Working with smallholders to understand their needs and build on their knowledge, CIMMYT brings the right seeds and inputs to local markets, raises awareness of more productive cropping practices, and works to bring local mechanization and irrigation services based on conservation agriculture practices. CIMMYT helps scale up farmersâ own innovations, and embraces remote sensing, mobile phones and other information technology. These interventions are gender-inclusive, to ensure equitable impacts for all.
Spot blotch, a major biotic stress challenging bread wheat production is caused by the fungus Bipolaris sorokiniana. In a new study, scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) evaluate genomic and index-based selection to select for spot blotch resistance quickly and accurately in wheat lines. The former approach facilitates selecting for spot blotch resistance, and the latter for spot blotch resistance, heading and plant height.
Genomic selection
The authors leveraged genotyping data and extensive spot blotch phenotyping data from Mexico and collaborating partners in Bangladesh and India to evaluate genomic selection, which is a promising genomic breeding strategy for spot blotch resistance. Using genomic selection for selecting lines that have not been phenotyped can reduce the breeding cycle time and cost, increase the selection intensity, and subsequently increase the rate of genetic gain.
Two scenarios were tested for predicting spot blotch: fixed effects model (less than 100 molecular markers associated with spot blotch) and genomic prediction (over 7,000 markers across the wheat genome). The clear winner was genomic prediction which was on average 177.6% more accurate than the fixed effects model, as spot blotch resistance in advanced CIMMYT wheat breeding lines is controlled by many genes of small effects.
âThis finding applies to other spot blotch resistant loci too, as very few of them have shown big effects, and the advantage of genomic prediction over the fixed effects model is tremendousâ, confirmed Xinyao He, Wheat Pathologist and Geneticist at CIMMYT.
The authors have also evaluated genomic prediction in different populations, including breeding lines and sister lines that share one or two parents.
Spot blotch susceptible wheat lines (left) and resistant lines. (Photo: Xinyao He and Pawan Singh/CIMMYT)
Index selection
One of the key problems faced by wheat breeders in selecting for spot blotch resistance is identifying lines that are genetically resistant to spot blotch versus those that escape and exhibit less disease by being late and tall. âThe latter, unfortunately, is often the case in South Asiaâ, explained Pawan Singh, Head of Wheat Pathology at CIMMYT.
A potential solution to this problem is the use of selection indices that can make it easier for breeders to select individuals based on their ranking or predicted net genetic merit for multiple traits. Hence, this study reports the first successful evaluation of the linear phenotypic selection index and Eigen selection index method to simultaneously select for spot blotch resistance using the phenotype and genomic-estimated breeding values, heading and height.
This study demonstrates the prospects of integrating genomic selection and index-based selection with field based phenotypic selection for resistance in spot blotch in breeding programs.
A generalized wiring diagram for wheat, as proposed by the authors. The diagram depicts the traits most commonly associated with the source (left) and sink (right) strengths and others that impact both the sink and source, largely dependent on growth stage (middle). TGW, thousand grain weight.
As crop yields are pushed closer to biophysical limits, achieving yield gains becomes increasingly challenging. Traditionally, scientists have worked on the premise that crop yield is a function of photosynthesis (source), the investment of assimilates into reproductive organs (sinks) and the underlying processes that enable and connect the expression of both. Although the original source-and-sink model remains valid, it must embrace more complexity, as scientific understanding improves.
A group of international researchers are proposing a new wiring diagram to show the interrelationships of the physiological traits that impact wheat yield potential, published on Nature Food. By illustrating these linkages, it shows connections among traits that may not have been apparent, which could serve as a decision support tool for crop scientists. The wiring diagram can inform new research hypotheses and breeding decisions, as well as research investment areas.
The diagram can also serve as a platform onto which new empirical data are routinely mapped and new concepts added, thereby creating an ever-richer common point of reference for refining models in the future.
âIf routinely updated, the wiring diagram could lead to a paradigm change in the way we approach breeding for yield and targeting translational research,â said Matthew Reynolds, Distinguished Scientist and Head of Wheat Physiology at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and lead author of the study. âWhile focused on yield potential, the tool can be readily adapted to address climate resilience in a range of crops besides wheat.â
Breeding milestone
The new wiring diagram represents a milestone in deterministic plant breeding. It dovetails simpler models with crop simulation models.
This diagram can be used to illustrate the relative importance of specific connections among traits in their appropriate phenological context and to highlight major gaps in knowledge. This graphical representation can also serve as a roadmap to prioritize research at other levels of integration, such as metabolomic or gene expression studies. The wiring diagram can be deployed to identify ways for improving elite breeding material and to explore untapped genetic resources for unique traits and alleles.
Yield for climate resilience
The wheat scientific community is hard at work seeking new ways to get higher yields more quickly to help the world cope with population growth, climate change, wars and stable supplies of calories and protein.
“To ensure food and nutritional security in the future, raising yields must be an integral component of making crops more climate-resilient. This new tool can serve as a roadmap to design the necessary strategies to achieve these goals,” said Jeff Gwyn, Program Director of the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP).
Matthew Reynolds â Distinguished Scientist and Head of Wheat Physiology at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
Gustavo Ariel Slafer â Research Professor at the Catalonian Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) and Associate Professor of the University of Lleida
For more information or to arrange interviews, please contact the CIMMYT media team:
The study is an international collaboration of scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the Catalonian Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), the Center for Research in Agrotechnology (AGROTECNIO), the University of Lleida, the University of Nottingham, the John Innes Centre, Lancaster University, Technische UniversitĂ€t MĂŒnchen, CSIRO Agriculture & Food, and the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP).
