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Theme: Nutrition, health and food security

As staple foods, maize and wheat provide vital nutrients and health benefits, making up close to two-thirds of the world’s food energy intake, and contributing 55 to 70 percent of the total calories in the diets of people living in developing countries, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. CIMMYT scientists tackle food insecurity through improved nutrient-rich, high-yielding varieties and sustainable agronomic practices, ensuring that those who most depend on agriculture have enough to make a living and feed their families. The U.N. projects that the global population will increase to more than 9 billion people by 2050, which means that the successes and failures of wheat and maize farmers will continue to have a crucial impact on food security. Findings by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which show heat waves could occur more often and mean global surface temperatures could rise by up to 5 degrees Celsius throughout the century, indicate that increasing yield alone will be insufficient to meet future demand for food.

Achieving widespread food and nutritional security for the world’s poorest people is more complex than simply boosting production. Biofortification of maize and wheat helps increase the vitamins and minerals in these key crops. CIMMYT helps families grow and eat provitamin A enriched maize, zinc-enhanced maize and wheat varieties, and quality protein maize. CIMMYT also works on improving food health and safety, by reducing mycotoxin levels in the global food chain. Mycotoxins are produced by fungi that colonize in food crops, and cause health problems or even death in humans or animals. Worldwide, CIMMYT helps train food processors to reduce fungal contamination in maize, and promotes affordable technologies and training to detect mycotoxins and reduce exposure.

Scientists uncover DNA sequence of key wheat disease resistance gene

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A global team of researchers that includes CIMMYT scientists has uncovered the molecular basis of a “wonder” gene that, in tandem with other resistance genes, has helped protect wheat from three deadly fungal diseases for more than 50 years, providing farmers benefits in excess of USD five billion in harvests saved.

Since the 1970s farmers have used wheat varieties that are resistant to leaf rust, a major fungal crop disease. Without these rust-resistant varieties, wheat farmers would have lost USD 5.36 billion in harvests. [Economics Program Paper 04-01] Now, a study in this month’s issue of the renowned Science journal has reported the sequencing of Lr34—a key gene underlying this “durable” resistance in wheat to leaf rust and to two other major diseases of the crop: stripe rust and powdery mildew. Until now, no one knew much about Lr34‘s physiological action. Uncovering its DNA sequence allowed the scientists to understand how the gene works.

“Combined with other minor-action genes, Lr34 does occasionally permit the pathogen to colonize and grow on the plant,” says Ravi Singh, CIMMYT wheat geneticist/pathologist and co-author of the Science report, “but it causes the disease to develop so slowly that yield losses are negligible. Lr34 has proven so useful that it’s been bred into wheat cultivars sown on more than 26 million hectares in various developing countries.”

Researchers from the University of Zurich and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization of Australia (CSIRO) worked with Singh and co-author Julio Huerta-Espino, a rust scientist from Mexico’s national agricultural research institute, INIFAP, to sequence Lr34 and conduct combined molecular and field tests to uncover the gene’s resistance action. Among other things, they found that it behaves in a way unique from so-called “major” resistance genes.

The Lr34 gene encodes an adenosine-triphosphate (ATP) binding cassette transporter, according to CSIRO scientist Evans Lagudah, also a co-author on the Science report. ATP is a multifunctional “nucleotide”—a type of molecule that comprises the structure of DNA. It typically transports chemical energy within cells for metabolism. “In mammals, for example, ATP binding cassette transporters underlie resistance to chemo-therapeutic drugs in cancer treatment, where the transporters can pump out the drugs from the cancer cells,” says Lagudah. “In plants, certain transporters can inhibit or reduce pathogen colonization in infected tissues.”

Science in a deadly “arms race” against rust

In early research to breed rust-resistant wheat lines, scientists depended heavily on resistance genes showing “major” action; that is, completely blocking the entry or development of specific races of the rust fungus. This approach resulted in varieties that would yield well for some years—there was no predicting how long—but which would eventually fall to new, more virulent rust strains. “The major genes typically include a protein that ‘recognizes’ a protein in the pathogen, triggering the resistance reaction,” says Singh. “But with even a minute mutation in that pathogen protein, the resistance gene would no longer ‘detect’ an infection, no plant defense would be triggered, and the pathogen would thus regain virulence.”

