Adapted from a blog by Jacques Wery, ICARDA Deputy Director General – Research, originally posted on the International Center for Agriculture in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) website.

Western Europe is in the midst of an intense heat wave that started at the end of June. The southern French commune of Villevieille recorded a temperature of 45.1 °C, breaking the country’s all-time record. The heat also set new temperature records in Germany and the Czech Republic. Other countries like Italy, Spain and Portugal are also gripped with temperatures much higher than normal.

Scientists have attributed the soaring temperatures to the combination of a storm over the Atlantic Ocean and high pressure over central Europe, which is importing hot air from the Sahara. Though heat waves are not uncommon in Europe, this one was unusually early. Experts say climate change is making heat waves more common (Global warming of 1.5 °C IPCC Special Report).

Apart from human health, the heat wave is already causing significant damage in agriculture. Major wheat growers experienced temperatures of 40 °C and higher. This is of great concern, as the heat wave occurred during the crop’s critical growth stages. Wheat is a cool season crop with an optimal daytime growing temperature of 15 °C during the critical reproductive stage. Wheat plants exposed to high temperatures around the period of flowering lose fertility due to pollen dehydration, resulting in less grain formed. It is calculated that for every degree above the optimum 15 °C, wheat experiences a yield reduction of three to four percent.

If a heat wave like such as this one had occurred one month earlier, at the end of May, when Northern European wheat is in full bloom, it could have caused up to 50 percent yield loses, a devastating blow to the European agriculture and food sectors costing billions of Euros.

The response of scientists

Breeding heat tolerant wheat varieties remains one of the most strategic approaches to cope with the risk of unseasonal heat waves. The International Center for Agricultural research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) started in 2012 to use field stations that experience continuous heat-stress to select new wheat cultivars better primed to tolerate this stress.

In Sudan, the experimental farm of Wad Medani was developed together with the Agricultural Research Corporation (ARC) and CIMMYT (International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement), to test thousands of wheat candidate varieties each year. This station experiences average maximum daily temperatures above 30 °C throughout the growing season, which is less than 100 days long, from planting to harvest. This test was used to identify critical genes controlling heat-tolerant in common wheat, and to release new cultivars of bread wheat and durum wheat capable of withstanding severe heat.

Similarly, two heat-stress experimental farms were developed in West Africa to test durum wheat germplasm. In collaboration with Prof Rodomiro Ortiz  of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) Department of Plant Breeding, the stations of Kaédi in Mauritania and Fanaye in Senegal were upgraded in partnership with the Centre National de Recherche Agronomique et de Développement Agricole (CNRADA) and the Institut Sénégalais de Recherche Agricole (ISRA).

Field testing conducted at these stations – with daily temperatures above 32 °C throughout the cycle and a season of only 90 days – have revealed four new durum wheat cultivars perfectly adapted to tolerate intense heat. The work conducted in West Africa has even resulted in the awarding of the prestigious OLAM Prize for Innovation in Food Security to the team of researchers involved.

To convert this success into cultivars that could be grown, heat tolerance must be combined with the ability to cope with drought stress. An experiment was devised at the Marchouch station in Morocco, where plastic tunnels were placed on the wheat plants at the time of flowering to raise temperatures to above 40 °C and simultaneously prevent any rainfall from reaching the plants.

When all other tested varieties lost more than 50 percent yield to the two combined stresses, the ICARDA-INRA (Institut Nationale de la Recherche Agronomique in Morocco) cultivar Faraj lost only 25 percent, a major positive result considering the severity of the stresses tested. Along the same principles, more than 60 wheat varieties of ICARDA origin have been released by national breeding programs in Central and West Asia and North Africa regions and sub- Saharan Africa regions in the last five years alone, thanks to the ability of the germplasm to adapt to some of the most severe wheat stresses occurring around the world.

Can Europe take advantage of success stories?

In the USA and Canada, farmers grow mostly wheat varieties developed and commercialized by public wheat breeding programs. These cultivars have been very popular and public sector wheat-breeding activities are vital to the industry.