ABOUT CIMMYT:
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is an international organization focused on non-profit agricultural research and training that empowers farmers through science and innovation to nourish the world in the midst of a climate crisis.
Applying high-quality science and strong partnerships, CIMMYT works to achieve a world with healthier and more prosperous people, free from global food crises and with more resilient agri-food systems. CIMMYTâs research brings enhanced productivity and better profits to farmers, mitigates the effects of the climate crisis, and reduces the environmental impact of agriculture.
CIMMYT is a member of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources.
The International Wheat Yield Partnership (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. Over the first five years, the growing list of partners aims to invest up to US$100 million.
Spot blotch, caused by the fungus Biopolaris sorokiniana poses a serious threat to bread wheat production in warm and humid wheat-growing regions globally, affecting more than 25 million hectares and resulting in huge yield losses.
Chemical control approaches, including seed treatment and fungicides, have provided acceptable spot blotch control. However, their use is unaffordable to resource-poor farmers and poses a hazard to health and the environment. In addition, âabiotic stresses like heat and drought that are widely prevalent in South Asia compound the problem, making varietal genetic resistance the last resort of farmers to combat this disease,â according to Pawan Singh, Head of Wheat Pathology at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). Therefore, one of CIMMYTâs wheat research focus areas is developing wheat varieties that carry genetic resistance to the disease.
Signs of spot blotch on wheat. (Photo: Philomin Juliana/CIMMYT)
The studyâs results are positive and confirmed that:
Many advanced CIMMYT breeding lines have moderate to high resistance to spot blotch.
Resistance to the disease is conferred quantitatively by several minor genomic regions that act together in an additive manner to confer resistance.
There is an association of the 2NS translocation from the wild species Aegilops ventricosa with spot blotch resistance.
There is also an association of the spot blotch favorable alleles at the 2NS translocation, and two markers on the telomeric end of chromosome 3BS with grain yield evaluated in multiple environments, implying that selection for favorable alleles at these markers could help obtain higher grain yield and spot blotch resistance.
âConsidering the persistent threat of spot blotch to resource-poor farmers in South Asia, further research and breeding efforts to improve genetic resistance to the disease, identify novel sources of resistance by screening different germplasm, and selecting for genomic regions with minor effects using selection tools like genomic selection is essential,â explained Philomin Juliana, Molecular Breeder and Quantitative Geneticist at CIMMYT.
Cover photo: Researchers evaluate wheat for spot blotch at CIMMYTâs experimental station in Agua FrĂa, Jiutepec, Morelos state, Mexico. (Photo: Xinyao He and Pawan Singh/CIMMYT)
Workshop participants stand for a group photo. (Photo: Danny Ward/John Innes Centre)
On April 26â29, 2022, researchers from Nepal participated in a workshop on the use of MARPLE Diagnostics, the most advanced genetic testing methodology for strain-level diagnostics of the deadly wheat yellow rust fungus. Scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the John Innes Centre trained 21 researchers from the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) and one from iDE. The workshop took place at NARC’s National Plant Pathology Research Centre in Khumaltar, outside the capital Kathmandu.
âThe need for new diagnostic technologies like MARPLE and the critical timing of the workshop was highlighted by the severe yellow rust outbreak observed this season in the western areas of Nepal,â commented Dave Hodson, Senior Scientist at CIMMYT and project co-lead. âHaving national capacity to detect the increasing threats from yellow rust using MARPLE will be an important tool to help combat wheat rusts in Nepalâ.
The yellow rust fungus can cause grain yield losses of 30â80 % to wheat, Nepalâs third most important food crop.
Current diagnostic methods for wheat rust used in Nepal are slow, typically taking months between collecting the sample and final strain identification. They are also costly and reliant on sending samples overseas to highly specialized labs for analysis.
MARPLE (Mobile and Real-time PLant disEase) Diagnostics is the first method to place strain-level genetic diagnostics capability directly into the hands of Nepali researchers, generating data in-country in near-real time, for immediate integration into early warning systems and disease management decisions.
âThis is a fantastic opportunity to bring the latest innovations in plant disease diagnostics for the wheat rust pathogens to where they are needed most, in the hands of researchers in the field working tirelessly to combat these devastating diseases,â commented Diane Saunders, Group Leader at the John Innes Centre and project co-lead.
Diane Saunders (left), Group Leader at the John Innes Centre and project co-lead, observes workshop participants during the use of MARPLE. (Photo: Danny Ward/John Innes Centre)
Suraj Baidya senior scientist and chief of the National Plant Pathology Research Centre at NARC noted the worrying recent geographical expansion of yellow rust in Nepal. âDue to global warming, yellow rust has now moved into the plain and river basin area likely due to evolution of heat tolerant pathotypes. MARPLE Diagnostics now gives us the rapid diagnostics needed to help identify and manage these changes in the rust pathogen population diversity,â he said.
The highly innovative MARPLE Diagnostics approach uses the hand-held MinION nanopore sequencer, built by Oxford Nanopore, to generate genetic data to type strains of the yellow rust fungus directly from field samples.
