CIMMYT applies high quality science to develop more resilient agrifood systems. This year three scientists from CIMMYT are included in Clarivate’s 2023 Analysis of the most highly cited academic papers.
Jill Cairns participates at a plenary session. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)
While CIMMYT’s mission does explicitly require academic publication from its scientists, “the recognition reflects extensive networking with academia, opening doors for new technologies to benefit resource-poor farmers and consumers as well as lending scientific kudos to CIMMYT and underpinning fundraising efforts,” says Distinguished Scientist and Head of Wheat Physiology, Matthew Reynolds.
Maize Physiologist Jill Cairns and collaborators spearheaded the application of high throughput phenotyping for maize-breeding in sub-Saharan Africa, which she says, “would not have been possible without involving leading academic experts like JL Araus at Barcelona University.”
José Crossa chairs the session: adding value to phenotypic data. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)
Biometrician and Distinguished Scientist José Crossa has pioneered wheat genetic analysis and use of artificial intelligence to solve crop research questions. “With machine learning tools like Deep Learning, there is a golden opportunity to understand the many complex dimensions of crop adaptation, so data-driven breeding models will have the necessary precision to target complex traits,” he explains. Crossa is widely respected by leading academics in biometrics for his insights on bridging statistical theory to solve real world problems.
Reynolds has built initiatives like the Heat and Drought Wheat Improvement Consortium (HeDWIC) and the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP) that transfer cutting-edge technologies—from many of the best academic institutions in the world—to application in breeding, helping to widen wheat gene pools globally.
Matthew Reynolds speaks at a workshop. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)
All three scientists achieved the same recognition last year. As in 2022, Reynolds was awarded for his contribution to scientific literature in plant and animal sciences, while Cairns and Crossa were awarded for their contributions to scientific literature across several fields of research (cross fields).
Since 2001, Clarivate’s Highly Cited Researchers list has identified global research scientists and social scientists who have demonstrated significant and broad influence in their field(s) of research. It recognizes exceptional research performance demonstrated by the production of multiple papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year, according to the Web of Science citation indexing service.
In 2023, the list recognizes 6,849 individuals from more than 1,300 institutions across 67 countries and regions.
A farmer harvests wheat in one of CIMMYT’s research plots in Ethiopia. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)
Five international wheat research teams have been awarded grants for their proposals to boost climate resilience in wheat through discovery and development of new breeding technologies, screening tools and novel traits.
Wheat is one of the world’s most important staple crops, accounting for about 20% of all human calories and protein and is increasingly threatened by the impacts of climate change. Experts around the world are working on ways to strengthen the crop in the face of increasing heat and drought conditions.
The proposals were submitted in response to a call by the Heat and Drought Wheat Improvement Consortium (HeDWIC), led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and global partners, made in 2021.
The grants were made possible by co-funding from the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) and in-kind contributions from awardees as part of a project which brings together the latest research from scientists across the globe to deliver climate resilient wheat to farmers as quickly as possible.
Cutting-edge wheat research
Owen Atkin, from the Centre for Entrepreneurial Agri-Technology at the Australian National University, leads the awarded project “Discovering thermally stable wheat through exploration of leaf respiration in combination with photosystem II capacity and heat tolerance.”
“The ratio of dark respiration to light and CO2 saturated photosynthesis is a clear indicator of the respiratory efficiency of a plant,” Atkin said. “We will measure and couple this indicator of respiratory efficiency to the leaf hyperspectral signature of field grown wheat exposed to heat and drought. The outcome could be a powerful tool which is capable of screening for wheat lines that are more productive when challenged with drought and heatwave.”
Hannah M. Schneider, of Wageningen University & Research, leads the awarded project examining the use of a novel root trait called Multiseriate Cortical Sclerenchyma to increase drought-tolerance in wheat.
“Drought is a primary limitation to global crop production worldwide. The presence of small outer cortical cells with thick, lignified cell walls (MCS: Multiseriate Cortical Sclerenchyma) is a novel root trait that has utility in drought environments,” Schneider said. “The overall objective of this project is to evaluate and develop this trait as a tool to improve drought resistance in wheat and in other crops.”
An improved wheat variety grows in the field in Islamabad, Pakistan. (Photo: A. Yaqub/CIMMYT)
John Foulkes, of the University of Nottingham, leads an awarded project titled “Identifying spike hormone traits and molecular markers for improved heat and drought tolerance in wheat.”