Because of this, the wheat fields where farmers have sown varieties protected only by major resistance genes can be hit with sudden, potentially disastrous rust epidemics, as occurred in a large wheat-growing area in northern Mexico in the late 1970s. “The government and research organizations of the time were forced to undertake an expensive, military-like operation to quickly import and apply enough fungicide to avoid a total crop failure,” says Huerta-Espino.

To address such breakdowns in resistance, CIMMYT adopted a breeding strategy that entailed searching among diverse sources for resistance genes which, like Lr34, have small, additive effects that work across rust races. Researchers then would breed several such genes into high-yielding wheat varieties, according to Singh. “When CIMMYT wheat breeder Sanjaya Rajaram first implemented this strategy, it sounded good in theory, but there was no guarantee it would work,” says Singh. “The decision seems obvious now, but back then it was so risky that few breeding programs were willing to undertake it.”

The upshot for breeders

In addition to elucidating Lr34‘s cell-level action, the benefits of the new study include the development of a precise DNA marker for Lr34‘s presence in wheat varieties. This tool will allow breeders to manipulate the gene better in crosses or, according to Singh, focus on slow-rusting genes from other sources. “There are genes that appear to behave similarly to Lr34, but are different and are located elsewhere on the chromosome,” he says. “Because Lr34 is so common in our breeding materials, it’s hard to isolate these other genes. With the new marker, we can select against Lr34 to develop experimental wheat lines from which we’re sure it’s absent.” The lines can then be used in research on other slow-rusting genes and perhaps to create a wholly distinct type of resistance

Singh says CIMMYT is involved in additional work on other slow-rusting genes, similar to that reported in Science. “Collaboration is crucial in such studies,” he says. “No single group can handle the required lab and field work on its own.” He also hopes the Science report will prompt other groups to analyze slow-rusting genes, instead of the more-easily-studied major race-specific genes: “With demand going up and rising grain prices, and higher temperatures possibly favoring the emergence of new pathogen strains in developing country cropping areas, farmers need all the help they can get from research on disease resistance in staple cereals.”

Hugo CĂłrdova, Knight Commander of the Order Manuel Amador Guerrero in PanamĂĄ

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Hugo Córdova will be invested by Panama’s president, His Excellence Martín Torrijos, and Grand Maestre of the Order, on August 28, 2008, during the Feria Agrícola de Divisa, where according to Román Gordon, Agrosalud project partner, two new QPM synthetics will be released. This award is the highest honor Panama gives for scientific contributions to development, and was named after Manuel Amador Guerrero, independence hero and first president of Panama.

The journey of a seed

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aug03Seed is the lifeblood of CIMMYT research and partnerships. Behind the scenes at CIMMYT, many thousands of seeds are on the move. Constantly arriving and departing as seed is shared with partners, they may journey through rigorous health testing in the laboratory, planting in the soils of the center’s research stations, or storage in the icy vaults of the germplasm bank.

No man is an island, and CIMMYT, as the world center for maize and wheat research, certainly isn’t. The center’s lifeblood is genetic variability: it is preserved in the germplasm bank; useful genes derived from it are incorporated in new varieties and shared with partners. These genes come packaged up in seeds, and countless seeds enter and leave CIMMYT every year, traveling to and from far-flung destinations including breeding programs of national agricultural research systems and private seed companies, CIMMYT’s global network of offices, and its research stations within Mexico.

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Seed arriving at CIMMYT-Mexico must pass through strict testing procedures in the Seed Health Laboratory (SHL), part of the Seed Inspection and Distribution Unit (SIDU). “For Mexico we represent a risk—we’re unique in importing seed from all over the world,” says Monica Mezzalama, seed health expert and plant pathologist in charge of the SHL. “We have a duty towards Mexico and our collaborators in other countries to make sure we are not distributing seed with diseases. It’s also important for seed quality—we send people our best material.”