In Australia, wheat breeding is conducted by the private sector. However, public researchers are spending the same amount of money on pre-breeding as they did 10 years ago on breeding and variety development together. To take advantage of some of the success stories of ICARDA and CIMMYT, the Australian wheat breeding programs established 10 years ago the CIMMYT-Australia-ICARDA Germplasm Evaluation project (CAIGE). Each year, Australian breeders visit the trials of ICARDA in Morocco and CIMMYT in Mexico. They select the top high yielding wheat genotypes that combine drought and heat tolerance, with other useful traits. These are then imported and tested across Australian sites to confirm the best one for commercialization or use in hybridization programs.

In Europe, the situation is more like Australia, and public researchers do not work directly on the commercialization and development of varieties, which is left to the private companies. Instead, public research focuses on pre-breeding to develop new breeding techniques and on high-risk, longer-term targets, thereby supporting the private sector and farmers with high-tech innovations.

CGIAR centers such as ICARDA and CIMMYT have worked in close collaboration with European universities and advanced research institutions for a long time to develop and adapt the most novel technologies for pre-breeding. It might also be advantageous for European private sector companies to start taking advantage of CGIAR stress-tolerant wheat varieties and develop a system similar to CAIGE used by Australian breeders. By taking advantage of similar environments in Morocco and  Mediterranean environments in Europe, European breeders can select promising germplasm of tomorrow and provide the continent’s agricultural sector with a practical defense against future heat waves.

New breeding technologies offer great promise for expanding the area of durum wheat production in Sub Saharan Africa

This story was originally published on the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) website.

Durum wheat is an important food crop in the world and an endemic species of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). A new publication (Durum Wheat: Origin, Cultivation and Potential Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa – May 2019, 20 pages) convincingly demonstrates that the potential of releasing durum wheat varieties adapted to all growing conditions of SSA, from the oases of the Sahara to the highlands of Ethiopia – is substantial.

In the highlands of Ethiopia and the oases of the Sahara this crop has been cultivated for thousands of years. Today, smallholder farmers still grow it on marginal lands to assure production for their own consumption. However, durum wheat is no longer just a staple crop for food security but has become a major cash crop. In fact, the pasta, burghul and couscous industry currently purchase durum grain at prices 10 to 20% higher than that of bread wheat. Africa as a whole imports over €4 billion per year of durum grain to provide the raw material for its food industry. Hence, African farmers could obtain a substantial share of this large market by turning their production to this crop.

“A participatory approach, that uses the farmers themselves to guide the breeding decisions helps hugely in achieving success. A simple example was for an advanced line that I really liked: the yield was very high, the grains very big, and it had very good disease resistance. Still, when I showed it to farmers they did not like it. The main reason was that it was too short, and they could not get enough straw to feed their livestock. This is but an example on how incorporating farmers’ opinions save me from investing a lot of efforts in releasing and promoting a variety that would have never made it to cultivation”.

Challenges and promises

New breeding technologies offer great promise for expanding the area of durum wheat production in SSA. However, this remains primarily dependent on the market ability to purchase these grains at a higher price to stimulate farmer adoption. Because of its industrial nature, durum wheat has often been disregarded by SSA policy makers in favor of bread wheat as a more direct “food security” approach. Considering that the most cultivated durum varieties are more than 30 years old, there is a significant genetic yield gap that could be filled through the release and commercialization of more modern varieties.

A significant effort has been made to expand the production of improved durum wheat cultivars to supply raw materials to the food industries.  The pasta producers used to rely on massive importation of durum wheat grains, which was not a sustainable long-term business strategy due to high and volatile costs. Further, the purchase of foreign grains competed with other national priorities for the use of governmental hard currency stocks.

Meeting the industrial standards

Recent investments in the pasta industry are proving extremely promising in Ethiopia thanks to new food habits of the growing urban populations, which are looking for fast and tasty foods, while still cheap and nutritious. The Ethiopian Millers Association has eagerly explored the possibility to procure the needed raw material directly from local farmers to reduce production costs and increase competitiveness against foreign pasta imports. Unfortunately, the local production did not guarantee sufficient rheological grain quality to satisfy the industrial needs. In fact, grain of tetraploid landraces does not meet industrial standards in terms of color or protein quality.