Beyond MARPLE Diagnostics, Saunders noted that âthe workshop has also opened up exciting new possibilities for researchers in Nepal, by providing local genome-sequencing capacity that is currently absent.â
MARPLE (Mobile and Real-time PLant disEase) Diagnostics is a revolutionary mobile lab kit. It uses nanopore sequence technology to rapidly diagnose and monitor wheat rust in farmersâ fields. (Photo: Danny Ward/John Innes Centre)
Whatâs next for MARPLE Diagnostics in Nepal?
Following the successful workshop, Nepali researchers will be supported by CIMMYT and the John Innes Centre to undertake MARPLE Diagnostics on field samples collected by NARC. âThe current plan includes monitoring of yellow rust on the summer wheat crop planted at high hill areas and then early sampling in the 2022/23 wheat season,â Hodson noted.
âWe were struck by the enthusiasm and dedication of our colleagues to embrace the potential offered by MARPLE Diagnostics. Looking forward, we are excited to continue working with our Nepali colleagues towards our united goal of embedding this methodology in their national surveillance program for wheat rusts,â Saunders remarked.
MARPLE Diagnostics is supported by the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Current and Emerging Threats to Crops, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Innovator of the Year Award, the CGIAR Big Data Platform Inspire Challenge, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United Kingdomâs Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
With the participation of more than 30 researchers from four CGIAR Centers located in the Americas, a planning workshop for a new CGIAR Research Initiative, AgriLAC Resiliente, was held on April 4â6, 2022. Its purpose was to define the implementation of activities to improve the livelihoods of producers in Latin America, with the support of national governments, the private sector, civil society, and CGIARâs regional and global funders, and partners.
âThis workshop is the first face-to-face planning meeting aimed at defining, in a joined-up manner and map in hand, how the teams across Centers in the region will complement each other, taking advantage of the path that each Center has taken in Latin America, but this time based on the advantage of reaching the territories not as four independent Centers, but as one CGIAR team,â says Deissy MartĂnez BarĂłn, leader of the Initiative from the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT.
AgriLAC Resiliente is an Initiative co-designed to transform food systems in Latin America and the Caribbean. It aims to increase resilience, ecosystem services and the competitiveness of agrifood innovation systems in the region. Through this Initiative, CGIAR is committed to providing a regional structure that enhances its effectiveness and responds better to national and regional priorities, needs and demands.
This Initiative is one of a number that the CGIAR has in Latin America and the Caribbean and consists of five research components:
Climate and nutrition that seeks to use collaborative innovations for climate-resilient and nutritious agrifood systems;
Digital agriculture through the use of digital and inclusive tools for the creation of actionable knowledge;
Competitiveness with low emissions, focused on agroecosystems, landscapes and value chains, low in sustainable emissions;
Innovation and scaling with the Innova-Hubs network for agrifood innovations and their scaling up;
Science for timely decision making and the establishment of policies, institutions and investments in resilient, competitive and low-emission agrifood systems.
The regional character of these CGIAR Initiatives and of the teams of researchers who make them a reality in the territories with the producers, was prominent in the minds of the leadership that also participated in this workshop. Martin Kropff, Global Director, Resilient Agrifood Systems, CGIAR; JoaquĂn Lozano, Regional Director, Latin America and the Caribbean, CGIAR; Ăscar Ortiz, Acting Director General of the International Potato Center; JesĂșs Quintana, Manager for the Americas of the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT; and Bram Govaerts, Director General of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), all stated the importance of CGIAR being central to every discussion in which the teams are co-constructing a greater consensus on what AgriLAC Resliente is, what it wants to achieve, the approach it will use, and the goals it aims to achieve through synergies among its five components.
Acting as an integrated organization is also an opportunity for CGIAR to leverage co-developed solutions and solve local challenges in the global South related to climate change and agrifood systems transformation. âBuilding the new CGIAR involves tons of collaboration and coordination. In this AgriLAC Resiliente workshop, we have had a dialogue full of energy focused on achieving real impactâ highlighted Bram Govaerts. He continued, âthis is an occasion to strengthen teamwork around this CGIAR Initiative in which the Integrated Agrifood System Initiative approach will be applied in the Latin American region, which is a very interconnected regionâ he pointed out.
One of the main results of this workshop is an opportunity to carry out the integration of the CGIAR teams in the implementation of the AgriLAC Resiliente Initiative, with applied science and the decisive role of the partners at each point of the region, as mechanisms for change.
In 2022, the research teams will begin to lay the groundwork for implementing the Initiativeâs integrative approach to strengthen the innovations to be co-developed with partners and collaborators in the Latin American region, that encompass the interconnected nature of the global South.
Sorghum field in Kiboko, Kenya. (Photo: E Manyasa/ICRISAT)
As part of the One CGIAR reform, the Global Science Group on Genetic Innovation will implement a crop breeding and seed systems project for key crops including groundnut, sorghum and millet, across western and eastern African countries.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), a leader in innovative partnerships, breeding and agronomic science for sustainable agri-food systems, will lead the project.
The Accelerated Varietal Improvement and Seed Delivery of Legumes and Cereals in Africa (AVISA) project aims to improve the health and livelihoods of millions by increasing the productivity, profitability, resilience and marketability of nutritious grain, legumes and cereal crops. The project focuses on strengthening networks to modernize crop breeding by CGIAR and national program partners, and public-private partnerships to strengthen seed systems. The project currently works in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Uganda and Tanzania.