Staff in the SHL test seed for insects, weeds, fungi, bacteria, and viruses (see photo slideshow). The lab routinely checks for pathogens under quarantine for Mexico and for partner countries. Seed that gets a clean bill of health—a “seed release”—moves on, often going to a breeder, whereby its potentially useful traits may enter improved varieties. Alternatively, it may be headed for another lab and more testing by scientists working on seed quality or micronutrient content. Finally, many seed samples are destined for storage in the seed bank.

Entering the vaults

On behalf of humankind, present and future, CIMMYT holds enormous collections of seed of wheat and maize, as well as of the crops’ wild and cultivated relatives. For Tom Payne, head of the wheat germplasm bank (seed bank), the focus is on useful diversity, particularly from materials that have already undergone some breeding. “The most valuable germplasm (genetic material or seeds) is the germplasm we know the most about. It lets you look for the traits you’re interested in,” he says. Nonetheless, Payne says that breeders also recognize the value of landraces—traditional farmer varieties—and wild relatives: “When Ug99 (a new, highly-virulent form of stem rust) broke out in Africa, we sent 4,000 randomly-selected landraces for screening and found new sources of resistance.”

In the case of wheat, once cleared by the SHL, seed of new samples for the germplasm bank goes into several packets with different destinations. At least 200 grams will enter the “active” collection, from which external requests for seed are met. Additional packets are prepared for long-term storage at CIMMYT and, finally, three partner banks as back-ups. Because the center normally receives small amounts of seed, it has to be grown out, or “multiplied,” to harvest enough for research, storage, and back-up purposes. Seed is also multiplied for distribution. Again, quarantine precautions require that new wheat seed first be grown at the center’s headquarters and then vetted by the SHL, after which it travels 2,500 kilometers north to be re-sown at a Mexican desert location certified as free from the diseases. The final product is shipped back to CIMMYT headquarters and once more inspected by the SHL.

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Regenerating germplasm bank collections

Eventually seed in the germplasm bank ages and begins to lose its ability to germinate. Also, supplies of frequently-requested samples eventually run short. When either occurs, viable seed from the sample is sown to replenish the collection—a process known as “regeneration.” “In 2008, the germplasm bank regenerated a record 18,000 wheat lines,” says Bibiana Espinosa, the principal research assistant who manages CIMMYT’s wheat germplasm collection. “That’s 45% more than in typical years.”

Pollen from a single maize plant can fertilize seed of many neighboring plants, so regeneration of maize seed is more costly and complex than for wheat plants, which are self-fertilizing. Maize crosses must be carefully mapped out and controlled to ensure that the diversity from the original sample is as closely replicated as possible. “Regenerating and storing one sample of maize costs around USD 250 or more—maybe 20 times more than a sample of wheat,” says Payne. “On a single hectare of land you can regenerate thousands of wheat lines, but because individual maize populations or landraces may embody tremendous genetic diversity, they require far more space to regenerate properly.”

Keeping track of hundreds of thousands of seed collections poses a serious challenge for germplasm bank staff. CIMMYT has recently begun marking seed packets with a barcode linked to crop database systems for physical and molecular traits. “The goal is to internet-enable all these databases and link to specific seed collections in the bank, helping people make selections,” says Payne.

Seed collections and genetically modified crops

“CIMMYT’s internal policy is to avoid the involuntary presence of transgenes in its germplasm,” says Mezzalama, referring to genes from other species that are introduced into crop plants like maize using genetic engineering. This means strict monitoring of maize seed that the center introduces from abroad, either for storage in the bank or for breeding purposes. As a further measure, regeneration plantings are surrounded by “sentinel plots” from which seed is harvested and tested in the laboratory to check for the possible arrival of foreign pollen.

On the road again

All seed in the germplasm bank has been certified as clean by the SHL, so it is always ready to be planted in the field or sent to anyone who requests it. However, like any traveler, it must carry a passport—an international phytosanitary certificate—to move between countries. In addition, CIMMYT seed travels only if prospective recipients accept the “Standard Material Transfer Agreement”—which stipulates among other things that the seed may not be sold or patented, and was adopted in the first session of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.

