Effective June 2012, our feature stories will be published on the GCP Blog.

"The timing's neat," says Dr Jean-Marcel Ribaut, Director of the Generation Challenge Programme (GCP) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). "We decoded the pigeonpea genome last November, which is a great way to start 2012!"

The collaborative project that sequenced the pigeonpea genome brought together 12 participating institutes operating under the umbrella of the International Initiative for Pigeonpea Genomics (IIPG). The initiative was led by Dr Rajeev K Varshney, the GCP Comparative and Applied Genomics Theme Leader. He is also Director of the Center of Excellence in Genomics (CEG) at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). Other participants in the Initiative included the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) in Shenzhen, China; four universities; and five other advanced research entities, both private and public. The Plant Genome Research Program of the National Science Foundation, USA, also funded part of this research.

"A crop of many virtues"
"Pigeonpea, the grains of which make a highly nutritious food, is a hardy and drought-resistant crop. It is grown in the semi-arid tropics and subtropics of Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Caribbean," explains Dr Ribaut. "Now that the project has successfully captured almost 73 percent of this crop's genome and identified 48,680 genes, new varieties can be quickly developed. This will have significant impact on resource-poor communities in the semi-arid regions because they will then have the opportunity to improve their livelihoods and increase food availability."

Dr Ribaut describes pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan (L) Millsp) as "a crop of many virtues." This ancient crop was domesticated in southern Asia, probably 3,500 years ago. Today, it feeds about 1,000 million people, most of whom are poor. Current world production is 4 million tons - worth about USD 1,500 million - and produced on 5 million hectares. India, a major consumer of this legume, grows around 85 percent of the world's production. Eastern Africa and Central America are also major producers.

"Nutritionally, both people and livestock can significantly benefit from pigeonpeas," says Dr Larry Butler, the GCP Product Delivery Theme Leader. Their high protein and amino acid contents so effectively supplement starchy staples that pigeonpeas are sometimes called the ‘poor man's meat'. This crop's prolific seed production and resistance to drought help reduce farmers' vulnerability to potential food shortages during dry periods. Agronomically, the crop is used to improve soils, serves as an intercrop, and provides windbreaks, fencing, firewood, and thatching. It also has industrial potential for flour production, canning, and lac production. Lac is a scarlet resin used as dye. It is produced by scale insects, for which pigeonpea is a host plant.

Low yields – the poor farmer's burden
Dr Ribaut mentions the current challenges of dryland environments, rapidly increasing population growth, and threats of climate change and scarce natural resources. He adds, "We cannot help but agree with Dr William Dar, Director General of ICRISAT, who observed that the ‘mapping of the pigeonpea genome is a breakthrough that could not have come at a better time!'"

Dr Butler agrees, adding that "perhaps the most important problem faced by pigeonpea farmers is low yields." He explains, "As most of these farmers are smallholders, they have few resources with which to battle crop diseases and pests, drought, and poor soils."

As a result, average world yields have stagnated over the last 50 to 60 years at between 650 to 866 kilograms per hectare. Some countries must import to make up deficits. India, for example, imports about 3 million tons of pigeonpeas annually. Prices for pigeonpeas are therefore soaring. Yet, as Dr Butler points out, "under ideal conditions, the crop can produce about 2.5 tons per hectare."

"One way of assisting resource-poor farmers is to make available pigeonpea varieties that have been improved to cope with stresses," he suggests.

The treasure in the genome
If a variety is to successfully ward off a disease or other stress, then it must have the genes to do so, points out Dr Varshney. "Like all living organisms, pigeonpea plants vary in their ability to resist stress," he explains. "For example, some pigeonpea plants cope with drought better than others. The reason they can do so is because they have genes that direct them to have, for instance, deeper, water-seeking roots, whereas other pigeonpea individuals don't have these genes."

Dr Varshney goes on to explain, "Essentially, this is what breeding is about: it is the deliberate choosing of those plants that have adaptive characteristics such as longer roots." He expounds further: "Thus, through breeding, a drought-resistant pigeonpea variety is developed, the plants of which consistently possess those particular genes that tell them to grow deep roots. This long-rooted variety is thus more likely to survive droughts."

Dr Varshney points out that the size of the pigeonpea genome is about average for legume crops, comprising 22 pairs of chromosomes. These complex microscopic bodies carry thousands of genes each. So far, 48,680 genes have been identified for pigeonpea.

"To date, 72.7 percent of the genome has been assembled. This is sufficient to enable us to change breeding approaches for pigeonpea," says Dr Varshney. "That is, we can now combine conventional and molecular breeding methods - something we couldn't do as well before - and access enough genes to create many new pigeonpea varieties that will effectively help improve the food security and livelihoods of resource-poor communities."

The genome as an effective breeding tool
"This is where the GCP's investment in the IIPG project has paid off," Dr Ribaut suggests. "Most of these types of improvements can be made, using conventional breeding techniques," he says. However, with these techniques, desirable pigeonpea varieties normally take six to ten years to develop. "This is slow delivery, when you're hungry," Dr Ribaut points out. He adds, "Modern crop improvement technologies are therefore crucial for speeding up the development of improved varieties for smallholder crops like pigeonpeas."

Another major issue is that conventional breeding efforts to improve pigeonpea varieties have been stymied by the crop's own narrow genetic diversity and lack of genetic and genomic resources. For pigeonpea, the situation was sufficiently acute for modern science to neglect the crop, despite its importance to so many millions of people in the world's dry areas. As a result, it was often called an ‘orphan crop'.

Creating the capacity to access the pigeonpea's genome is therefore a significant breakthrough, affirms Dr Varshney. "The crop is immediately ushered into the ‘molecular breeding era'," he says. He lists examples of molecular breeding approaches that can now be incorporated into breeding programmes using conventional methods: the use of ‘markers' for genetic mapping and trait identification, marker-assisted selection, marker-assisted recurrent selection, and genomic selection.

Using the genome to develop new varieties and hybrids would "considerably cut breeding time by doing away with several cropping cycles. It would most certainly reduce costs!" observes Dr Varshney. "This means new varieties would reach dryland areas of Africa and Asia more quickly, thus improving and increasing the sustainability of food production systems in these regions."

Dr Varshney warns: "We should remember, however, that, if we are to develop improved varieties, molecular techniques are not sufficient on their own." He explains, "They are basically highly effective tools that are best used together with conventional breeding techniques."

The crop is of the widely grown arhar dhal variety, also known as ‘Asha' (Hindi for ‘hope'). Its genome was sequenced by 12 partners collaborating in the International Initiative for Pigeonpea Genomics (IIPG).

The six-year project was completed in November 2011.  