âSorghum, groundnut and millets are essential staples of nutritious diets for millions of farmers and consumers and are crucial for climate-change-resilient farming systems,â explained CIMMYT Deputy Director General and Head of Genetic Resources, Kevin Pixley. âThe oversight of this project by CGIARâs Genetic Innovation Science Group will ensure continued support for the improvement of these crops in partnership with the national agricultural research and extension systems (NARES) that work with and for farmers,â he said.
âCIMMYT is delighted to lead this project on behalf of the Genetic Innovations Science Group and CGIAR,â confirms CIMMYT Director General, Bram Govaerts.
âWe look forward to contributing to co-design and co-implement with partners and stakeholders the next generation of programs that leverage and build the strengths of NARES, CGIAR and others along with the research to farmers and consumers continuum to improve nutrition, livelihoods, and resilience to climate change through these crops and their cropping systems.â
The Harnessing Appropriate-Scale Farm Mechanization in Zimbabwe (HAFIZ) project aims to support investments by the government and by the private sector in appropriate-scale farm mechanization in Zimbabwe, particularly around Pfumvudza (a system of manual conservation agriculture), and transfer learnings to South Africa.
Overall, the project has the goal to improve access to mechanization and reduce labor drudgery whilst stimulating the adoption of climate-smart/sustainable intensification technologies. The project will improve the understanding of private sector companies involved in appropriate-scale farm mechanisation towards the local markets in which they operate.
Manufacturing knowledge of two-wheel and small four-wheel tractor operated implements for mechanized Pfumvudza will also increase and private sector companies will have increased access to information through the development and strengthening of regional and national communities of practitioners on appropriate-scale farm mechanization. Finally, the project will strengthen the capacity of the existing knowledge networks around appropriate-scale mechanisation in Zimbabwe, through the results that will be generated and through the regular multi-stakeholder roundtables that will be organised.
Objectives
Increasing and more spatially-targeted Government spending in appropriate-scale farm mechanisation in Zimbabwe (and South Africa)
Increasing sales of appropriate-scale farm mechanization equipment in Zimbabwe (and South Africa) thanks to more targeted marketing by private sector (both in terms of geographies and clients)
Local manufacturing and commercialization of two-wheel tractor operated basin diggers and bed planters in Zimbabwe.
Farmers learn about two-wheel tractors. (Photo: CIMMYT)
A new project aims to climate-proof Zimbabwean farms through improved access to small-scale mechanization to reduce labor bottlenecks. Harnessing Appropriate-scale Farm mechanization In Zimbabwe (HAFIZ) is funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) through ACIAR and led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
The project aligns with the Zimbabwean nationwide governmental program Pfumvudza, which promotes agricultural practices based on the principles of conservation agriculture. The initiative aims to increase agricultural productivity through minimum soil disturbance, a permanent soil cover, mulching and crop diversification.
Over 18 months, the project will work with selected service providers to support mechanized solutions that are technically, environmentally and economically appropriate for use in smallholder settings.
Speaking during the project launch, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development in Zimbabwe, John Basera, explained the tenets of Pfumvudza which translates as âa new season.â A new season of adopting climate-smart technologies, conservation agriculture practices and increasing productivity. Simply put, Pfumvudza means a sustainable agricultural productivity scheme.
âPfumvudza was a big game-changer in Zimbabwe. We tripled productivity from 0.45 to 1.4 [metric tons] per hectare. Now the big challenge for all of us is to sustain and consolidate the growth, and this is where mechanization comes into place,â Basera said. âThis project is an opportunity for the smallholder farmer in Zimbabwe, who contributes to over 60% of the food in the country, to be able to produce more with less.â
Building on the  findings of the completed ACIAR-funded project Farm Mechanization and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification (FACASI), the new initiative will work with selected farmers and service providers to identify farming systems most suitable for mechanization. It will also assist companies in targeting their investments as they test a range of technologies powered by small-engine machinery adapted to the Zimbabwe context and transfer the resultant learnings to South Africa.
Conservation agriculture adoption offers multidimensional benefits to the farmers with significant yields and sustainability of their systems. The introduction of mechanization in systems using animals for draught reduces the livestock energy demand â energy that will contribute to increasing meat and milk production.
While conservation agriculture and research alone cannot solve all the issues affecting agricultural productivity, awareness-raising is integral to help address these issues, and this is where small-scale mechanization comes in, says ACIAR Crops Research Program Manager, Eric Huttner.
âWe learnt a lot from FACASI and a similar project in Bangladesh on the opportunities of appropriate small-scale mechanization as a tool towards sustainable intensification when adopted by farmers,â he explained. âIf we avoid the mistakes of the past, where large-scale mechanization efforts were invested in the wrong place and resulted in ineffective machines unusable for farmers, we can make a huge difference in increasing yields and reducing farm drudgery,â Huttner said.
Agriculture is one of the five main greenhouse gas-emitting sectors where innovations can be found to reach net zero emissions, according to the new documentary and ten-part miniseries âSolving for Zero: The Search for Climate Innovation.â The documentary tells the stories of scientists and innovators racing to develop solutions such as low-carbon cement, wind-powered global transportation, fusion electricity generation and sand that dissolves carbon in the oceans.
Three CGIAR scientists are featured in the documentary, speaking about the contributions being made by agricultural research.
Whereas all sectors of the global economy must contribute to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 to prevent the worse effects of climate change, agricultural innovations are needed by farmers at the front line of climate change today.