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Every year, SIDU receives hundreds of requests for samples of bank or breeding seed. CIMMYT also ships annual international nurseries (for wheat) and international trials (for maize). These are collections of the center’s best materials, grouped into sets for specific aims: high yield, heat tolerance, disease resistance, to name a few. Partners request sets, grow out and evaluate the experimental seed, and return data on the results to CIMMYT. The center collates and analyzes the data from all sources, publishes and distributes the results to partners, and uses the information to guide subsequent breeding efforts. Partners who grow the trials may keep and use seed of the varieties that interest them, or request additional seed.

EfrĂ©n RodrĂ­guez, who is responsible for seed distribution, estimates that public research organizations make up around two-thirds of CIMMYT seed recipients; the rest are private sector seed companies. “In many countries requests from small seed companies are increasing as the sector grows, for example in Mexico and India,” he says. In wheat, 70–80% of requests are for international nursery material, whereas in maize about 70% are requests for materials from the germplasm bank. “We have around 500 CIMMYT inbred maize lines, and all the seed companies want a sample of these lines to use in their breeding programs,” says RodrĂ­guez. His team can count partners in around 150 countries, and in a year meets around 800 requests for seed.

Most of this work by SIDU and the germplasm bank goes unnoticed by the casual visitor, but, says Mezzalama, “
the daily contact with people around the world who really need CIMMYT seed makes me feel very confident that I’m doing something valuable.”

For more information:

Tom Payne, Head, Wheat Genetic Resources (t.payne@cgiar.org);
Monica Mezzalama, Head, Seed Health Laboratory (m.mezzalama@cgiar.org)

Mexican wheat farmers sign national agreement

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Representatives from national wheat farmers’ committees all signed a national agreement for wheat provisioning on 23 July 2008 at the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture (SAGARPA) facilities. The Secretary of Agriculture, Alberto Cárdenas, and a representative from the Economic Ministry also signed the agreement as witnesses.

This agreement confirms farmers’ willingness to reorganize and manage wheat production in Mexico, with the objective of increasing production and producing wheat that meets market demands.

During their speeches, Cårdenas and José Manuel Hernåndez López, a non-governmental representative from the National Committee for Wheat Production, stressed the importance of research and products developed by CIMMYT for the advancement of producers of basic foodstuffs in Mexico.

After the signing ceremony, CĂĄrdenas along with others headed a tour of SAGARPA’s esplanade and learned about CIMMYT’s work in conservation agriculture through Fernando Delgado, Toluca Station Superintendent. Roberto Javier Peña, Head of the El BatĂĄn Cereal Quality Laboratory, also spoke to CĂĄrdenas about wheat improvement and CIMMYT’s partnership with the Mexican Institute of Forestry, Agriculture, and Livestock Research (INIFAP). MarĂ­a Teresa RodrĂ­guez, Program Coordinator, Global Wheat Program, set up and ran CIMMYT’s display, along with Delgado and Peña.

The tour ended at INIFAP’s stand, which showed various modern wheat varieties, the majority of which originated from wheat germplasm developed by CIMMYT.

International nurseries shop revamped

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Every year, CIMMYT’s Seed Inspection and Distribution Unit (SIDU) ships more than 1,000 sets of seed for international wheat trials and 300 sets of maize to collaborators in over 100 countries. Seed to be shipped must undergo rigorous selection, cleaning, treatment, and packaging by SIDU-seed preparation personnel. A consignment for 36 tons of seed from Mexicali for trials for the 2009 cycle arrived on Tuesday 1 July 2008.

Before preparing the shipment, in June, Antonio Luna, David GonzĂĄlez, AndrĂ©s Guerrero, and four temporary workers performed maintenance on the seed-preparation facilities. “We wanted to renovate the appearance of our workplace, so we can be more comfortable working there, while taking into account the phytosanitary requirement of the facilities for proper seed handling,” said GonzĂĄlez. His program bought the paint and some other material and he and his co-workers painted the walls, the floor stands, and the seed treatment machines in the warehouse. “It took us took weeks to paint the floor stands because we used oil-based paint to avoid having toxic fumes, and we had to take them apart, move them to La Redonda, and paint them there. All the ceiling lights were also changed,” says GonzĂĄlez. On 27 June, personnel from the Mexican Agriculture Secretariat (SAGARPA) of Texcoco inspected the warehouse of 99 m2 to check that it had been properly washed with bleach.