Hence, specific incentives needed to be provided to farmers to obtain industrial-grade harvests. The scope of the Ethiopian-Italian cooperation project for the Agricultural Value Chain in Oromia (AVCPO) was to re-direct some of the already existing bread wheat production system of the Bale zone toward the more lucrative farming of durum wheat for the industry.

The process acted on the key elements required by the pasta industry to stabilize and self-sustain the value chain: (a) competitive price, (b) high rheological quality for conversion into pasta, (c) easy and timely delivery, (d) consistent stock of grains and predictable increases over years.

For more information, please contact ICARDA’s F.Bassi@cgiar.org

This article by Elizabeth Westendorf, Assistant Director of Policy at U.S. Wheat Associates, was originally posted on USWheat.org 

Seventy-five years ago, the seeds of the Green Revolution were planted when Norman Borlaug began his work on wheat breeding in Mexico. The success of that effort, which was a partnership between the Mexican government and the Rockefeller Foundation, led to the eventual founding of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

In 1971, CGIAR was established as an umbrella organization to create an international consortium of research centers. CIMMYT was one of the first research centers supported through the CGIAR, which today includes 15 centers around the world with a local presence in 70 countries. Each center focuses on unique challenges, but they are all driven by three broad strategic goals: to reduce poverty; to improve food and nutrition security; and to improve natural resources and ecosystem services.

For 50 years, wheat has been one of the core crops of CGIAR’s focus. CGIAR receives annual funding of about $30 million for wheat, and the economic benefits of that wheat breeding research range from $2.2 to $3.1 billion. This is a benefit-cost ratio of at least 73 to 1 — for every $1 spent in CGIAR wheat research funding, there is more than $73 in economic benefits to global wheat farmers. CIMMYT’s international wheat improvement programs generate $500 million per year in economic benefits. Globally, nearly half of the wheat varieties planted are CGIAR-related; in South, Central and West Asia and North Africa, that number rises to 70 to 80 percent of wheat varieties. When wheat supplies 20 percent of protein and calories in diets worldwide, CGIAR wheat research can have a major impact on the livelihoods of the world’s most poor people.

CGIAR Research Centers have also led to significant benefits for U.S. farmers as well. Approximately 60 percent of the wheat acreage planted in the U.S. uses CGIAR-related wheat varieties. CIMMYT wheat improvement spillovers in the United States repay the total U.S. contribution to CIMMYT’s wheat improvement research budget by a rate of up to 40 to 1. Another partner, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), has delivered innovations that protect U.S. farmers from crop losses due to destructive pests, and has also partnered with CIMMYT to develop the One Global Wheat Program under CGIAR.

One aspect of the CGIAR success story in the United States is about partnership. Public U.S. universities around the country have partnered with CGIAR on agricultural research, to the benefit of U.S. farmers and farmers worldwide. This partnership allows for knowledge transfer and idea-sharing on a global scale. USW is proud that many of our member states have universities that have partnered with CGIAR on wheat projects.

The news is not all good, however. As we anticipate world population growing to 10 billion in 2050, the demand for wheat is expected to increase by 50 percent. To meet that demand, wheat yields must increase by 1.6 percent annually. Currently they are increasing by less than 1 percent annually. There is plenty of work to do to continue Borlaug’s mission of achieving food security. CGIAR Research Centers will continue to play a critical role in that effort.

The United States’ investment in CGIAR Research Programs makes a vital contribution to agricultural improvements and fosters partnerships with U.S. public research universities, international research centers, private sector partnerships and others. Partnerships with CGIAR make it possible to do the win-win collaborative wheat research that helps meet global food needs, brings tremendous economic benefits to U.S. agriculture and leverages U.S. research dollars.

We invite our stakeholders and overseas customers to learn more about this important partnership and the benefits of CGIAR wheat research in part through a fact sheet posted here on the USW website.