CIMMYT breeder Yoseph Beyene spoke to filmmakers about the use of molecular breeding to predict yield potential. (Image: Wondrium.com)
Breeding climate-smart crops
âClimate change has been a great disaster to us. Day by day itâs getting worse,â said Veronica Dungey, a maize farmer in Kenya interviewed for the documentary.
Around the world, 200 million people depend on maize for their livelihood, while 90% of farmers in Africa are smallholder farmers dependent on rainfall, and facing drought, heatwaves, floods, pests and disease related to climate change. According to CGIAR, agriculture must deliver 60% more food by 2050, but without new technologies, each 1°C of warming will reduce production by 5%.
âSeed is basic to everything. The whole family is dependent on the produce from the farm,â explained Yoseph Beyene, Regional Maize Breeding Coordinator for Africa and Maize Breeder for Eastern Africa at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). As a child in a smallholder farming family with no access to improved seeds, Beyene learned the importance of selecting the right seed from year to year. It was at high school that Beyene was shown the difference between improved varieties and the locally-grown seed, and decided to pursue a career as a crop breeder.
Today, the CIMMYT maize program has released 200 hybrid maize varieties adapted for drought conditions in sub-Saharan Africa, called hybrids because they combine maize lines selected to express important traits over several generations. Alongside other CGIAR Research Centers, CIMMYT continues to innovate with accelerated breeding approaches to benefit smallholder farmers.
âCurrently we use two kinds of breeding. One is conventional breeding, and another one is molecular breeding to accelerate variety development. In conventional breeding you have to evaluate the hybrid in the field,â Beyene said. âUsing molecular markers, instead of phenotypic evaluation in the field, we are evaluating the genetic material of a particular line. We can predict based on marker data which new material is potentially good for yield.â
Such innovations are necessary considering the speed and the complexity of challenges faced by smallholder farmers due climate change, which now includes fall armyworm. âFall armyworm is a recent pest in the tropics and has affected a lot of countries,â said Moses Siambi, CIMMYT Regional Representative for Africa. âIncreased temperatures have a direct impact on maize production because of the combination of temperature of humidity, and then you have these high insect populations that lead to low yield.â
Resistance to fall armyworm is now included in new CIMMYT maize hybrids alongside many other traits such as yield, nutrition, and multiple environmental and disease resistances.
Ana MarĂa Loboguerrero, Research Director for Climate Action at the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, spoke about CGIARâs community-focused climate work. (Image: Wondrium.com)
Building on CGIARâs climate legacy
Ana MarĂa Loboguerrero, Research Director for Climate Action at the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), told the filmmakers about CGIARâs community-focused climate work, which includes Climate-Smart Villages and Valleys. Launched in 2009, these ongoing projects span the global South and effectively bridge the gap between innovation, research and farmers living with the climate crisis at their doorsteps.
âTechnological innovations are critical to food system transformation,â said Loboguerrero, who was a principal researcher for the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). âBut if local contexts are not considered, even the best innovations may fail because they do not respond to beneficiaries needs.â
CCAFSâs impressive legacy â in research, influencing policy and informing $3.5 billion of climate-smart investments, among many achievements â is now being built upon by a new CGIAR portfolio of initiatives. Several initiatives focus on building systemic resilience against climate and scaling up climate action started by CCAFS that will contribute to a net-zero carbon future.
Loboguerrero pointed to other innovations that were adopted because they addressed local needs and were culturally appropriate. These include the uptake of new varieties of wheat, maize, rice and beans developed by CGIAR Research Centers. Taste, color, texture, cooking time and market demand are critical to the success of new varieties. Being drought-resistant or flood-tolerant is not enough.
Local Technical Agroclimatic Committees, another CCAFS innovation that is currently implemented in 11 countries across Latin America, effectively delivers weather information in agrarian communities across the tropics. Local farmers lead these committees to receive and disseminate weather information to better plan when they sow their seeds. âThis success would not have been possible if scientists hadnât gotten out of their labs to collaborate with producers in the field,â Loboguerrero said.
Climate adaptation solutions
Across CGIAR, which represents 13 Research Centers and Alliances, and a network of national and private sector partners, the goal is to provide climate adaptation solutions to 500 million small-scale farmers around the world by 2030. This work also covers reducing agricultural emissions, environmental impacts and even the possibility of capturing carbon while improving soil health.
Interested in learning more? The documentary âSolving for Zero: The Search for Climate Innovationâ is available at Wondrium.com alongside a 10-part miniseries exploring the ongoing effort to address climate change.
The paper âEnlisting wild grass genes to combat nitrification in wheat farming: A nature-based solutionâ received the 2021 Cozzarelli Prize, which recognizes outstanding articles published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). The paper was published as a joint research collaboration of Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and Nihon University.
The study identifies of a chromosomal region that regulates the biological nitrification inhibition (BNI) ability of wheat grass (Leymus racemosus), a wild relative of wheat. It also outlines the development of the world’s first BNI-enhanced wheat, through intergeneric crossing with a high-yielding wheat cultivar.
This research result is expected to contribute to the prevention of nitrogen pollution that leads to water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, reducing the use of nitrogen fertilizer while maintaining productivity.
Best of the year
PNAS is one of the most cited scientific journals in the world, publishing more than 3,000 papers per year on all aspects of science. A total of 3,476 papers were published in 2021, covering six fields: Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering and Applied Sciences, Biomedical Sciences, Behavioral and Social Sciences, and Applied Biological, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
The Cozzarelli Prize was established in 2005 as the PNAS Paper of the Year Prize and renamed in 2007 to honor late editor-in-chief Nicholas R. Cozzarelli. It is awarded yearly by the journalâs Editorial Board to one paper from each field reflecting scientific excellence and originality. The BNI research paper received the award in the category of Applied Biological, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.