Renewing and reinforcing partnerships in South Asia

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As part of global efforts to strengthen CIMMYT’s presence with key partners in important maize and wheat production regions, in recent weeks Tom Lumpkin met with high-level agricultural research directors and other CIMMYT friends in India and Pakistan.

In Pakistan during 25-28 June, discussions with Dr ME Tusneem, Chair of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), covered renewed collaboration on topics such as research to combat Ug99, the new strain of stem rust that is moving out of eastern Africa to threaten South Asia’s wheat crops. CIMMYT and Pakistan are also developing a new memorandum of understanding on partnerships and moves to reopen the center’s office in that country. Important contributions to the work and discussions have come from former CIMMYT wheat cytologist, Dr Mujeeb-Kazi, who led CIMMYT’s efforts to develop synthetic wheats, and Dr Mushtaq Gill, long-time CIMMYT partner and champion of zero-tillage in Pakistan.

In meetings in India during 30 June-01 July, it was agreed with Dr Mangala Rai, Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), to develop a new five-year workplan that will be signed at the CIMMYT BOT meeting in India in October. Lumpkin also visited with Dr Gautam, ICAR DDG for Crops; Dr Mishra, Director of the Directorate of Wheat Research (DWR), and Dr Dass, director of the Directorate of Maize Research (DMR), and interacted with directors and staff of National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR), the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), and the Directorate of Maize Research (DMR).

Lumpkin thanked Olaf Erenstein, CIMMYT agricultural economist and liaison officer in India, for organizing the visits and accompanying him, in representation of the center. “Olaf arranged very productive programs in Islamabad and Delhi that should greatly reinforce CIMMYT’s stature in South Asia,” he said.

Quality protein maize cultivars released in El Salvador

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Three quality protein maize hybrids—Platino (CML144/CML159//CML503/CML502), Oro Blanco(CML503/CML492//CML491), and synthetic Protemas (03TLWQAB3)—were released to farmers at the headquarters of the national center for agriculture and livestock technology (CENTA) in San AndrĂ©s, La Libertad, El Salvador, on Wednesday 18 June 2008.

More than 500 farmers attended the ceremony along with extension agents and officials including the Minister of Agriculture, Mario Salaverria; the Vice Minister of Agriculture, Emilio Suadi; the Presidential High Commissioner for Agriculture, MarĂ­a Elena Sol; Ever HernĂĄndez, CENTA Board Chair; and Abraham GonzĂĄles, CENTA Director.

The Minister and the Vice Ministers spoke to farmers about the potential of the cultivars to alleviate hunger and malnutrition especially now, during the world food crisis. The new cultivars will be grown on 3,000 hectares this year, and the ministers promised that farmers will have enough seed to sow at least 20,000 hectares in 2009. Farmers who ran demonstration plots last year were happy that the cultivars were finally released.

Salaverria said he was impressed during a visit to CIMMYT last May and commended the center for its work to increase maize yields in El Salvador by 250 kg per hectare per year for the past 4 years. The national maize yield has increased to an average 3 tons per hectare, which is the highest in the region. The goal is to reach 4.3 tons per hectare in the next 10 years and to locally produce all white and yellow maize needed in the country. El Salvador is self-sufficient in white maize for food but imports all yellow maize used for the animal feed industry. The day of the release the price of yellow maize had reached USD 400 a ton.

On Friday 20 June Hugo CĂłrdova participated in a forum organized by the El Salvador Agronomists Society (SIADES) to discuss actions to reduce the impact of the food crisis and present alternatives from the Organization for Health Improvement of Agricultural Workers and Families in Guatemala (AGROSALUD) to alleviate hunger, malnutrition, and reduce poverty. Salaverria, who is Minister of Agriculture and Chair of the Central American Council of Agriculture (CAC), reiterated his interest in supporting AGROSALUD.