“The project aims to boost climate-resilience of grain set in wheat by identifying hormone signals to the spike that buffer grain set against extreme weather, with a focus on cytokinin, ABA and ethylene responses,” Foulkes said. “This will provide novel phenotyping screens and germplasm to breeders, and lay the ground-work for genetic analysis and marker development.”
Erik Murchie, from the University of Nottingham, leads an awarded project to explore new ways of determining genetic variation in heat-induced growth inhibition in wheat.
“High temperature events as part of climate change increasingly limit crop growth and yield by disrupting metabolic and developmental processes. This project will develop rapid methods for screening growth and physiological processes during heat waves, generating new genetic resources for wheat,” Murchie said.
Eric Ober of the National Institute of Agricultural Botany in the UK, leads the awarded project “Targeted selection for thermotolerant isoforms of starch synthase.”
“Wheat remains a predominant source of calories and is fundamental to regional food security around the world. It is urgent that breeders are equipped to produce new varieties with increased tolerance to heat and drought, two stresses that commonly occur together, limiting grain production. The formation and filling of grain depends on the synthesis of starch, but a key enzyme in the pathway, starch synthase, is particularly sensitive to temperatures over 25°C. However, there exist forms of this enzyme that exhibit greater thermotolerance than that found in most current wheat varieties,” Ober said. “This project aims to develop a simple assay to screen diverse germplasm for sources of more heat-resistant forms of starch synthase that could be bred into new wheat varieties in the future.”
Breakthroughs from these projects are expected to benefit other crops, not just wheat. Other benefits of the projects include closer interaction between scientists and breeders and capacity building of younger scientists.
In nature, plants are simultaneously exposed to a complex system of biotic and abiotic stresses that limit crop yield. The cereal cyst nematode Heterodera filipjevi and dryland crown rot, caused by Fusarium, are important diseases facing cereal production around the world that cause significant yield loss. Yield loss accelerates when those diseases coexist with other abiotic stresses, such as drought.
Hexaploid bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is an essential staple food for a large part of the world’s population, covering around 20% of daily caloric intake in the human diet, with global production at about 670.8 million tons per year, produced over 215.4 million hectares of land worldwide. Therefore, the program studying soil-borne pathogens at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)’s Turkey office initiated a study to investigate the effect of soil borne diseases (H. filipjevi and Fusarium culmorum) individually and in combination with drought on some morphological and physiological traits in wheat germplasm with different genetic tolerances to the three studied factors.
In this study, yield components included thousand kernel weight, spike weight, seed per spike and total grain yield. Morphological parameters, including plant height, final plant number (seedling emergence), relative water content, leaf chlorophyll content, H. filipjevi cyst number and presence of crown rot, were studied under greenhouse conditions in Turkey.
The main findings of the study showed that the interaction among water stress, F. culmorum and H. filipjevi increased the damage on the wheat parameters studied when compared with each stress applied alone. One of the most significant damages was seen in high seedling mortality under the three combined stresses (56% seedling death rate), which indicates the damage on wheat yield might occur at the seedling stage rather than later stages. This reduces plant density per area, which was ultimately responsible for low grain yield produced. The known dryland disease, crown rot, caused by F. culmorum, was significantly pronounced under water-stressed conditions.
In all studied parameters, the lowest damage was found among the resistant cultivars to biotic or abiotic stresses. This underscores the importance of wheat breeding programs to develop resistant germplasm, and reminds farmers to replace their old, susceptible varieties with new, resistant ones.
Based on our intensive experience in the CWANA region, most wheat growers basically do not recognize soil borne pathogens as a problem. In fact, most of them do not know that what nematode or soil fungal species are in their fields affecting yield. The term “hidden enemy” perfectly applies to the problems in the region and beyond. Integrated pest management (IPM) is, however, not practiced in the entire region and soil borne pathogen-induced yield losses are simply accepted.
We can conclude from this study that yield reduction in wheat due to soil borne pathogens could be lessened by improving and understanding the concept of IPM in the region where the practice of winter mono-culturing of wheat is the norm. Management of cereal soil-borne pathogens, especially cereal cyst nematode and crown rot, could involve an integrated approach that includes crop rotation, genetic resistance, crop nutrition and appropriate water supply.