The awards ceremony will be held online on May 1, 2022, and a video introducing the results of this research will be available.
CIMMYT has collaborated with JIRCAS on BNI-enhanced wheat research since 2009, with funding from Japanâs Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. CIMMYT is one of the founding members of the BNI Consortium, established in 2015.
The CGIAR Research Programs on Wheat (WHEAT) and Maize (MAIZE) co-funded BNI research since 2014 and 2019 respectively, until their conclusion at the end of 2021.
BNI research has been positioned in the âMeasures for achievement of Decarbonization and Resilience with Innovation (MeaDRI)â strategy of Japanâs Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and was also selected as one of the ministryâs âTop 10 agricultural technology news for 2021.â
How does CIMMYTâs improved maize get to the farmer?
CIMMYT is proud to announce a new, improved highland maize hybrid that is now available for uptake by public- and private-sector partners, especially those interested in marketing or disseminating hybrid maize seed across upper altitudes of Eastern Africa and similar agro-ecologies. National agricultural research system (NARS) and seed companies are hereby invited to apply for licenses to pursue national release, scale-up seed production, and deliver these maize hybrids to farming communities.
The deadline to submit applications to be considered during the first round of allocations is 8 April 2022. Applications received after that deadline will be considered during subsequent rounds of product allocations.
The newly available CIMMYT maize hybrid, CIM20EAPP3-01-47, was identified through rigorous trialing and a stage-gate advancement process that culminated in the 2021 Eastern Africa Regional On-Farm Trials for CIMMYTâs eastern Africa highland maize breeding pipeline (EA-PP3). While individual products will vary, the EA-PP3 pipeline aims to develop maize hybrids fitting the product profile described in the following table:
Product profile
Basic traits
Nice-to-have / Emerging traits
Eastern Africa Product Profile 3 (EA-PP3)
Late -maturing, white, high yielding, drought tolerant, NUE, and resistant to GLS, TLB, Ear rots, and rust
MLN, fall armyworm, cold tolerance
Application instructions, and other relevant material is available via the CIMMYT Maize Product Catalog and in the links provided below.
Shelves filled with maize seed samples make up the maize active collection at the germplasm bank at CIMMYT’s global headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. It contains around 28,000 unique samples of maize seed â including more than 24,000 farmer landraces â and related species. (Photo: Xochiquetzal Fonseca/CIMMYT)
A new $25.7 million project, led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), a Research Center part of CGIAR, the worldâs largest public sector agriculture research partnership, is expanding the use of biodiversity held in the worldâs genebanks to develop new climate-smart crop varieties for millions of small-scale farmers worldwide.
As climate change accelerates, agriculture will be increasingly affected by high temperatures, erratic rainfall, drought, flooding and sea-level rise. Looking to the trove of genetic material in genebanks, scientists believe they can enhance the resilience of food production by incorporating this diversity into new crop varieties â overcoming many of the barriers to fighting malnutrition and hunger around the world.
“Better crops can help small-scale farmers produce more food despite the challenges of climate change. Drought-resistant staple crops, such as maize and wheat, that ensure food amid water scarcity, and faster-growing, early-maturing varieties that produce good harvests in erratic growing seasons can make a world of difference for those who depend on agriculture. This is the potential for climate-adaptive breeding that lies untapped in CGIARâs genebanks,” said Claudia Sadoff, Managing Director, Research Delivery and Impact, and Executive Management Team Convener, CGIAR.
Over five years, the project, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, aims to identify plant accessions in genebanks that contain alleles, or gene variations, responsible for characteristics such as heat, drought or salt tolerance, and to facilitate their use in breeding climate-resilient crop varieties. Entitled Mining useful alleles for climate change adaptation from CGIAR genebanks, the project will enable breeders to more effectively and efficiently use genebank materials to develop climate-smart versions of important food crops, including cassava, maize, sorghum, cowpea and rice.
Wild rice. (Photo: IRRI)
The project is a key component of a broader initiative focused on increasing the value and use of CGIAR genebanks for climate resilience. It is one of a series of Innovation Sprints coordinated by the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM4C) initiative, which is led by the United Arab Emirates and the United States.
âBreeding new resilient crop varieties quickly, economically and with greater precision will be critical to ensure small-scale farmers can adapt to climate change,â said Enock Chikava, interim Director of Agricultural Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. âThis initiative will contribute to a more promising and sustainable future for the hundreds of millions of Africans who depend on farming to support their families.â
Over the past 40 years, CGIAR Centers have built up the largest and most frequently accessed network of genebanks in the world. The network conserves and makes nearly three-quarters of a million crop accessions available to scientists and governments. CGIAR genebanks hold around 10% of the worldâs plant germplasm in trust for humanity, but account for about 94% of the germplasm distributed under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which ensures crop breeders globally have access to the fundamental building blocks of new varieties.
âThis research to develop climate-smart crop varieties, when scaled, is key to ensuring that those hardest hit by climate shocks have access to affordable staple foods,â said Jeffrey Rosichan, Director of the Crops of the Future Collaborative of the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR). âFurther, this initiative benefits US and world agriculture by increasing genetic diversity and providing tools for growers to more rapidly adapt to climate change.â
âWe will implement, for the first time, a scalable strategy to identify valuable variations hidden in our genebanks, and through breeding, deploy these to farmers who urgently need solutions to address the threat of climate change,â said Sarah Hearne, CIMMYT principal scientist and leader of the project.