Research implications
"Capturing the pigeonpea genome not only has immediate humanistic benefits, but it will also further several broader research areas," says Dr Xavier Delannay, the GCP Director of Research. Examples include:

• Several genes, unique to pigeonpea, that have been identified for drought tolerance. Future research may find ways of transferring these genes to other legumes in the pigeonpea family such as soybean, cowpea, and common bean, so that these crops will also become drought resistant - a significant asset in view of the increasingly drier climates in these crops' production areas.
• Genes for other agronomically important traits can also be identified and used to enhance not only pigeonpea but other legumes too.
• Genomewide association studies can now be created to assess thousands of pigeonpea accessions held in collections around the world. The genebank at ICRISAT alone holds more than 13,600 accessions. The potential diversity of genes among these yet-to-be-studied accessions can now be explored at much lower cost and much more quickly. The chances are also higher of finding variant genes whose superiority is such that they can be used to improve not only pigeonpea but also other legumes.
• Transferring genes from the crop's close relatives, and even other, more distant, legumes to pigeonpea varieties will become more practical, thus helping to broaden the crop's genetic diversity.
• The decoding of the genome will also help clarify the roles that certain gene families have played in the evolution and domestication of pigeonpea and its ancestors and relatives.

‘Cracking the egg' twice-pigeonpea genome research by Indian scientists
The pigeonpea genome was, in fact, decoded twice. Two teams of biotechnologists working in India published their results at almost identical times. One project was the IIPG project, led by ICRISAT, and described here; and the other was led by Dr NK Singh, a senior scientist at the National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology (NRCPB) of the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) in New Delhi.

Speaking to the New Delhi environmental fortnightly, Down to Earth, Dr Varshney confirmed that talks, aimed at planning the use of the genome's data in breeding programmes, have already begun with ICAR and other institutes. He also expressed the hope that pigeonpea productivity will, in the very near future, improve significantly.

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Umudike, Nigeria – The Generation Challenge Programme (GCP) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research is pleased to announce the release of a new disease-resistant high-yielding cassava variety by one of our partners – the National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI) at Umudike, Nigeria, working in close collaboration with Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT).

Dubbed UMUCASS33 and released in December 2010, this new variety brings together the best from South American and African cassava. South America is cassava’s centre of origin. South American cassava has a higher nutritional content, while African cassava tends to be more resilient to pests, disease and harsh environments. CIAT provided the South American cassava, while the local variety resistant to cassava mosaic disease (CMD) was developed from material obtained from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture

“This is a first great example of a practical application of marker technology in cassava for the selection of important new traits, and it bodes well for the future as markers get fully integrated into cassava breeding.”

(IITA). The end result of this happy marriage was higher yields and tolerance to acid soils conferred from the South American parentage, and CMD disease resistance from the African side of the family tree.

Nigeria is the world’s leading cassava producer and consumer, but yields are suboptimal, decimated by CMD, amongst other diseases, pests and problems. CMD alone routinely reduces cassava production by as much as 90 percent. Besides bringing higher yields and greater disease resistance, UMUCASS33 also broadens the genetic diversity of African cassava. “Diversity studies on cassava in Africa revealed that the genetic base is very narrow, meaning cassava can easily succumb to disease en masse,” says Dr Chiedozie Egesi, plant breeder and molecular geneticist at NCRCI. The IITA-led GCP-funded diversity studies were conducted in conjunction with selected partners in cassava-growing regions in Central, East and West Africa.

“This is an eye-opener and demonstrates the power of molecular tools, and what they can do for plant breeding.”

“We know the pedigree of UMUCASS33, bred from the best of CIAT’s elite cassava lines using marker-assisted selection, which were then backcrossed with hardy and disease-resistant local cassava,” Dr Egesi (pictured ) reveals. “Previous efforts with pure South American cassava were unsuccessful because South American cassava could not survive in Africa, so crossing with the local variety was absolutely necessary. UMUCASS33 will provide parents for further breeding work, including for cassava green mite resistance and drought tolerance.”

Commenting on the release, Dr Xavier Delannay, GCP’s Leader for Integrated crop breeding and manager of the Cassava Research Initiative said, “This is a first great example of a practical application of marker technology in cassava for the selection of important new traits, and it bodes well for the future as markers get fully integrated into cassava breeding.”

"Cassava, a vegetatively propagated crop, is difficult to breed due to its low propensity for flowering,” adds Dr Larry Butler, GCP’s Product Delivery Leader. “Development of improved varieties is hampered by the formidable amount of time required for conventional breeding and phenotyping methods. The release of UMUCASS33 is a perfect example of how the use of molecular tools efficiently exploited the potential of divergent sources of traits, while reducing the time required for development.”

Standing tall and taste to match

Savanna University of Nigeria, Nsukka (derived savanna) Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (northern Guinea savanna) Federal University of Technology, Minna (southern Guinea savanna) National Root Crops Research Institute, Otobi (southern Guinea savanna) Forest–savanna transition International Institute for Tropical Agriculture Forest and humid zones University of Uyo, Uyo (humid forest) Institute of Agricultural Research Training, Ikenne station (humid forest) Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki (humid zone) National Root Crops Research Institute, Umudike (humid Forest) Partners across the testing locations Root and Tuber Expansion Programme Various State agricultural development programmes (ADPs) Farmers in the various locations

Needless to say, farmer perspectives and preferences are an indispensable factor for any new variety to grow and spread in farmers’ fields, and researcher priorities alone are not enough. A variety may be ‘scientifically perfect’ (based on a researcher’s perspective) but fail the farmer or consumer test in terms of say, taste, texture, colour or starchiness. Failing the farmer or consumer test means farmers will not grow it. UMUCASS33, beyond its higher yields and CMD resistance, has other critical qualities that appeal to farmers in Nigeria. UMUCASS 33 has a good erect architecture: it is late in branching (forking) and does not have lateral branches. Most farmers like this plant architecture morphotype which is compatible with their cropping systems because they tend to intercrop cassava with other crops. Unlike most South American varieties that tend to fail the taste test with African farmers, UMUCASS33 is highly palatable and appeals to local preferences. Of the three cassava lines obtained from CIAT and advanced to the final stage, UMUCASS33 scored highest on all the parameters tested by both farmers and researchers. Another set of five lines from GCP-funded MAS-bred varieties (developed jointly by CIAT and NRCRI) have advanced to the final stages in Nigeria, including one already in pre-release on-farm trials since 2010, and approaching selection for official registration. MAS stands for marker-assisted selection.

“With the help of markers, we are injecting new South American germplasm into African germplasm, which is vital for expanding the narrow genetic pool.”

“UMUCASS33 yields as much as 40 percent more, depending on the agroecology. This percentage is even higher when compared to local unimproved landraces,” says Dr Emmanuel Okogbenin (pictured), a molecular breeder and geneticist, and the project team leader at NRCRI.

Two sides of the same coin, and passing on the baton

Tools alone will not get the job done. “Breeding is by nature collaborative work with multiple locations and partners,” observes Dr Okogbenin. In this regard, partnerships fostered through the GCP-funded project with CIAT and country partners in Africa played a major and indispensable role. The project was in two phases, with the first on development of low-cost technologies led by CIAT (2005–2007). The second phase involved the GCP-supported cassava breeders community of practice (CoP) in Africa, and was led by NRCRI (2008–2010). This second phase – among other objectives – focused on validating MAS-bred genotypes for resistance to both cassava mosaic disease (CMD) and cassava green mite (CGM), and to promote marker-assisted breeding (MAB),by building on the foundation laid by the previous project.