Cover photo: Four different test crops show different stresses: T1V8 = Drought, T2V8 = Drought and Nematodes, T3V8 = Drought and fungus, T4V8 = Drought and nematode and fungus together. (Credit: CIMMYT)
It was clear to Fatima Camarillo Castillo from a young age that her future was in agriculture. She grew up on a farm in a small village in Zacatecas, Mexico, and recalls working in the fields alongside her father and siblings, helping with the harvests and milking the cows. And every year, her family ran into the same issue with their crops: droughts.
“Sometimes the harvest was okay, but sometimes we didn’t have any harvest at all,” says Camarillo. “For us that meant that, if we didn’t have enough harvest, then for the whole year my mother and father struggled to send us to school.”
But they did send her to school, and instead of escaping the persistent challenges that agriculture had presented her family in her young life, she was determined to solve them. “After elementary school we had to leave the farm to continue our education,” she explains. “I knew about all the challenges that small farmers face and I wanted to have an impact on them.”
To this day, Camarillo believes in the power of education. Her schooling took her all the way to the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), where she is now not only a researcher, but an educator herself. After her extensive study of plant breeding, genetics and wheat physiology, Camarillo gained a master’s degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a PhD from Texas A+M University.
She was a part of CIMMYT’s fellowship program while pursuing her doctorate, and she joined the organization’s wheat breeding team shortly afterward. Camarillo now splits her time between wheat research and organizing the training activities for CIMMYT’s Global Wheat Program (GWP) wheat improvement course.
Fatima Camarillo analyzes durum wheat in the field at CIMMYT’s experimental research station in Ciudad Obregón, Mexico. (Photo: CIMMYT)
A special legacy
CIMMYT’s wheat improvement course is an internationally recognized program where scientists from national agricultural research programs (NARS) from around the world travel to CIMMYT Headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico, and then to Ciudad Obregón, for a 16-week training. Participants observe an entire breeding cycle and learn about the latest technologies and systems for breeding.
“A crucial component of having an impact on farmers is establishing good relationships with national programs, where all the germplasm that CIMMYT develops is going to go,” says Camarillo. “But at the same time, these partners need training. They need to know what is behind these varieties and the process for developing them, and we try to keep them updated with the vision, the current technologies and the breeding pipeline.”
The organization’s university-focused training programs are also special to Camarillo for many reasons, having participated in one of them herself. In fact, her first ever exposure to CIMMYT was through the annual Open Doors day which she attended during her first year of university, watching the breeders and scientists that would eventually become her colleagues give talks on germplasm development and distribution.
The courses also give students a chance to see all how their theoretical education can be applied in the real world. “When you are in graduate school you care a lot about data analysis and the most recent molecular tools,” says Camarillo. “But there is something else out there, the real problems outside. By taking the breeding program course you understand these challenges and situations.”
Camarillo remembers being struck by the thought that something that happens in a research station in Mexico can have an impact on the whole world. “CIMMYT cares about how other countries will adopt new varieties, it’s not just about developing germplasm for the sake of it,” she explains. “We’re interested in how new varieties are going to reach the farmers who need them, and for that, training is essential.”
“At the end of the day, these researchers are the ones who will help us evaluate germplasm. If they’re well trained, the efficiency of the whole process will increase.”
Fatima Camarillo (standing, third from the right) in Ciudad Obregón, Mexico, with participants on the GWP’s 2019 training program. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Keeping an eye on the breeding pipeline
With one foot in education and the other in research, Camarillo has a unique perspective on CIMMYT’s strategy for bringing tools and findings out of the lab, and towards the next step in the impact pathway. A key part of her work involves helping to research physiological traits by developing new tools to increase phenotyping efficiency in the breeding pipeline.
In particular, she is working on a project to develop high-throughput phenotyping tools, which use hyperspectral sensors and cameras to measure several traits in plants. This can help reflect how the plant is responding to different stresses internally, and helps physiologists and breeders understand how the plant behaves within a specific environment, and then quickly integrate these traits into the breeding process.
“Overall it increases the efficiency of selection, so farmers will have better materials, better germplasm, and more reliable yield across environments in a shorter period of time,” says Camarillo.
Sharing the recipe for success
Camarillo’s role in both breeding and training speaks to CIMMYT’s historic and proven strategy of working with national programs to effectively deliver improved seeds to the farmers who need them. In addition to developing friendships with trainees from around the world, she is helping CIMMYT to expand its global network of research and agriculture professionals.