This profile of PhD student and visiting CIMMYT-Turkey researcher Madhav Bhatta, by Emma Orchardson was originally posted on InSide CIMMYT.

“Agriculture has always been my passion. Since my childhood, I’ve been intrigued by the fact that agriculture can provide food for billions of people, and without it, we cannot survive.”   

Wheat is one of the world’s most widely grown cereal crops. Global production between 2017 and 2018 exceeded 700 million tons and fed more than one third of the world’s population. Based on the current rate of population increase, cereal production will need to increase by at least 50 percent by 2030.

However, biotic and abiotic stresses such as crop diseases and drought continue to place significant constraints on agricultural production and productivity. Global wheat yield losses due to diseases such as wheat rust have been estimated at up to $5 billion per year since the 1990s, and rising temperatures are thought to reduce wheat production in developing countries by up to 30 percent.

“The importance of biotic and abiotic stress resistance of wheat to ensuring food security in future climate change scenarios is not disputed,” says Madhav Bhatta. “The potential of wide-scale use of genetic resources from synthetic wheat to accelerate and focus breeding outcomes is well known.”

In his recently completed a PhD project, Bhatta focused on the identification of genes and genomic regions controlling resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses in synthetic hexaploid wheat, that is, wheat created from crossing modern wheat with its ancient grass relatives. His research used rich genetic resources from synthetic wheat to identify superior primary synthetics possessing resistance to multiple stresses. It also aimed to identify the respective genes and molecular markers that can be used for market-assisted transfer of the genes into high-yielding modern wheat germplasm.

“My study sought to evaluate the variation within this novel synthetic germplasm for improved grain yield, quality and mineral content, reduced toxic heavy metal accumulation, and identify the genes contributing to better yield, end-use and nutritional quality.”

“Working in a collaborative environment with other scientists and farmers was the most enjoyable aspect of my research.”

Working under the joint supervision of Stephen Baenziger, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Alexey Morgounov, CIMMYT, Bhatta spent two consecutive summers conducting field research at various research sites across Turkey. The research was conducted within the framework of the International Winter Wheat Improvement Program (Turkey-CIMMYT-ICARDA). Over the course of six months, he evaluated 126 unique synthetic wheat lines developed from two introgression programs, which he selected for their genetic diversity.

“The most fascinating thing was that we were able to identify several lines that were not only resistant to multiple stresses, but also gave greater yield and quality,” says Bhatta. “These findings have a direct implication for cereal breeding programs.”

Bhatta and his collaborators recommended 17 synthetic lines that were resistant to more than five stresses, including rusts, and had a large number of favorable alleles for their use in breeding programs. They also recommended 29 common bunt resistant lines, seven high yielding drought tolerant lines, and 13 lines with a high concentration of beneficial minerals such as iron and zinc and low cadmium concentration.

“We identified that the D-genome genetic diversity of synthetics was more than 88 percent higher than in a sample of elite bread wheat cultivars,’ Bhatta explains. “The results of this study will provide valuable information for wheat genetic improvement through the inclusion of this novel genetic variation for cultivar development.”

Madhav Bhatta completed his PhD in Plant Breeding and Genetics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he was a Monsanto Beachell-Borlaug International Scholar. He is now based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, where he recently began a postdoctoral research position in the Cereal Breeding and Genetics program. He is currently working on optimizing genomic selection models for cereal breeding programs and he looks forward to future collaborations with both public and private institutions.

The seeds of the superior synthetics are now available from CIMMYT-Turkey. For more information, contact Alexey Morgounov (a.morgounov@cgiar.org).