The pre-release trials involved multi-site trials in partnership with several research organisations, as well as on-farm adaptive trials with farmers (see box on testing locations). “We are more productive working together, and we could not have succeeded with UMUCASS33 working alone.” He adds, “Molecular breeding is not just about genotypic data. Phenotypic data are just as important. UMUCASS33 will be used to breed other improved varieties. To assess the potential for this new work, good information is mandatory to help in making the right choices of parents for breeding, and in designing the appropriate breeding scheme. Laboratory work has to go hand-in-hand with the fieldwork, and it is the combination of both that informs and underpins successful breeding.”

New horizons, new opportunities

NRCRI has a modest molecular breeding laboratory that was established in 2005 with GCP funding, with additional support from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nigerian government. A pioneer in Nigeria, the laboratory has served as a national reference point, demonstrating the power and potential of molecular breeding.

“I am privileged to be involved in the dramatic change in the research landscape in Nigeria, and the advent of modern approaches to breeding. The laboratory opened up a new sphere in breeding for us, introducing an intermediate critical layer between the breeder and the fieldwork,” says Dr Okogbenin. “But we cannot handle large volumes in our laboratory, and we will rely on GCP’s Integrated Breeding Platform for this.” He adds that IBP’s ability to handle high-throughput genotyping is very significant for boosting developing-country research. With its high-precision tools and services, molecular approaches greatly accelerate the breeding process, and this without the undesirable accuracy vs speed tradeoffs.

“Even though this has not been quantified, I can confidently say that with molecular breeding, NRCRI has taken a giant step forward,” Dr Okogbenin asserts. “It has completely changed our research approach. When you show a willingness to catch up with the new order in the world of plant breeding, you are more likely to be perceived as a major contributor and attractive partner in plant science research and development.” He continues, “This work in molecular breeding has opened up not only new opportunities for faster delivery of improved varieties to farmers, but also opportunities for international collaboration such as the BioCassavaPlus worldwide initiative and working with the CGIAR HarvestPlus Challenge Programme on nutrient-rich cassava.”

Going further faster together

On cars, cassava and the NRCRI–GCP collaboration: mobile molecular movement says it all!

“Africa cannot afford to be left behind. We must maximise on the use and reuse of resources. We share similar agroecologies with Ghana and we have sent them some cassava breeding material through the CoP,” Dr Okogbenin reveals. In GCP’s model, CoPs are intended to help country programmes take up products from GCP – and from elsewhere – that will help them improve their breeding projects by adopting modern breeding strategies.

Dr Egesi adds that the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is developing new seed systems whereby member countries will participate in – and benefit from – the development of new crop varieties at subregional level. “Under this new ECOWAS mechanism, once a variety is released in, say Nigeria for example, countries with similar agroecological zones only need to apply for local release without undergoing local testing,” he says. This new development will contribute to the pan-African Programme for African Seed Systems (PASS), coordinated by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

What next, and the missing link

Researchers in the developing world sometimes find themselves facing a yawning gap in the research–development continuum. “The story does not end with successfully identifying promising varieties on-station and in farmers’ fields. In fact, that is sometimes the very beginning,” Dr Egesi observes. Government funding is not always forthcoming for the mandatory national performance trials, while most project funding does not extend downstream to these types of trials. Yet no variety can be released without these trials. In the absence of funding for this final link, viable varieties sometimes end up trapped on the shelf and fail to reach the farmers who need them. Such undesirable situations easily negate all the considerable upstream investments and efforts in marker-assisted selection and related costs.

Initiatives such as the new ECOWAS regional release above will go some way towards alleviating the problem by minimising unnecessary duplication of efforts in pre-release testing, but the difficulty of initial release still remains. Besides Ghana, UMUCASS33 would also thrive in Côte d’Ivoire and Togo, which are both ECOWAS members.

The bottleneck of initial release can also be partially overcome. “Product delivery is very high on our agenda in Phase II.” says Dr Jean-Marcel Ribaut, the GCP Director. “We have set aside some modest supplementary funds dedicated to packaging products from GCP-funded research to move them further down the research–development pathway to the next set of users. As such, GCP would be willing to consider funding national performance trials for priority cases, to ensure that promising pre-release improved varieties reach the farmers who need them.”

For more information:

• Contact Dr Emmanuel Okogbenin or Dr Chiedozie Egesi (National Root Crops Research Institute)
•  Facts and figures on UMUCASS 33: based on Technical Subcommittee (TSC) descriptors of Nigeria’s National Variety Release Committee. UMUCASS33hotos on 2nd page

The first half of 2011 has been community season at GCP.

Comprehensive discussions on the formation, expansion and management of communities of practice (CoPs) were held In February following a data management workshop held for GCP researchers in West Africa at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) headquarters at Ibadan, Nigeria.

The CoP for chickpeas was launched at the 4th Tropical Legumes I annual project meeting in Madrid, Spain, at the beginning of May 2011. It is to be coordinated by Dr Pooran Gaur (ICRISAT) and mentored by Dr Teresa Millán (Universidad de Cordoba), and will initially bring together chickpea breeders and researchers from Algeria, Ethiopia, India and Kenya.

A joint CoP for cowpeas and soya beans was launched at the Tropical Legumes II annual project meeting at IITA in mid-May 2011, with the pioneer membership drawn from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, and USA. The CoP will be coordinated by Dr Ousmane Boukar (IITA) and mentored by Dr Jeff Ehlers (University of California-Riverside).

At the annual Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP) project meeting in June 2011 (held at Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands) two mentors were identified for the data management CoP - Dr Arturo Franco (CIAT) and Dr Elizabeth Arnaud (Bioversity). Dr Ibnou Dieng (Africa Rice Center) and Dr Manoj Kumar Singh (National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology/ Indian Agricultural Research Institute) will serve as co-ordinators. This CoP was launched in February 2010 at the inaugural meeting of the IBP in Hyderabad, India - with the pioneer members drawn from the user cases of the platform and the developers working on the informatics tools.

Vibrant communities of practice are an integral part of GCP's approach to capacity development in Phase II and post-GCP sustainability of the IBP. "CoPs leverage the natural human inclination to cluster with peers - we are more likely to adopt and apply what our peers have tested and can attest to," observed Dr Ndeye Ndack Diop, GCP's Theme Leader for capacity building. "We will more readily seek counsel from our peers in the confidence that they sit where we sit and will bring empathy and understanding with the solution."

Dr Diop explained that consultations are already under way to form CoPs for beans and rice in Africa, which will build on existing breeder networks - such as the Pan-African Bean Research Alliance (PABRA) and its affiliate regional networks in eastern, central and southern Africa, and on the Africa Rice Breeding Task Force.

Other operational GCP communities of practice are one for cassava breeders in Africa and another for rice in the Mekong basin.