Building on ten years of support to CIMMYT from the Mexican government, CGIAR Trust Fund contributors and the United Kingdomâs Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the project combines the use of cutting-edge technologies and approaches, high-performance computing, GIS mapping, and new plant breeding methods, to identify and use accessions with high value for climate-adaptive breeding of varieties needed by farmers and consumers.
INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITIES:
Sarah Hearne â Principal Scientist, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
FOR MORE INFORMATION, OR TO ARRANGE INTERVIEWS, CONTACT THE MEDIA TEAM:
Marcia MacNeil, Head of Communications, CIMMYT. m.macneil@cgiar.org, +52 5558042004 ext. 2070.
Over the course of ten years, WHEAT worked with hundreds of research and development partners worldwide to release high-yielding, disease-resistant, nutritious and climate-resilient wheat varieties, and efficient, sustainable wheat-based cropping systems.
This final report from 2021 shares important research on staple cerealsâ role in global efforts towards food security, the number and distribution of wheat farms, the expected impact of climate change on wheat productivity, nitrogen-in-agriculture research, nutrition, and the most critical, immediate effects of COVID-19 on food systems, and more.
With its national partners, WHEAT released 70 new CGIAR-derived wheat varieties to farmers in 13 countries in 2021, and developed 18 innovations in the areas of genetics, biophysics, farm management, research and communication methods, or social sciences.
Emerging in the last 120 years, science-based plant breeding begins by creating novel diversity from which useful new varieties can be identified or formed. The most common approach is making targeted crosses between parents with complementary, desirable traits. This is followed by selection among the resulting plants to obtain improved types that combine desired traits and performance. A less common approach is to expose plant tissues to chemicals or radiation that stimulate random mutations of the type that occur in nature, creating diversity and driving natural selection and evolution.
Determined by farmers and consumer markets, the target traits for plant breeding can include improved grain and fruit yield, resistance to major diseases and pests, better nutritional quality, ease of processing, and tolerance to environmental stresses such as drought, heat, acid soils, flooded fields and infertile soils. Most traits are genetically complex â that is, they are controlled by many genes and gene interactions â so breeders must intercross and select among hundreds of thousands of plants over generations to develop and choose the best.
Plant breeding over the last 100 years has fostered food and nutritional security for expanding populations, adapted crops to changing climates, and helped to alleviate poverty. Together with better farming practices, improved crop varieties can help to reduce environmental degradation and to mitigate climate change from agriculture.
Is plant breeding a modern technique?
Plant breeding began around 10,000 years ago, when humans undertook the domestication of ancestral food crop species. Over the ensuing millennia, farmers selected and re-sowed seed from the best grains, fruits or plants they harvested, genetically modifying the species for human use.
Modern, science-based plant breeding is a focused, systematic and swifter version of that process. It has been applied to all crops, among them maize, wheat, rice, potatoes, beans, cassava and horticulture crops, as well as to fruit trees, sugarcane, oil palm, cotton, farm animals and other species.
With modern breeding, specialists began collecting and preserving crop diversity, including farmer-selected heirloom varieties, improved varieties and the cropsâ undomesticated relatives. Today hundreds of thousands of unique samples of diverse crop types, in the form of seeds and cuttings, are meticulously preserved as living catalogs in dozens of publicly-administered âbanks.â
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) manages a germplasm bank containing more than 180,000 unique maize- and wheat-related seed samples, and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen preserves back-up copies of nearly a million collections from CIMMYT and other banks.
Through genetic analyses or growing seed samples, scientists comb such collections to find useful traits. Data and seed samples from publicly-funded initiatives of this type are shared among breeders and other researchers worldwide. The complete DNA sequences of several food crops, including rice, maize, and wheat, are now available and greatly assist scientists to identify novel, useful diversity.
Much crop breeding is international. From its own breeding programs, CIMMYT sends half a million seed packages each year to some 800 partners, including public research institutions and private companies in 100 countries, for breeding, genetic analyses and other research.
Early in the 20th century, plant breeders began to apply the discoveries of Gregor Mendel, a 19th-century mathematician and biologist, regarding genetic variation and heredity. They also began to take advantage of heterosis, commonly known as hybrid vigor, whereby progeny of crosses between genetically different lines will turn out stronger or more productive than their parents.
Modern statistical methods to analyze experimental data have helped breeders to understand differences in the performance of breeding offspring; particularly, how to distinguish genetic variation, which is heritable, from environmental influences on how parental traits are expressed in successive generations of plants.
Since the 1990s, geneticists and breeders have used molecular (DNA-based) markers. These are specific regions of the plantâs genome that are linked to a gene influencing a desired trait. Markers can also be used to obtain a DNA âfingerprintâ of a variety, to develop detailed genetic maps and to sequence crop plant genomes. Many applications of molecular markers are used in plant breeding to select progenies of breeding crosses featuring the greatest number of desired traits from their parents.
Plant breeders normally prefer to work with âeliteâ populations that have already undergone breeding and thus feature high concentrations of useful genes and fewer undesirable ones, but scientists also introduce non-elite diversity into breeding populations to boost their resilience and address threats such as new fungi or viruses that attack crops.