Read more about the results of Bhatta’s investigation in the recently published articles listed below:

1. Bhatta M., P.S. Baenizger, B. Waters, R. Poudel, V. Belamkar, J. Poland, and A. Morgounov. 2018. Genome-Wide Association Study Reveals Novel Genomic Regions Associated with 10 Grain Minerals in Synthetic Hexaploid Wheat. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 19 (10), 3237.
2. Bhatta M., A. Morgounov, V. Belamkar, A. Yorgancilar, and P.S. Baenziger. 2018. Genome-Wide Association Study Reveals Favorable Alleles Associated with Common Bunt Resistance in Synthetic Hexaploid Wheat. Euphytica 214 (11). 200.
3. Bhatta M, A. Morgounov, V. Belamkar, and P. S. Baenziger. 2018. Genome-Wide Association Study Reveals Novel Genomic Regions for Grain Yield and Yield-Related Traits in Drought-Stressed Synthetic Hexaploid Wheat. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 19 (10), 591.
4. Bhatta M, A. Morgounov, V. Belamkar, J. Poland, and P. S. Baenziger. 2018. Unlocking the Novel Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Synthetic Hexaploid Wheat. BMC Genomics, 19:591. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-018-4969-2.
5. Morgunov A., A. Abugalieva, A. Akan, B. Akın, P.S. Baenziger, M. Bhatta et al. 2018. High-yielding Winter Synthetic Hexaploid Wheats Resistant to Multiple Diseases and Pests. Plant genetic resources, 16(3): 273-278.

By Dina Najjar

Gender norms – a set of cultural or societal rules or ideas on how each gender should behave – matters deeply on whether people adopt and benefit from innovations. Gender norms are also fluid, as they respond to changes in society, yet many of us fail to catch up with the changing norms.

Example: As farming becomes less and less profitable, men leave rural areas for cities in search of jobs. This leaves women in charge of farms, especially in subsistence farming, but many policymakers mistakenly believe that women’s roles are still confined to the house. This then becomes a barrier for women to benefit equally from agricultural innovations as men do, which negatively affects agricultural production in the household and community, more broadly.

A breakthrough CGIAR global comparative research initiative “GENNOVATE” has paved the way for developing gender-transformative interventions.

Among many resources it offers is a unique, in-depth gender knowledge base, established following five years of painstaking research – undertaken by 11 CGIAR centers, including ICARDA, and gender specialists across the globe. The study’s vast data and analyses have enabled researchers to move beyond smaller, unconnected studies that have largely defined gender research.

In order to address the question of how gender norms influence men, women, and youth to adopt innovation in agriculture and natural resource management, GENNOVATE has engaged 7,500 participants from 137 rural communities in 26 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The qualitative comparative study employs a framework based on the understanding that for innovation to be effective, women and men on the ground must exercise “agency” and be active participants in adopting new technology or practice.

The findings cast light on hidden norms within rural farming societies, as well as biases that influence decision making, technology access, and adoption within these societies and in rural development programming.

GENNOVATE also provides tools and resources to help the integration of gender sensitivities into agricultural research for development projects. These evidence-based inputs and recommendations can facilitate the development of less-biased, customized interventions that meets the specific needs of target populations. They can also ensure that this is done in an inclusive, responsible manner in tune with local norms.

This means scientists, practitioners, and policymakers can more easily incorporate gender into their work on climate-smart agriculture, conservation agriculture, mechanization, and farmer-training events, just to name a few. In short, it optimizes the chances of adoption of agricultural and environmental innovation.

ICARDA and GENNOVATE

ICARDA has contributed 10 case studies to GENNOVATE. Three case studies from Morocco focused on linking gender norms and agency with innovations in agriculture, such as drip irrigation, and improved wheat and chickpeas varieties. Uzbekistan’s four case studies linked gender norms and agency with improved wheat varieties. Three cases in India’s Rajasthan studied the link of gender norms and agency with improved barley varieties, contract barley farming, and improved goat breeds.

ICARDA also contributed to three of the six studies featured in The Journal of Gender, Agriculture, and Food Security’s special issue dedicated to GENNOVATE.

The paper “What drives capacity to innovate? Insights from women and men small-scale farmers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America” demonstrated that gender norms and personality attributes influence men’s and women’s ability to try out, adopt, and benefit from agricultural innovations, as well as their ability to make decisions around them – this is an area that has been largely underreported in the innovation literature.

“Gendered aspiration and occupations among rural youth in agriculture and beyond” shows that youth and gender issues are inextricably intertwined, and as a result, they cannot be understood in isolation from each other. The study also shows that deeply-ingrained gender norms often dissuade young women from pursuing agriculture-related occupation.