Related links:

1. GCP's communities of practice (hosted on IBP website)
2. Rice breeding community of practice in the Mekong basin (Asia)
3. Legumes Research Initiative (Tropical Legumes I Project)
4. Integrated Breeding Platform

Breeders in formation

Nurturing a new generation of African cassava breeders

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Ghana

Bright Boakye Peprah, 28
Back to basics to get it right
• Crops Research Institute, Ghana
• MSc student: genotype-by-environment effects on improved varieties, Department of Crop Science, University of Ghana
• Enrolled in 2008, through the CoP

“If I graduate this year, I hope to contribute to the release of a variety to farmers within three to four years. One size does not fit all. In the forest zone, farmers are interested in poundability, while the coastal savannah farmers favour gari, and the forest transition zone farmers are interested in commercial production.”

Ruth Prempeh, 33
Saving the harvest
• Crops Research Institute, Ghana 
• PhD student: cassava breeding to delay postharvest physiological deterioration (PPD), WACCI, University of Ghana 
• Enrolled in 2009, through the GCP–WACCI programme 

“Preservation is core. Even if you have all the other good traits but the crop cannot be preserved, then all is lost. There could be a link between beta-carotene and a longer shelf life for cassava. In all, molecular markers would greatly hasten my study. I’m also assessing farmer-preferred varieties to determine whether they possess delayed PPD.”

Joseph Adjebeng Danquah, 31
A crying need in the North
• Savannah Agricultural Research Institute, Ghana
• PhD student: breeding cassava for drought tolerance, WACCI, University of
Ghana
• Enrolled in 2010, through the GCP–WACCI programme
“It is important to move away from the all too common notion that cassava is an ‘anywhere, anyhow’ crop. Cassava’s natural capacity to withstand drought also needs a boost to improve yields in drylands. My goal is to work on adapting cassava for drylands in the North where there is a great need, because most of the existing varieties have been developed for the South.”

Nigeria

Bunmi Olasanmi, 36
Accelerating the time track: further and faster for all
• National Root and Tuber Crops Research Institute (NRCRI), Nigeria
• PhD student working on QTLs for early maturity for cassava, University of Ibadan
Nigeria
• Set to graduate in 2010. Enrolled through the CoP
“Due to limited land resources and a long breeding cycle, the need for cassava with the highest yields per unit time and in unit space is critical. Given that yield is a quantitative trait that is difficult to measure and predict, the development and use of QTLs in breeding for the trait will make improvement for earliness in cassava a faster reality. We have identified major QTLs to be shared with the global cassava breeding community.”

Tanzania

Bernedetha Kimata, 46
Marking up the root cause
• Agricultural Research Institute – Sugarcane Research Institute, Kibaha, Tanzania
• MSc student in plant breeding, Egerton University, Kenya
• Enrolled in 2009, through the CoP
“My aim is to develop CBSD mapping population phenotype progenies, and to validate markers of both the progenies and the parents. If SNP makers were available, they would be my preference.”

Uganda

Williams Esuma, 27
What’s in a colour? Plenty!
• National Crop Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI)
• MSc student in crop science, focusing on genetic diversity of yellow-root cassava germplasm in Uganda, Makerere University, Uganda
• Enrolled in 2009, through the CoP
“Beta-carotene is what accounts for the yellow colour in cassava. Once we know the genetic diversity of yellow-root cassava, we will be able to select the right parents to make appropriate crosses. I will use molecular breeding approaches, first at Biosciences Eastern and Central Africa (BecA) for the marker work, then at Makerere for the biochemical analysis of beta-carotene degradation.”

 Links
• The cassava community of practice (IBP website)
• A cross-continental coalition on cassava in Africa
• East to West: Country perspectives on cassava in Africa

East to West: Country perspectives on cassava in Africa

Where we are, and where we could be

East Africa

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Tanzania: on your marks…
Tanzania is Africa’s 4th largest cassava producer, after Nigeria, Ghana and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Second only to maize for food security, cassava covers 670,000 hectares of Tanzania’s farmlands, and annual production stands at seven million tonnes. Three quarters is for human consumption, while a quarter goes to livestock and industrial use, such as starch production.

Despite these impressive figures, productivity is lower than it should be, averaging about 5m tonnes a year, owing to several constraints. Drought and declining soil fertility compromise productivity, and cassava is also vulnerable to several diseases and pests. Diseases are cassava mosaic disease (25 to 100 percent yield loss); cassava brown streak disease (up to 75 percent losses); and cassava bacterial blight, while insect pests are cassava green mites (up to 85 percent yield loss); cassava mealy bugs; and whiteflies, which are also a vector of CMD and CBSD.

GCP supports research in Tanzania through the cassava Community of Practice (CoP) and the cassava Challenge Initiative. The engagement with Tanzania on cassava is not new: A previous project was on phenotyping cassava for drought tolerance in collaboration with EMBRAPA, and included a travel grant to visit the Brazilian partner, as well as equipment to measure soil moisture and leaf conductance. “Cassava varieties developed through GCP funding are currently being evaluated on-station and in farmers’ fields, and five varieties are set for release in 2010 with support from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) for the national performance trials,” reports Dr Geoffrey Mkamilo, a cassava breeder at Tanzania’s Agricultural Research Institute. Tanzania was also one of six countries in a GCP-funded IITA-coordinated project to analyse cassava diversity in Eastern and Central Africa. This work will continue under the CI with a view to generating a cassava reference set.

In addition, while breeding so far has been conventional, time is of the essence in combating disease, and molecular breeding hastens the process. The cassava CI will help with marker validation to determine the viability of the molecular markers. Investigation on CBSD has already commenced, with three mapping populations on the ground and four-month old trials. The next step will be to cross the parents – three susceptible to CBSD and three tolerant to it – and generate the first filial generations (F1), from which to extract DNA to analyse for CBSD marker validation.

Uganda: a race against time
Next door in Uganda, time is also of the essence, underscoring the need for – and advantages of – molecular markers to ensure that research, prevention and mitigation stay ahead of cassava pests and diseases. This is because researchers realise that Uganda and her neighbours need to step up efforts to safeguard East Africa’s precious germplasm from the ravages of CBSD, as well as containment to keep the other regions like West Africa CBSD-free.

“Cassava is the second most important crop for food security after plantains,” reveals Mr Anthony Pariyo, a cassava breeder a Uganda’s National Crop Resources Research Institute (NaCCRI). The two main constraints hampering cassava production in Uganda are both viral – CBSD and CMD. Initially, CMD was the leading constraint, but it has since been overtaken by CBSD. In the race against time, the research paradigm has shifted from conventional breeding approaches alone, to a blend of both conventional and molecular breeding.

In 2005, the National Crop Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI) received CMD- and CGM-resistant germplasm from CIAT facilitated by GCP funding. The germplasm was evaluated, and selection done to constitute parental lines for breeding in Uganda. The material was then crossed, and the progeny is being evaluated on-station. From this exercise, NaCRRI will continue to enrich the gene pool through further crossing, and selected clones will be advanced for on-farm trials. These trials aim for improved culinary quality as the primary consideration, with CGM and CMD resistance as secondary qualities. Ignoring culinary quality may lead to disease-resistant varieties which may be however unpopular with farmers and markets, and are therefore unlikely to be adopted. Through the CoP and other projects, efforts have been initiated in CBSD resistance, including breeder-to-breeder learning with Tanzania, whose researchers have had a longer experience with the disease. Six genotypes from Tanzania are now included in the crossing block to develop CBSD-resistant cassava.