Submitted by Hugo CĂłrdova, CIMMYT Consultant

Borlaug visits ObregĂłn; Patronato and Sonora give CIMMYT US$ 1 million

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Dr. Norman Borlaug had a joyous reunion on 02 April 08 with CIMMYT and Mexican friends and former colleagues at the place—the research facilities near Ciudad ObregĂłn, Sonora state, owned by the farmers union ‘Patronato para la InvestigaciĂłn y ExperimentaciĂłn AgrĂ­cola del Estado de Sonora’ where he and his research team developed the Green Revolution wheats. His visit came on the occasion of the announcement there by Ronnie Coffman, director of international programs at Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, of a US$ 26.8 million grant to Cornell by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to launch a global partnership including CIMMYT to combat the rust diseases of wheat, particularly the virulent stem rust strain from eastern Africa, Ug99.

At the same event, the President of the Patronato, Jorge Artee Elías Calles (in the photo), and the Sonora State Secretary of Agriculture, Alejandro Elías Calles, announced that the Patronato and the state of Sonora would give respective donations to CIMMYT of 6 million pesos and 4 million pesos—equivalent to nearly US$ 1 million—for research on the rusts and on Karnal bunt disease, “in honor of Borlaug, and to welcome the new DG, Tom Lumpkin.” “The farmers of the region are aware of Ug99 and the problems it represents in other part of the world and could cause in the Yaqui Valley (the Ciudad Obregón region) in the future,” says Artee. Borlaug, who recently turned 94 and has suffered serious bouts of illness, looked full of vigor and enthusiasm as he spoke to the gathering in fluent Spanish and, like on countless past occasions throughout his life, went to the field to inspect experimental wheat lines—this time, new ones that carry resistance to Ug99. “The rust pathogens recognize no political boundaries and their spores need no passport to travel thousands of miles in the jet streams,” he says. “Containing these deadly enemies of the wheat crop requires alert and active scientists, strong international research networks, and effective seed supply programs.” The new Cornell project essentially brings full circle work begun by Borlaug and Mexican associates 60 years ago in northwest Mexico, as part of the Rockefeller Foundation-funded Office of Special Studies, that resulted in the release of high-yielding, stem rust resistant wheats.

Among those accompanying Borlaug were his daughter, Jeanie Borlaug Laube, and granddaughter, Julie Borlaug. Members of the extended CIMMYT family who joined the event included Sanjaya Rajaram, former wheat breeder and program director; John Dodds, former deputy director general; Gregorio Martínez, former public affairs officer; Evangelina Villegas, former cereal chemist; Richard Ward, former head of the Global Rust Initiative; Reynaldo Villareal, former wheat training coordinator; and Chris Dowswell and David Mowbray, former heads of corporate communications. Norm’s presence, together with stellar logistics by numerous CIMMYT global wheat program staff and consultants, including personnel of the Obregón research station, together with the Cornell team, made the event a great success.

Ukraine counselor visits El Batan

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On 28 March 2008, Anatoly Rymar, Counselor from the Ukraine Embassy in Mexico, visited El BatĂĄn to discuss strengthened collaboration of his country with the center.

According to Alex Morgounov, CIMMYT wheat breeder/agronomist and regional representative for Central Asia and the Caucasus, there is already a dynamic partnership with the Ukraine. The three main wheat breeding centers in the Ukraine–Mironovka, Kharkov, and Odessa—actively participate in germplasm exchanges with the Turkey-CIMMYT-ICARDA International Winter Wheat Improvement Program (IWWIP).

“In June 2007, two breeders from Ukrainian Plant Breeding and Genetics Institute in Odessa came to Turkey and participated in an IWWIP traveling workshop,” he says. “Their suggestions were incorporated in the final workshop recommendation, a guiding document for the program.” In July 2008, Morgounov and Hans Braun, Director of CIMMYT’s global wheat program, will take part in a conference at the Ukrainian Institute of Plant Production in Kharkov, organized partly to observe the 100th anniversary of the institute. Finally, joint work with the National Gene Bank of Ukraine is being explored to preserve some of their collections at CIMMYT.