Transgenics are products of one genetic engineering technology, in which a gene from one species is inserted in another. A great advantage of the technology for crop breeding is that it introduces the desired gene alone, in contrast to conventional breeding crosses, where many undesired genes accompany the target gene and can reduce yield or other valuable traits. Transgenics have been used since the 1990s to implant traits such as pest resistance, herbicide tolerance, or improved nutritional value. Transgenic crop varieties are grown on more than 190 million hectares worldwide and have increased harvests, raised farmersâ income and reduced the use of pesticides. Complex regulatory requirements to manage their potential health or environmental risks, as well as consumer concerns about such risks and the fair sharing of benefits, make transgenic crop varieties difficult and expensive to deploy.
Genome editing or gene editing techniques allow precise modification of specific DNA sequences, making it possible to enhance, diminish or turn off the expression of genes and to convert them to more favorable versions. Gene editing is used primarily to produce non-transgenic plants like those that arise through natural mutations. The approach can be used to improve plant traits that are controlled by single or small numbers of genes, such as resistance to diseases and better grain quality or nutrition. Whether and how to regulate gene edited crops is still being defined in many countries.
The mobile seed shop of Victoria Seeds Company provides access to improved maize varieties for farmers in remote villages of Uganda. (Photo: Kipenz Films for CIMMYT)
Selected impacts of maize and wheat breeding
In the early 1990s, a CIMMYT methodology led to improved maize varieties that tolerate moderate drought conditions around flowering time in tropical, rainfed environments, besides featuring other valuable agronomic and resilience traits. By 2015, almost half the maize-producing area in 18 countries of sub-Saharan Africa â a region where the crop provides almost a third of human calories but where 65% of maize lands face at least occasional drought â was sown to varieties from this breeding research, in partnership with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). The estimated yearly benefits are as high as $1 billion.
Intensive breeding for resistance to Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN), a viral disease that appeared in eastern Africa in 2011 and quickly spread to attack maize crops across the continent, allowed the release by 2017 of 18 MLN-resistant maize hybrids.
Improved wheat varieties developed using breeding lines from CIMMYT or the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) cover more than 100 million hectares, nearly two-thirds of the area sown to improved wheat worldwide, with benefits in added grain that range from $2.8 to 3.8 billion each year.
Breeding for resistance to devastating crop diseases and pests has saved billions of dollars in crop losses and reduced the use of costly and potentially harmful pesticides. A 2004 study showed that investments since the early 1970s in breeding for resistance in wheat to the fungal disease leaf rust had provided benefits in added grain worth 5.36 billion 1990 US dollars. Global research to control wheat stem rust disease saves wheat farmers the equivalent of at least $1.12 billion each year.
Crosses of wheat with related crops (rye) or even wild grasses â the latter known as wide crosses â have greatly improved the hardiness and productivity of wheat. For example, an estimated one-fifth of the elite wheat breeding lines in CIMMYT international yield trials features genes from Aegilops tauschii, commonly known as âgoat grass,â that boost their resilience and provide other valuable traits to protect yield.
Biofortification â breeding to develop nutritionally enriched crops â has resulted in more than 60 maize and wheat varieties whose grain offers improved protein quality or enhanced levels of micro-nutrients such as zinc and provitamin A. Biofortified maize and wheat varieties have benefited smallholder farm families and consumers in more than 20 countries across sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Consumption of provitamin-A-enhanced maize or sweet potato has been shown to reduce chronic vitamin A deficiencies in children in eastern and southern Africa. In India, farmers have grown a high-yielding sorghum variety with enhanced grain levels of iron and zinc since 2018 and use of iron-biofortified pearl millet has improved nutrition among vulnerable communities.
Innovations in measuring plant responses include remote sensing systems, such as multispectral and thermal cameras flown over breeding fields. In this image of the CIMMYT experimental station in ObregĂłn, Mexico, water-stressed plots are shown in green and red. (Photo: CIMMYT and the Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible)
Thefuture
Crop breeders have been laying the groundwork to pursue genomic selection. This approach takes advantage of low-cost, genome-wide molecular markers to analyze large populations and allow scientists to predict the value of particular breeding lines and crosses to speed gains, especially for improving genetically complex traits.
Speed breeding uses artificially-extended daylength, controlled temperatures, genomic selection, data science, artificial intelligence tools and advanced technology for recording plant information â also called phenotyping â to make breeding faster and more efficient. A CIMMYT speed breeding facility for wheat features a screenhouse with specialized lighting, controlled temperatures and other special fixings that will allow four crop cycles â or generations â to be grown per year, in place of only two cycles with normal field trials. Speed breeding facilities will accelerate the development of productive and robust varieties by crop research programs worldwide.
Data analysis and management. Growing and evaluating hundreds of thousands of plants in diverse trials across multiple sites each season generates enormous volumes of data that breeders must examine, integrate, and co-analyze to inform decisions, especially about which lines to cross and which populations to discard or move forward. New informatics tools such as the Enterprise Breeding System will help scientists to manage, analyze and apply big data from genomics, field and lab studies.
Following the leaders. Driven by competition and the quest for profits, private companies that market seed and other farm products are generally on the cutting edge of breeding innovations. The CGIARâs Excellence in Breeding (EiB) initiative is helping crop breeding programs that serve farmers in low- and middle-income countries to adopt appropriate best practices from private companies, including molecular marker-based approaches, strategic mechanization, digitization and use of big data to drive decision making. Modern plant breeding begins by ensuring that the new varieties produced are in line with what farmers and consumers want and need.