West Africa

Nigeria: Staying ahead and poised for pre-emptive strike
Nigeria is the world’s leading cassava producer and consumer, with 90 percent used for food, of which 70 percent is processed into gari. Annual production averages 45m tonnes on 3.8m hectares. Besides cassava mosaic and other diseases and pests, production is also hampered by inadequate inputs, and by a suboptimal value chain in the link between product and markets, even as Nigeria has the most advanced value chain in Africa.

The National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI) and international partners have developed and released 29 varieties so far, with the last two released in 2008. NRCRI hopes to release another five by the end of 2010. One of them is from a GCP-funded CMD project.

Through the CoP, NRCRI is developing genetic stocks with a longer shelf-life in a bid to curb postharvest physiological deterioration (PPD), in addition to high-protein and high-carotene varieties. The marker development work builds on previous GCP investments in cassava. The GSS grant to the CoP has furthered the work on CMD marker development, and a PhD student is working on genotyping for early maturity facilitated by another GSS grant.

In the cassava CI, NRCRI will build on previous results and experience to concentrate (‘pyramiding’ in technical terms) different sources of resistance to the main diseases, especially CMD, through multiple crosses, and to genotype for molecular markers. CBSD work can only be done in East Africa as a validation project for the cassava work funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This validation will be done as soon as markers are ready from the East Africa project.

“We can then breed pre-emptively for CBSD even before it gains entry into West Africa, with a good level of certainty, even if not 100 percent,” says Dr Chiedozie Egesi (pictured) of NRCRI. And this would not be entirely novel: Nigerian breeders have previously engaged in preventive ‘biological warfare’ by deploying a ‘border patrol brigade’ along the Cameroonian frontier to guard against the East African cassava mosaic virus from Uganda, using cassava varieties that IITA had successfully tested in Uganda. “The time horizon for the CI is rather short, but we will be able to identify markers for validation in other populations, and be able to do marker-assisted selection as a preparatory step towards pre-emptive breeding, using East African material in IITA’s custody,” Dr Egesi observes. “By genotyping with markers in the absence of the pathogen, field trials for CBSD are not necessary. We can also backcross resistant varieties with landraces that carry the desired agronomic traits cherished by farmers and end-users.”

This approach has been proven in the successful deployment of Latin American germplasm, otherwise susceptible to CMD, into Africa, through GCP projects. Markers alone were used to breed and identify CMD-resistant genotypes at CIAT in the absence of the pathogen, and these were shipped to African partners, with a prediction success rate of over 70 percent. Prior to the GCP projects, it was not possible to ship any Latin American germplasm to Africa because they were all susceptible to CMD.

Ghana: sharing the benefits with the region, and beyond
Cassava is Ghana’s leading food crop, occupying some 750,000 hectares of farmland, and contributing about 22 percent of Ghana’s agricultural GDP. It is the cheapest carbohydrate staple. More than three-quarters of the population (80 percent) rely on cassava as their main carbohydrate staple. Production is estimated at 9.7m tonnes, of which about half is consumed as fufu and the remainder processed into gari or kokonte.

Researchers in Ghana are working to improve yield and resistance to pests and diseases (especially CMD), to enhance desired culinary and industrial qualities, and to give cassava a longer shelf-life by delaying postharvest physiological deterioration (PPD).

GCP’s contribution to cassava research in Ghana has been in developing CMD-resistant varieties; assessing the genetic diversity of Ghanaian landraces; pyramiding useful genes from wild cassava and marker-assisted selection; supporting the establishment of the marker-assisted selection laboratory at Crops Research Institute (CRI); direct and indirect training at all levels, including supporting postgraduate students; and skills in cassava tissue culture multiplication and hardening.

The ‘seed investment’ in Ghana has blossomed and spread beyond national frontiers. “The biotech lab that was started under the GCP project with funds for its take-off has become a useful lab for university students and scientists from CSIR sister institutes,” says Mrs Elizabeth Parkes of CRI (pictured right). “Presently, nationals from West Africa under the WECARD–CORAF network are undergoing training at the lab. CSIR and other projects have also come on board and supported the lab, which is managed by Dr Mrs Marian Dorcas Quain.” WECARD stands for the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF is its French acronym). “The breeder-to-breeder visits have also brought colleagues from Nigeria and Tanzania to share their experiences, and they too have benefited from the lab,” adds Mrs Parkes.

Links

• A cross-continental coalition on cassava in Africa
• Breeders in formation: Nurturing a new generation of African cassava breeders
• Collective action to boost cassava yield in Africa (3rd CoP meeting)
• The cassava community of practice (IBP website)

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Accra, Ghana, was the venue of the 3rd annual meeting of Africa’s cassava breeders’ Community of Practice (CoP), held from 19th to 22nd July 2010. “By sharing practical knowledge, field experiences and strategies, the CoP provides a functional inter-institutional framework for regional cooperation in research for development,” says Dr Emmanuel Okogbenin of Nigeria’s National Root and Tuber Crops Research Institute (NRCRI), and who coordinates the CoP. It brings together breeders from Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda.

The meeting was facilitated and funded by the Generation Challenge Programme (GCP) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), and hosted by Ghana’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and CSIR’s Crops Research Institute (CRI). It was opened by Dr Mrs RoseEmma Mamaa Entsua-Mensah (pictured), Deputy Director General, CSIR. She observed that Ghanaian villages growing cassava as the dominant food staple reported famine less frequently than villages where other crops were dominant. However, she lamented that cassava production is hampered by pests and diseases, declining soil fertility, use of low-yielding cultivars and poor agricultural practices.

By integrating marker-assisted selection (MAS) with conventional breeding and pre-breeding strategies, the CoP teams aim to accelerate production and dissemination of farmer-preferred cassava varieties, resistant to pests and diseases. “That way, we strengthen breeders in both conventional and molecular breeding,” adds Dr Okogbenin (pictured).

Three of the four target countries rank among the top four cassava producers in Africa (Nigeria, Ghana and Tanzania, in that order), while cassava is only second to plantains, and to maize, in Uganda and Tanzania, respectively. In Ghana, cassava ranks first in acreage and utilisation. It has been identified as a crop that can bring about remarkable economic development in the poor regions of Ghana. Cassava is a major food staple food crop, and more than 80 percent of the population relies on cassava as their main carbohydrate source. Nigeria is the world’s top cassava producer and consumer, and cassava is the mainstay and ‘staff of life’ for most poor rural Nigerians. As such, in Nigeria as in other target countries, cassava is a viable vehicle for rapid rural development through food security and income generation, but the road is hardly smooth, and is ridden with roadblocks.