“Community typology framed by normative climate for agricultural innovation, empowerment, and poverty reduction” made a case that inclusive norms can lead to gender equality and agricultural innovation, deepening the capacity to make decisions that can lead to escape from poverty.

ICARDA’s contribution to GENNOVATE has been made possible with support from CGIAR Research Program on Wheat and CGIAR Research Program on Grain Legumes and Dryland Cereals.

Dina Najjar is a gender specialist at ICARDA.

By Mike Listman

Rapidly emerging and evolving races of wheat stem rust and stripe rust disease—the crop’s deadliest scourges worldwide—drove large-scale seed replacement by Ethiopia’s farmers during 2009-14, as the genetic resistance of widely-grown wheat varieties no longer proved effective against the novel pathogen strains, according to a new study by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

Based on two surveys conducted by CIMMYT and the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and involving more than 2,000 Ethiopian wheat farmers, the study shows that farmers need access to a range of genetically diverse wheat varieties whose resistance is based on multiple genes.

After a severe outbreak in 2010-11 of a previously unseen stripe rust strain, 40 percent of the affected farm households quickly replaced popular but susceptible wheat varieties, according to Moti Jaleta, agricultural economist at CIMMYT and co-author of the publication.

“That epidemic hit about 600,000 hectares of wheat—30 percent of Ethiopia’s wheat lands—and farmers said it cut their yields in half,” Jaleta said. “In general, the rapid appearance and mutation of wheat rust races in Ethiopia has convinced farmers about the need to adopt newer, resistant varieties.”

The fourth most widely grown cereal after tef, maize, and sorghum, wheat in Ethiopia is produced largely by smallholder farmers under rainfed conditions. Wheat production and area under cultivation have increased significantly in the last decade and Ethiopia is among Africa’s top three wheat producers, but the country still imports on average 1.4 million tons of wheat per year to meet domestic demand.

National and international organizations such as EIAR, CIMMYT, and the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) are working intensely to identify and incorporate new sources of disease resistance into improved wheat varieties and to support the multiplication of more seed to meet farmer demand.

New wheat varieties have provided bigger harvests and incomes for Ethiopia farmers in the last decade, but swiftly mutating and spreading disease strains are endangering wheat’s future, according to Dave Hodson, CIMMYT expert in geographic information and decision support systems, co-author of the new study.

“In addition to stripe rust, highly-virulent new races of stem rust are ruining wheat harvests in eastern Africa,” he explained. “These include the deadly Ug99 race group, which has spread beyond the region, and, more recently, the stem rust race TKTTF.”

As an example, he mentioned the case of the wheat variety Digalu, which is resistant to stripe rust and was quickly adopted by farmers after the 2010-11 epidemic. But Digalu has recently shown susceptibility to TKTTF stem rust and must now be replaced.

“In rust-prone Ethiopia, the risks of over-reliance on a widely-sown variety that is protected by a single, major resistance gene—Digalu, for example—are clearly apparent,” he added. “CIMMYT and partners are working hard to replace it with a new variety whose resistance is genetically more complex and durable.”

Hodson said as well that continuous monitoring of the rust populations in Ethiopia and the surrounding region is essential to detect and respond to emerging threats, as well as to ensure that the key pathogen races are used to screen for resistance in wheat breeding programs.

Hodson and partners at the John Innes Centre, UK, and EIAR are leading development of a handheld tool that allows rapid identification of disease strains in the field, instead of having to send them to a laboratory and lose precious time awaiting the results.

CIMMYT and partners are also applying molecular tools to study wheat varietal use in Ethiopia. “There are indications that yields reported by farmers were much lower than official statistics, and farmer recollections of varietal names and other information are not always exact,” Hodson explained. “We are analyzing results now of a follow-up study that uses DNA fingerprinting to better document varietal use and turnover.”

The authors would like to acknowledge the Standing Panel for Impact Assessment (SPIA) for financing, the Diffusion and Impacts of Improved Varieties in Africa (DIIVA) project that supported the first survey in 2011, and Cornell University, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) through the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat (DRRW, now called Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat) project for support for the second survey in 2014.