As a product and purveyor of a great agricultural education, Camarillo is dedicated to it passing on. “I think we have to invest in education,” she says. “It is the only path to solve the current problems we face, not only in agriculture, but in every single discipline.”
“If we don’t invest and take the time for education, our future is very uncertain.”
Durum wheat drought tolerance trials in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico, 2017. (Photo: Alfonso Cortés/CIMMYT)
Wheat constitutes 20% of all calories and protein consumed, making it a cornerstone of the human diet, according to the United Nations. However, hotter and drier weather, driven by a changing climate, threatens the global wheat supply. To address this threat, the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) awarded a $5 million grant to the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) to develop climate-resilient wheat. CIMMYT leads global research programs on maize and wheat, sustainable cropping systems and policies to improve farmers’ livelihoods. These activities have driven major gains in wheat variety improvement across the globe for decades; in the US alone, for example, over 50% of the wheat acreage is sown with CIMMYT-related varieties.
Wheat is among the most widely grown cereal crops in the world and the third-largest crop grown in the US by acre. Nearly all US wheat crops are improved and supported by public agriculture research. As most wheat in the US is dependent on rainfall and has no access to irrigation, this research is critical for helping the plants — and producers — weather climatic changes including extreme heat and drought. Additionally, the demand for wheat is expected to rise in the coming years — as much as 60% by 2050. Without public research, wheat production could decrease by nearly 30% over the same period due to extreme climate conditions.
“FFAR leverages public agriculture research funding through public-private partnerships to pioneer actionable research. With temperatures on the rise and water becoming scarcer, we are committed to supporting wheat farmers and providing new wheat varieties designed with future environmental challenges in mind,” said FFAR’s Executive Director Sally Rockey.
Using the FFAR grant, CIMMYT researchers are pioneering wheat breeding technologies to produce heat-tolerant, drought-resistant and climate-resilient wheat.
CIMMYT researchers and collaborators are applying cutting-edge approaches in genomics, remote sensing and big data analysis to develop new breeding technologies. A key intervention will explore the vast and underutilized reserve of wheat genetic resources to fortify the crop against current and future climate-related stresses.
“This project will help bridge a longstanding gap between state-of-the-art technological findings and crop improvement to deliver climate resilient wheat to farmers as quickly as possible,” said Matthew Reynolds, head of Wheat Physiology at CIMMYT and principal investigator of the project.
Breakthroughs from the FFAR funded project will achieve impact for growers via the International Wheat Improvement Network (IWIN) that supplies new wheat lines to public and private breeding programs worldwide, and has boosted productivity and livelihoods for wheat farmers for over half a century, especially in the Global South.
The research and breeding supported by FFAR will be conducted under the Heat and Drought Wheat Improvement Consortium (HeDWIC), a project led by CIMMYT in partnership with experts across the globe, designed to ensure wheat’s long-term climate resilience. Under the umbrella of the Wheat Initiative’s AHEAD unit, the most relevant advances in academia will be channeled to HeDWIC to help further boost impacts.
“‘Heat,’ ‘drought’ and ‘wheat’ are three of the most important words for billions of people,” said CIMMYT Interim Deputy Director for Research Kevin Pixley. “This partnership between CIMMYT and FFAR will help ensure that the best agricultural science is applied to sustainably raise production of one of the world’s most important staple crops, despite unprecedented challenges.”
CIMMYT Director General Martin Kropff said, “This project represents not only a breakthrough to develop wheat for the future, but also an emerging partnership between CIMMYT and FFAR. I look forward to a productive collaboration that will move us all closer to our mission of maize and wheat science for improved livelihoods.”
About the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research
The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) builds public-private partnerships to fund bold research addressing big food and agriculture challenges. FFAR was established in the 2014 Farm Bill to increase public agriculture research investments, fill knowledge gaps and complement USDA’s research agenda. FFAR’s model matches federal funding from Congress with private funding, delivering a powerful return on taxpayer investment. Through collaboration and partnerships, FFAR advances actionable science benefiting farmers, consumers and the environment.
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 the CGIAR System 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.
Wheat provides, on average, 20% of the calories and protein for more than 4.5 billion people in 94 developing countries. To feed a growing population, we need both better agronomic practices and to grow wheat varieties that can withstand the effects of climate change and resist various pests and diseases.
Watch CIMMYT Wheat Physiologist Carolina Rivera discuss — in just one minute — choosing and breeding desirable wheat traits with higher tolerance to stresses.