Volatile cocktail of foes old and new
Drought, declining soil fertility, pests and diseases all stand in the way of realising cassava’s full productivity. In fact, some of the pests and diseases can lead to total crop failure. Pests include the cassava green mite (CGM, Mononychellus tanajoa), cassava mealy bug (CMB, Phenacoccus manihoti) and the cassava whitefly (Bemisia tabaci). The whitefly packs a deadly triple punch: besides destroying cassava leaves and young shoot tips, the whitefly is also a vector of the cassava mosaic disease (CMD) and the cassava brown streak disease (CBSD).

“The whitefly was first identified as a pest in the late 1990s. But CMD is an old and unrelenting enemy that has plagued cassava for more than a century now, with yield losses of between 25 and 100 percent,” says Dr Geoffrey Mkamilo of the Agricultural Research Institute (ARI), Tanzania. And that is not all that is stacked against cassava: “There is also CGM which can result in yield losses of up to 85 percent. In addition, in Tanzania, losses of up to 74 percent due to CBSD have been reported,” Dr Mkamilo reveals.

Spreading tentacles
And CBSD is not standing still but on the march in Eastern and Central Africa, spreading from a single country in 1939 to straddle seven neighbouring countries within a span of six decades (see figure below). This spread means other cassava-growing countries in Africa are at risk. CBSD is a serious concern, ranking among the seven most deadly biological threats to food security today, as reported in Science (Vol 327: 12 Feb 2010). The need for urgent, pre-emptive and concerted collective action to stem this march cannot be overemphasised. In Dr Mkamilo’s words, “The disease does not require a visa to cross the border!”

Proaction and pre-emptive strikes

In all four CoP countries, focus is not only on removing the barriers that hamstring productivity, but equally on ensuring that improved cassava varieties also appeal to the palate, are nutritionally enhanced, have a longer shelf-life, and meet and adapt to market needs. While in Africa cassava is mainly a food crop, it also serves other uses such as in industry for the manufacture of starch, and as livestock fodder.

The researchers also have an eye on the future: “Although soil nutritional deficiency is not yet a big challenge, we need to begin pre-emptive breeding for efficient nutrient uptake,” cautions Mr Anthony Pariyo (pictured) of Uganda’s National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI). “In total, there are about nine main potential biological threats to cassava production in Africa, which emphasises the need for pre-emptive breeding using molecular markers, if we are to keep ahead of these threats.”

Capacity-building and collaboration
The CoP organises training and workshops for members, breeder-to-breeder visits and postgraduate support. In Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania, cassava researchers have benefited from GCP’s Genotyping Support Service (GSS), and GCP is also funding four postgraduate students working on cassava – one in each of the four CoP countries. The aim is to strengthen the capacity of country breeding programmes to combine both conventional and molecular breeding. Among other areas, CoP members have benefitted from workshops on data analysis of genotypic and phenotypic data through GCP’s support. “With the CoP, all that is gained will be shared,” says Mrs Elizabeth Parkes of CRI (pictured).

The CoP will bring together not only breeders, but also primary, secondary and tertiary users of cassava varieties in the four countries. The overall goal is a new generation of cassava varieties that meet farmer preferences, and that are also resistant to the main pests and disease in the target countries.

“The idea behind the CoP is to provide the scientific and social support to teams having similar objectives but, in this case, working far from each other,” says Dr Carmen de Vicente, who leads GCP’s Theme on Capacity Building and Enabling Delivery. “By belonging to the CoP, they find the critical mass of peers that they lack in their own institute, and with this backing they are able to more easily achieve their goals.”

A number of the researchers in the CoP are also involved in the GCP Challenge Initiative (CI) on cassava, including Dr Okogbenin who is the Product Delivery Coordinator of the cassava CI (see A cross-continental coalition on cassava in Africa).

The CoP work too is a cross-continental effort: in addition to the breeders from Africa, participants at the July 2010 meeting were from the CGIAR (the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture [IITA] and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture [CIAT, by its Spanish acronym]), and also from the Americas – the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA, by its Portuguese acronym), Cornell University (USA) and the University of Maryland (USA). Besides GCP, the CoP is also supported by CIAT and IITA, among others.

Founded in May 2008 when the members first met at the commissioning at NRCRI, Umudike, Nigeria, the CoP is now two years old. The first annual meeting was held at IITA, Nigeria, in October 2008, and the second in Uganda in July 2009. This latest meeting in Ghana is the third.

 The future

A web-based database is under construction to validate, refine and apply new technologies in cassava breeding for Africa.
“The cassava breeding Community of Practice is a partnership in modern breeding and product delivery for Africa,” concludes Dr Okogbenin.
For more information on the cassava Community of Practice, please contact Dr Emmanuel Okogbenin

Links

• A cross-continental coalition on cassava in Africa
• East to West: Country perspectives on cassava in Africa
• Breeders in formation: Nurturing a new generation of African cassava breeders
• The cassava community of practice (IBP website)

Download E-publication

The cassava Challenge Initiative of the Generation Challenge Programme (GCP) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) was launched on 23rd July 2010 in Accra, Ghana, in a two-day meeting that continued to 24th July. Through this Challenge Initiative (CI), GCP aims to improve cassava yields in Africa, with a primary focus on drought tolerance, but also taking into account other important aspects such as pest and disease tolerance, nutritional enhancement, and appeal to farmers and markets. The meeting opened with a keynote address from Hon Sherry Ayitey, Ghana’s Minister for Environment Science and Technology. It was hosted by Ghana’s Crops Research Institute (CRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

In her address launching the CI, Hon Ayitey (pictured) observed that cassava is a major staple in sub-Saharan Africa, supporting some 600m people, and providing their carbohydrates. It is therefore important to fortify cassava against the ravages of drought, disease and pests, and to enhance its nutritional content. And although cassava is also an industrial crop used in the manufacture of starches, biofuels and pharmaceuticals, as well as for animal feed, it is first and foremost important for food security, cultivated by 80 percent of Ghana’s farmers, and accounting for more than one fifth (22 percent) of the country’s agricultural GDP.

More science needed
“For farmers in Africa today, productivity is low and poverty is high because too little science has been brought into farming,” noted Hon Ayittey. “The government recognises the pivotal role biotechnology and research can play in economic growth and poverty reduction.” She explained that it is for this reason that her ministry recently forwarded the Biosafety Bill to parliament for approval, to ensure security and exchange of information among researchers.

The welcome address was given by Dr Abdulai B Salifu, Director General of CSIR (pictured). “Cassava is a crop dear to Ghana. The quality of protein in cassava leaves, which are consumed as vegetables in some regions, is equal to the protein in eggs.” Dr Salifu quoted extensively from Cassava Song, an ode by the late Nigerian writer Flora Nwapa, where she praises cassava as a mother and nurturer.

Dr Salifu noted that food production must double by 2050 to feed a rising population. This emphasises the importance of the work by GCP and the CGIAR in improving crops to adapt to climate change and different environments. He said he was particularly looking forward to seeing GCP’s Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP) contribute to providing the Ghanaian cassava entrepreneurs with clean planting materials to boost production. Dr Salifu also underscored the importance of taking into account information from ongoing cassava projects in Ghana. These include the West African Agricultural Productivity Programme (WAAPP) and Cassava Adding Value for Africa (CAVA) implemented by CSIR, and the Roots and Tubers Improvement Programme (RTIMP) implemented by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.