In an excellent example of scientific collaboration spanning borders and generations, Mustapha El-Bouhssini, entomologist at the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), screened wheat breeding lines from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) under glasshouse infestations of Russian wheat aphid (Diuraphis noxia), a major global pest of wheat. At least one of the lines, which were developed through crosses of wheat with related crop and grass species, showed high levels of resistance.

Scientists at CIMMYT began research on sources of RWA resistance for wheat in the early 1990s. Good sources of resistance from rye were accessed via wide crosses that combined major portions of both crop’s chromosomes, in collaborative work led by Adam J. Lukaszewski, University of California, Riverside.

“In our experiments, we did an initial screening with one replication and then a replicated test with a Pavon line and the check,” said El-Bouhssini.

Pavon is a semi-dwarf wheat variety developed by Sanjaya Rajaram, former CIMMYT wheat director and 2014 World Food Prize laureate. The version of Pavon referred to by El-Bouhssini had been crossed with rye by Lukaszewski and entered CIMMYT’s wheat genetic resource collections; the check was a popular high-yielding variety with no resistance to Russian wheat aphid.

Pavon had been used by Lukaszewski and colleagues as a model variety for wide crosses to transfer pest and disease resistance to wheat from its distant relatives. More recently Leonardo Crespo-Herrera, CIMMYT wheat breeder, pursued this research for his doctoral studies. It was he who provided a selection of wide-cross lines to El-Bouhssini.

“Resistance to pests in wheat is a valuable trait for farmers and the environment,” said Crespo-Herrera. “It can protect yield for farmers who lack access to other control methods. For those with access to insecticides, it can minimize their use and cost, as well as negative impacts on the environment and human health.”

 

As of 29 April, Dr. Jacques Wery, Professor of Agronomy and Agricultural Systems of the University of Montpellier, will begin serving as Deputy Director General for Research for ICARDA. In his new role, he will provide scientific and managerial leadership in setting priorities, planning, implementing, and monitoring a cohesive research agenda aligned with ICARDA’s strategic direction and results framework.

Click here to read the full announcement on the ICARDA web page.

 

31 January 2018
by Laura Strugnell

A commentary published on 30 January in the leading science journal Nature Plants highlights the importance of an ancient grass species for wheat breeding. The commentary was sparked by the recent publication of a reference genome from Aegilops tauschii, also called goat grass.

Bread wheat was created some 10,000 years ago by a natural cross of more simple, primitive wheats with a sub-species of goat grass. As such, goat grass genes constitute a major component of the very large wheat genome. The sequencing of goat grass DNA opens the way for wheat breeders to apply a number of advanced approaches to improve the speed and precision of wheat breeding for important traits that may be found in the goat grass segment of the wheat genome.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) have produced many wheat x grass crosses, recreating the original, natural cross but using other goat grass species and thus greatly expanding wheat’s diversity. Wheat lines derived from those crosses have since been used in breeding programs worldwide and have helped farmers to boost yields by up to 20 percent. Goat grass is known for being highly adaptable and disease tolerant, so the crosses endow wheat with similar qualities. Varieties from these crosses make up over 30 percent of international seed stores.

Researchers expect that the sequencing of this grass species’ DNA will facilitate advanced approaches such as “speed breeding” – a technique that uses controlled variables to achieve up to seven rounds of wheat crops in one year. This will help allow wheat breeding to keep up with the rising global demand for the crop and to address the challenges of new, virulent diseases and more extreme weather.

Read the Nature Plants article: The goat grass genome’s role in wheat improvement. 2018. Rasheed, A., Ogbonnaya, F.C., Lagudah, E., Appels, R., He, Z. In: Nature Plants.

Using non-GM molecular breeding techniques, ICARDA’s scientists developed a set of durum wheat varieties that can withstand up to 40°C heat along the Senegal River basin. If scaled up, the technology offers potential to fight hunger and help farmers adapt to rising temperatures.

Click here to read the report on the ICARDA web page.