India breeders choose outstanding maize from CIMMYT

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Immediately upon his return after Science Week on 10 March 2008, P.H. Zaidi, breeder in CIMMYT’s global maize program, led a field day on ICRISAT’s campus in Hyderabad, India, that was attended by some 70 maize scientists from India’s public and private sectors. Dr. Sain Dass, Director of India’s Directorate for Maize Research (DMR), leader of the Indian Maize Program, and a visiting scientist at CIMMYT in 1996 and 2004, along with several DMR colleagues, participated. “Dr. Dass was delighted to see our ongoing activities, especially on QPM and drought stress tolerance,” says Zaidi. “There were about 25 scientists from SAU’s maize program and 30 scientists from private seed companies. After a brief introduction about breeding activities in our Asian regional maize program, participants toured maize germplasm nurseries and selected the best entries as per their own requirements. Among other outcomes, we obtained lists of breeder selections from a nursery we sent them.”

Also contributing to the success of the event were Mehraj UdDin, CIMMYT-India research assistant who received CIMMYT’s 2007 Most Valuable Employee Award, and Gaurav Yadav, also of CIMMYT-India and associated with the Rice-Wheat Consortium (RWC) for the Indo-Gangetic Plains. “Apart from the germplasm we are working on here, there was lot interest in the speciality corn,” says Zaidi. “Many partners suggested circulating a form to collect views and prioritize the emerging germplasm requirements in the region. We are working on developing a form for collecting this feedback, so that our products will be truly demand-driven.”

Rajaram retires

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After an outstanding career of 40 years in agricultural research, former CIMMYT wheat researcher, Wheat Program Director, and Distinguished Scientist, Dr. Sanjaya Rajaram—known affectionately at CIMMYT simply as “Raj”—formally retired on 10 February 2008 from his positions as Director of Integrated Gene Management at the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and Director of the ICARDA/CIMMYT Wheat Improvement Program (ICWIP) in the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region.

Rajaram led bread wheat breeding research at CIMMYT for more than three decades. His leadership and commitment to wheat improvement resulted in the release of more than 450 cultivars with increased yield potential, wide adaptation, and resistance to important diseases and stresses. These are grown on some 58 million hectares worldwide and approximately 8 million hectares in India, and include India’s most popular wheat variety, PBW 343. He also led efforts at CIMMYT to apply the concept of durable resistance to rust—the most damaging disease of wheat worldwide—through use of multiple genes with minor effects that slow disease development, thereby minimizing effects on yield without challenging the pathogen to mutate and overcome resistance. His accomplishments include training or mentoring more than 700 scientists from dozens of developing countries, including many from India.

Rajaram will live in Mexico and plans to continue his breeding association with Resource Seed Inc., a Wheat/TCL Breeding Company based in California. Congratulations, and best of luck in the future, Raj!

Three tons of seed shipped to Svalbard vault

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On 22 January 2008, CIMMYT sent more than 160 boxes of seed for long-term deposit in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, Norway. The shipment comprised 10,000 maize accessions and 48,000 of wheat, and weighed around 3 tons in all. It was part of 200,000 seed collections of crop varieties sent this month for storage in the vault from CGIAR germplasm banks worldwide. The vault was built by the Norwegian government as a service to the global community, and a Rome-based international NGO, the Global Crop Diversity Trust, will fund its operation. The aim is to ensure that the collections remain available for bolstering food security, should a man-made or natural disaster ever threaten agricultural systems or germplasm bank collections.

CIMMYT’s shipment was drawn from regenerations performed over the past two years, and represents roughly a third of the center’s entire collection of crop genetic resources. The CGIAR shipments, were brought to the attention of the global media through timely public-relations efforts of the CG Secretariat communications team, with support from Burness Associates. Reports have appeared to date on 8 wire services, 5 TV and radio stations, 10 newspapers, and 6 web-based outlets. Coverage in Mexico included articles in the major dailies El Universal and La Jornada, as well as a spot in the Canal 11 evening news, all reflecting favorably on CIMMYT.

Congratulations to Tom Payne, Suketoshi Taba, Bibiana Espinosa, VĂ­ctor ChĂĄvez, and all staff in the germplasm bank and seed areas, who coordinated and prepared the shipment and interacted with reporters. Thanks as well to Rodomiro Ortiz, who served as CIMMYT spokesperson to the media for this initiative.

CIMMYT researcher helps find cheaper way to Vitamin-A enhanced maize

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In a development reported this week in Science magazine and which could enhance the nutritional status of millions of people in developing countries, a team of plant geneticists and crop scientists including CIMMYT’s Jianbing Yan pioneered an economical approach to boost levels of provitamin A in maize. ‘Provitamin A’ describes substances that are converted to vitamin A upon consumption. The team showed that variation at the lycopene epsilon cyclase (lcyE) locus—favorable alleles of which can be selected using molecular markers—controls biosynthesis pathways for Vitamin A precursors in maize.

Vitamin A deficiency is a leading cause of eye disease and other health disorders in the developing world. Some 40 million children are afflicted with eye disease, and another 250 million suffer with health problems resulting from a lack of dietary vitamin A. Selecting for provitamin A in maize normally involves expensive lab analyses, so the ability to use DNA markers for this purpose should reduce costs significantly.

“I played a very small part in the study, and more work needs to be done” says Yan, who came to CIMMYT in October 2006 from the China Agricultural University, Beijing. “I helped to re-confirm the markers and fix some tables.” According to Yan, molecular markers associated with lcyE are being used in several institutes around the world, including CIMMYT, for breeding to enhance the vitamin A value of maize. He will give a seminar at El Batán on Monday, 21 January in B115 at 3:30.

Reaching maize farmers with improved varieties better through the value chain approach

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Jonathan Hellin, poverty specialist in the Impacts Targeting and Assessment Unit, was in Kenya over the past two weeks catching up with CIMMYT-Kenya colleagues and meeting senior economists and students from the University of Nairobi. This was in preparation for next year’s activities on his collaborative maize value chain research work. Funded by BMZ, the work builds on previous contributions by CIMMYT and its partners in meeting the needs of resource-poor farmers in stress-prone environments by making improved maize varieties more widely available.

A review mission concluded that work by CIMMYT and partners can serve as “
a model for multi-stakeholder regional R&D collaboration and enhanced researcher-extension-farmer-market linkages”. The mission suggested a continuation of the research but recommended that more emphasis be given to the availability and dissemination of varieties and technologies to the smallholder farmers in eastern and Central Africa. The current phase includes a value chain analysis of the seed input chains.

Learning from the wise: Jonathan Hellin in a work planning session with Alpha Diallo, maize breeder, in Nairobi, Kenya

2007 CGIAR awards for CIMMYT and partners

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The CGIAR honored the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS) and the Shandong Academy of Agricultural Science with the 2007 Award for Outstanding Agricultural Technology in the Asia-Pacific Region, for their work with CIMMYT to develop high-yielding wheat varieties with high-quality grain for Chinese food products.

Three wheat cultivars from this work were sown on more than eight million hectares in China from 2002 to 2006, adding 2.4 million tons of grain to Chinese wheat production. China and CIMMYT partnerships go back three decades and around four million hectares in China are sown to varieties that carry CIMMYT wheat in their pedigrees.

CIMMYT Maize Nutrition Quality Specialist, Natalia Palacios, was also honored by the CGIAR, receiving the 2007 Promising Young Scientist Award. The award cites Palacios’ contributions to the development of nutritious and micronutrientdense maize for farmers in tropical areas. Among other things, Palacios was influential in developing and implementing new approaches to test for grain quality traits, such as provitamins A and protein quality, that will ultimately speed breeding for those and other characteristics. Both awards were given at the 2007 CGIAR annual general meetings in Beijing, China, where during 3-7 December more than 1,000 participants, including several CIMMYT directing staff and scientists, discussed how agricultural research and technology and food policy initiatives can more effectively address critical global agricultural challenges, bringing the benefits of agricultural research more quickly to poor farmers in developing countries.