He observed that the 14 improved varieties disseminated to Ghanaian farmers since 1993 are insufficient in meeting the growing demand for improved varieties to satisfy emerging needs and markets. He said this calls for urgent intervention by stakeholders to mitigate the factors limiting production in order to realise the full potential and benefit from cassava.

Dr Salifu emphasised the importance of drought research: “Although cassava has the reputation of being a drought-tolerant crop, when deprived of water, plant and root development are affected.”

Banking on a proven winner

Nature has indeed endowed cassava with a drought defence that surpasses most other crops, but that does not by any means suggest that cassava is immune to drought.

“During drought, you will not get the same level of failure as for other crops like cereals where there can be total failure,” said Dr Elizabeth Acheampong of the University of Ghana. “In harsh situations, farmers do not have the choice of any other crop, and the choice is between growing cassava, or growing nothing. But even for cassava, drought reduces production, which is what makes research on improving production under drought so important.”

With its natural resilience during drought, cassava is clearly ahead of the pack when it comes to surviving drought.

Delving beyond drought
“Cassava is a crop for Africa. One that we know, one that has proven itself, and one that knows Africa, where cassava means hope: with cassava, returns are guaranteed,” said Dr Emmanuel Okogbenin (pictured) of Nigeria’s National Root Crops and Tubers Research Institute (NRCRI), who is also the Product Delivery Coordinator of the cassava CI, as well as Coordinator of the cassava Community of Practice (CoP) that brings together breeders from Africa (see link below Collective action to boost cassava yields in Africa).

But surviving drought alone is not enough: cassava may survive drought but succumb to pests or disease. Therefore, beyond drought, much more remains to be done to safeguard cassava from these threats, maximise returns and also to get the most out of the crop by enhancing its nutritional content.

Connections for better breeding
On capacity development, besides individual fellowships (see link below Breeders in formation: Nurturing a new generation of African cassava breeders), the cassava CoP has benefitted from GCP’s Genotyping Support Service which targets crop research institutes, and from the Capacity building à la carte programme, which provides tailor-made support to applied research teams. GCP has contributed to establishing marker-assisted selection (MAS) laboratories in Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda and Tanzania, as well as elite germplasm from previous GCP-funded cassava projects.

The CoP also benefitted from good material from CIAT and IITA in breeding for pest and disease resistance, and is also now partnering with the CGIAR HarvestPlus Challenge Program in a project on high-protein beta-carotene-rich cassava.

In Phase II, the CoP is looking to the IBP to provide an adequate number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to improve cassava breeding in detecting quantitative trait loci (QTLs) when drawing on various sources of germplasm to maximise the diversity and genetic gains of potential crosses. “Cassava is highly heterozygous and segregates from seed,” says Dr Okogbenin. “So, in a bid not to lose desired traits, cassava breeding yields a mixed cocktail of the good, the bad and the ugly!”

In response to this need for molecular breeding approaches to strengthen cassava breeding, GCP will fund the conversion of up to 1,500 cassava SNPs to a breeding-friendly genotyping system made available to cassava breeders as part of the marker services of the IBP.

“So far, we have identified 784 SNPs spread throughout the cassava genome, favouring those that are polymorphic in the parents of a mapping population designed to map drought tolerance loci,” said Dr Pablo Rabinowicz of the University of Maryland’s Institute for Genome Sciences (USA). Of these, 384 SNPs are available for download from the project website, while the other 384 SNPs are expected shortly. This effort is funded by GCP.

Missing links
There are vital missing links in cassava’s productivity value chain resulting in weak markets that leave farmers at the mercy of volatile supply–demand dynamics. As such, peak production during harvest time is – paradoxically – a low moment, with the market glut depressing prices and demoralising farmers. There is need for market analysis as grounds for policy reform to stabilise the cassava market in Africa. And this has been successfully done elsewhere. “In Thailand, despite a sharp rise in production from 18 to 25 tonnes per hectare, markets have remained stable,” said Dr Hernán Ceballos of CIAT.

Dr Nnamdi Eke-Okoro, Coordinator of Cassava Research Programme at NCRCI, stressed the need for greater government involvement in the cassava sector, which would also strengthen the arm of the continental CoP. He added that more scientists from Africa should be brought on board, especially the next generation of breeders to ensure continuity.

The future
The CI aims to design and drive crop improvement strategies based on marker–trait association to enhance breeding efficiency through QTL mapping for pest and disease resistance, and trait components of yield and drought tolerance. The best haplotypes will be identified and recombined in a marker-assisted recurrent selection (MARS) scheme for rapid genetic gain and improved productivity in dry environments through the development of elite varieties. The cassava reference set will be further refined to capture greater genetic diversity through molecular characterisation of new accessions.

The overall goal of the cassava CI is to fast-track the development of improved varieties, and – through the CoP – to increase the capacity of country programmes in molecular breeding strategies.

The CI launch was preceded by a data management workshop for researchers in the cassava CI, and the 3rd annual meeting of the Cassava Community of Practice (see links below.

For more information on GCP’s cassava Challenge Initiative, please contact Dr Xavier Delannay.

Links

• Collective action to boost cassava yield in Africa (3rd CoP meeting)
• East to West: Country perspectives on cassava in Africa
• Breeders in formation: Nurturing a new generation of African cassava breeders
• Integrated Breeding Platform website

E-booklet version, with downloadable PDF 

The Generation Challenge Programme (GCP) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) officially launched its wheat Research Initiative in late February 2010, first in India then in China. Both meetings were attended by high-ranking scientists, in addition to the research teams working on the project.

Wheat in Asia is one of the seven Research Initiatives (RIs) that are a key priority for GCP in Phase II of the Programme (2009–2013). The wheat RI is a joint China–India effort led by scientists from both countries, working in close liaison with several GCP partners to breed heat- and drought-tolerant wheat. Some of the aspects of the wheat in Asia RI spring from work done by teams led by Dr Francis Ogbonnaya of the International Center fro Agricultural Reserach in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and by Dr Peter Langridge of the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG). Dr Ogbonnaya and Dr Langridge attended both meetings. The wheat in Asia RI will benefit from GCP-funded research conducted by ICARDA and ACPFG.

Dr Richard Trethowan (pictured right), the wheat RI Product Delivery Coordinator, remarked, “Improved water use for drought tolerance is a contemporary and urgent issue. Researchers cannot continue doing things the same old way. I am excited about the possibilities that marker-assisted recurrent selection opens up. Let’s make it work!”

The problem...

Drought is a serious concern affecting China’s food production, and is also GCP’s key focus trait. This area of research is very complex and replete with challenges and complications, but drought is undoubtedly the number one trait in international agricultural research today. Six of the seven GCP Research Initiatives in Phase II are on drought, including this one on wheat. Experts are agreed that India is an extremely water-stressed country, with the water table falling at an alarming rate. In North Gujarat alone for example, it is reported to be dropping by as much as six meters per year. And in all cases, this severe groundwater depletion has largely been attributed to agricultural use, and not to climatic conditions or climate change. This situation harbours great potential to cause much human suffering and even social chaos and anarchy. At current consumption rates, the projection is that by 2025, India will be in a deep water crisis.

