, gender, seed processing, irrigation and more), regular webinars exploring private and public sector best practices, and a series focusing on continuous improvement approaches. BRI also trained dozens of operational staff across Africa on how to use and maintain new USAID-supplied equipment. And CGIAR continued its push to harmonize rice breeding processes between IRRI, AfricaRice and CIAT through a week-long rice breeding operations training at IRRI. As well, new tools such as a gender inclusion checklist are now available to support operational excellence.
3. EBS is settling in as a universal data platform: The data management platform Enterprise Breeding System has made real strides in the past year, with an updated version with new features (Milestone 5) rolling out across three Centers (CIMMYT, IITA, IRRI), with over 500 users. Other Centers, such as AfricaRice are starting to deploy the system too. On their visit to AfricaRice’s Ivory Coast station, the BRI team noted barcode deployment across the upland rice nurseries – an inspiration to spur other CGIAR Centers to accelerate their own adoption. EBS is a single, powerful, shared, multi-crop platform and its deployment will mean major time and money savings for breeders – and better breeding decisions.
4. Lab services are expanding: As breeders strive for higher-yielding, climate-resilient and nutritious crops, BRI/EiB have been improving breeding speed and accuracy through streamlined, reliable and cost-effective genotyping services. Services include Low Density SNP Genotyping Services (LDSG), Mid-density SNP Genotyping (MDSG), along with training. BRI also launched a Lab Services Process Team to connect Genetic Innovation departments and teams and ensure delivery of high quality services through standardized processes. And launching in 2023, partners will be able to access biochemical testing for nutritional traits and quality. These improved services mean CGIAR and national partners are becoming more effective and competitive as they use this data to make better decisions.
5. Regional approaches set to drive change: BRI drives change at both local and regional levels. For example, team members visited Kiboko and Njoro stations in Kenya, and ran planning sessions in Nairobi with East African breeding teams. This helped clarify challenges and priorities in the region, helping define how services could best be established. Kenya’s key outcomes included: a commitment with CIMMYT leadership to establish services in Kiboko as a pilot, an action plan to improve EBS development and adoption in the region, and endorsement by CGIAR Breeding Research Services leadership of major Crops to End Hunger grants in the region – these fill key gaps in the drive to modernization. The team plans to organize similar sessions to support CGIAR/NARES breeding networks in other regions.
These five strides forward represent but a glimpse into Breeding Resources’ progress. And these are much more than just separate achievements. They represent a shift in breeding culture across the CGIAR-NARES networks – one that will help deliver better varieties, faster. With major plans for 2023, CGIAR-NARES can look forward to the tools and services they need to deliver first-class programs.
Story and feature photo by Adam Hunt, EiB/BRI/ABI Communications Lead. We would like to thank all funders who support this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund. And thank you to the supporters and partners of CGIAR Excellence in Breeding, particularly the funding from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Participants of the IMAGE National Advisory Committee launch event in Ethiopia. (Credit: EIAR)
Coordinating the development and deployment of improved seed varieties is a complex task involving many stakeholders, including government agencies, public and private seed sector organizations, and ultimately, farmers and farmer groups. Cooperation among these groups is vital to assess and measure the impact of improved varieties and to guide decision making for future crop breeding efforts.
The Institutionalizing Monitoring of Crop Variety Adoption using Genotyping (IMAGE) project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and managed by Context Global Development, is a five-year program operating in Nigeria, Tanzania, and Ethiopia designed to increase the efficacy of variety deployment by establishing, institutionalizing, and scaling up routine monitoring of improved variety adoption and turnover using genotyping technologies, focusing on wheat, maize, teff, and the common bean.
The International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT), in collaboration with the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), launched Ethiopia’s IMAGE National Advisory Committee (NAC) February 25, 2022, in Addis Ababa.
Feto Esemo, the Director General of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) officially opened the workshop.
Esemo underscored in his opening remarks the NAC’s mission to promote the application of DNA fingerprinting for an accurate assessment and understanding of the adoption of improved maize and wheat varieties by small-holder farmers in Ethiopia and resolve data discrepancy among researchers.
The NAC is the highest advisory body for IMAGE’s implementation in Ethiopia and comprises seven institutions: Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), Ministry of Planning and Development (MPD), Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI), EIAR, Central Statistical Agency (CSA), Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute (BI), and the Ethiopian Biotechnology Institute (EBI).
Kindie Tesfaye, CIMMYT senior scientist, emphasized the application of DNA fingerprint data on maize and wheat in Ethiopia and summarized the IMAGE Project.
“IMAGE supports inclusive agricultural transformation by providing insights and evidence for seed sector actors to enhance government agency capacity, improve stakeholder coordination, and lead to better resource allocation for varietal development and commercialization,” said Tesfaye.
He added the IMAGE Project provides the opportunity to leverage past monitoring pilots and cross-country lessons while advancing genetic reference libraries, establishing protocol adoption, and building towards institutionalization over five years.
National maize and wheat genotyping studies in Ethiopia proved the feasibility of using DNA fingerprinting for variety monitoring at scale and CIMMYT and EIAR presented the findings to seed system and policy stakeholders with an emphasis on demonstrating how varietal identity based on genotyping compares with farmers’ elicitation, the area-weighted average age of varieties, germplasm attribution, and varietal performance.
Chilot Yirga, Deputy Director-General, Capacity Building and Administration of EIAR, emphasized the functional and structural roles of the National Advisory Committee (NAC), Country Team (CT), and Technical Working Group (TWG) of the project in the country.
EIAR, the Holetta National Agricultural Biotechnology Research Center, CSA, and CIMMYT comprise the Country Team.
Yirga also briefed the participants on the details of the Committee’s mandate and indicated the roles of all stakeholders and policymakers, specifically in DNA fingerprinting.
The workshop concluded by electing a chairperson and vice-chairperson of the committee among its members and co-project leaders from CIMMYT and EIAR.
A new study analyzing the diversity of almost 80,000 wheat accessions reveals consequences and opportunities of selection footprints. (Photo: Keith Ewing)
Researchers working on the Seeds of Discovery (SeeD) initiative, which aims to facilitate the effective use of genetic diversity of maize and wheat, have genetically characterized 79,191 samples of wheat from the germplasm banks of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA).
The findings of the study published today in Nature Communications are described as “a massive-scale genotyping and diversity analysis” of the two types of wheat grown globally — bread and pasta wheat — and of 27 known wild species.
Wheat is the most widely grown crop globally, with an annual production exceeding 600 million tons. Approximately 95% of the grain produced corresponds to bread wheat and the remaining 5% to durum or pasta wheat.
The main objective of the study was to characterize the genetic diversity of CIMMYT and ICARDA’s internationally available collections, which are considered the largest in the world. The researchers aimed to understand this diversity by mapping genetic variants to identify useful genes for wheat breeding.
From germplasm bank to breadbasket
The results show distinct biological groupings within bread wheats and suggest that a large proportion of the genetic diversity present in landraces has not been used to develop new high-yielding, resilient and nutritious varieties.
“The analysis of the bread wheat accessions reveals that relatively little of the diversity available in the landraces has been used in modern breeding, and this offers an opportunity to find untapped valuable variation for the development of new varieties from these landraces”, said Carolina Sansaloni, high-throughput genotyping and sequencing specialist at CIMMYT, who led the research team.
The study also found that the genetic diversity of pasta wheat is better represented in the modern varieties, with the exception of a subgroup of samples from Ethiopia.
The researchers mapped the genomic data obtained from the genotyping of the wheat samples to pinpoint the physical and genetic positions of molecular markers associated with characteristics that are present in both types of wheat and in the crop’s wild relatives.
According to Sansaloni, on average, 72% of the markers obtained are uniquely placed on three molecular reference maps and around half of these are in interesting regions with genes that control specific characteristics of value to breeders, farmers and consumers, such as heat and drought tolerance, yield potential and protein content.
Open access
The data, analysis and visualization tools of the study are freely available to the scientific community for advancing wheat research and breeding worldwide.
“These resources should be useful in gene discovery, cloning, marker development, genomic prediction or selection, marker-assisted selection, genome wide association studies and other applications,” Sansaloni said.
The study was part of the SeeD and MasAgro projects and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT), with the support of Mexico’s Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER), the United Kingdom’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), and CGIAR Trust Fund Contributors. Research and analysis was conducted in collaboration with the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB) and the James Hutton Institute (JHI).
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.