...and some solutions to come

The five-year RI aims to assemble and integrate into breeding programmes wheat strains and genes that offer efficient water use and enhanced heat tolerance. Many of these genetic materials will be multiplied at – and provided by – the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT, by its Spanish acronym), while the Plant Breeding Institute of the University of Sydney, Australia, will provide technical assistance and germplasm. Precise phenotypic data underpin genotyping and much of the breeding process. Characterisation of target experimental sites will be essential to meaningfully and fully interpret data, while staff training in standardised phenotyping protocols (for measuring drought- and heat-adaptive traits) will facilitate precise characterisation in all environments, as well as enhance staff capacity.

Although marker-assisted recurrent selection (MARS) has vastly improved efficiency in the private sector, MARS has not been widely used in public-sector research, which makes this RI a groundbreaker in the public sector.

Capacity building and maximising impact

In both countries, the project will result in 15–20 wheat lines with superior drought and heat tolerance, and adapted to each country’s conditions. These lines will be developed using molecular markers. In both India and China, four to six postgraduate students and 20 scientists will be trained in phenotyping methodologies. In addition, up to three postgraduate students (MSc or PhD) from both countries will be trained in Australia. To maximise mutual learning and ensure synergies, exchange visits between key Chinese and Indian researchers are also planned, as well as visits to CIMMYT (Mexico) and to the Plant Breeding Institute (Australia). Projects for postgraduate students will focus on the physiological and genetic dissection of stress responses in the materials developed through marker-assisted breeding, while researcher exchange visits to partner countries will be at the most critical stage of the crop cycle in the host country.

In each country, 3–5 traits and 5–8 quantitative trait loci (QTLs) will be recommended for wheat breeding. For India, an additional target is four wheat mega-varieties with improved water-use efficiency and higher heat tolerance. These super-varieties have the potential of covering about 24 million hectares and minimising yield loss from heat, or drought, or both, by up to 20–50 percent.

To facilitate achieving these goals, GCP is taking a highly structured approach, through comprehensive project delivery plans formulated by project teams with guidance from Dr Larry Butler, GCP’s Product Delivery Leader, and also through project-specific breeding schemes jointly designed with Dr Xavier Delannay, Leader of GCP’s Integrated crop breeding Theme. This structured approach aims at not only ensuring delivery but also long-term and sustained impact beyond the project horizon.

For more information, see:

• related stories:
  
  • GCP launches wheat Research Initiative in China
  • GCP launches wheat Research Initiative in India
• GCP's Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP)

 E-booklet version, with downloadable PDF

 NEW DELHI, INDIA – THE CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme'S (GCP) Research Initiative (RI) on wheat in India was officially launched on 22 February 2010 at the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences in New Delhi, India. The two-day launch meeting was hosted by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI).

“This is a welcome and important initiative for India,” remarked Dr Swapan Datta (pictured left), Deputy Director General (Crop Improvement), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).

“This RI will spur increased collaboration,” observed Dr Jean-Marcel Ribaut, GCP Director. He continued, “India has a community of outstanding scientists and Indian partners are critical for GCP’s success in Phase II. We are counting on this support and are privileged to have ICAR as one of the founding members of the GCP Consortium.”

The promises of Phase II

He explained that GCP Phase II will see more and more projects led by country programme partners, with CGIAR Centres and developed-country programme partners taking a back seat as mentors and collaborators, and not direct project leaders. For the wheat RI in India, this redefined partnership – which also includes the Plant Breeding Institute of the University of Sydney, Australia, and CIMMYT – is also reflected in the project budget, with 80–90 percent of the funds going directly to partners in India.

GCP Phase II promises to be much more exciting and engaging for country programmes, Dr Datta noted. He added that the greater focus and independence in Phase II and the Programme’s investments in molecular breeding, all provide fertile ground for more rewarding partnerships based on mutual interests. Taking the seven RIs as a whole, GCP Phase II prioritises crops that are also important for India, and ICAR is actively seeking alliances in international agriculture, particularly in molecular breeding.

New wind

Dr NK Singh, Principal Scientist at the National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology agreed. “A new wind is blowing at ICAR, and this wheat project is very timely. We are very interested in partnerships with international players.”

Prof GK Gupta stressed the importance of coordination and collaboration. “A coordination mechanism is needed in India, to maximise complementarities and synergies,” he said. Prof Gupta is a veteran in the field, and has worked on wheat for 40 years now. Prof Gupta is leading a complementary initiative on drought improvement for wheat supported by India’s Department of Biotechnology.

Dr HS Gupta (pictured right), Director, Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), concurred on the need to avoid duplication and therefore make the best use of the scarce resources available. He stressed the importance of breeding for drought, and for cooperation: “We must coordinate, communicate and complement one another. Researchers should not work in isolation. Drought is a great problem, further compounded by a rise in temperature, and this is a much-needed research initiative.” he said. He also re-affirmed IARI’s full cooperation: “We have committed our best scientists for this work and they will deliver their best,” he added.

Multi-institutional partnerships

The project plan will be revisited to clarify the roles and expectations of the different partners working on GCP’s wheat Research Initiative in India. This wheat RI brings together five institutes in India, with Dr KV Prabhu of IARI (pictured left) as the project leader. As a result of discussions on the first day of the workshop, the Agharkar Research Institute in Pune is the newest partner. Located in a hotter region than the other research sites, Pune brings an additional seven degrees of cropping season temperature, which will enrich the heat tolerance study and database. Other partners are Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, the National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology and Punjab Agricultural University.

All the RIs will have a strong molecular breeding component to be supported by GCP’s Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP), which incorporates a Genetic Resources Support Service (GRSS). “Each RI is different in terms of the opportunities, risks and impact,” clarified Dr Ribaut. For India, given the local support, infrastructure and competencies, he was optimistic that the wheat RI would succeed and have great impact on the numerous smallholder wheat farmers. “This project presents a rare mix of low risk and high-potential impact,” he added.

In his closing remarks, Dr Ribaut said that this was an important initiative for GCP to demonstrate that molecular breeding can increase the efficiency of breeding and have impact on crop productivity in developing countries. The GCP management has high expectations and is committed to help the initiative succeed. He commended and thanked the India team for taking on the challenge and urged the team to communicate constantly with GCP management – not just on the good news, but also the bad news for prompt remedial action.

“GCP will not be disappointed and we will deliver on expectations,” assured Dr Prabhu, reiterating the support for, and commitment to, this project both by IARI and ICAR.

The India wheat RI team, pictured here with Dr Swapan Datta, Deputy Director General (Crop Improvement), ICAR, (2nd row 4th left), and Dr HS Gupta, Director, IARI (1st row, 3rd left), and GCP staff.

For more information, see:

• related stories:
  
  • Breaking new ground in MARS – GCP launches Challenge Initiative on wheat in Asia
    
  • GCP launches wheat Research Initiative in China
• GCP's Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP)