PLANT BREEDING NEWS
EDITION 181
06 August 2007
An Electronic Newsletter of Applied Plant Breeding
Sponsored by FAO and Cornell University
Clair H. Hershey, Editor
chh23@cornell.edu
Archived issues available at: FAO Plant Breeding
Newsletter
CONTENTS
1. NEWS, ANNOUNCEMENTS AND RESEARCH NOTES
1.01 Texas A&M's Borlaug
to receive Congressional Gold Medal
1.02 Founder of Uganda's Victoria Seeds
Ltd. awarded African Green Revolution Yara Prize for 2007
1.03 Cornell’s Plant
Breeding Department celebrates 100 years
1.04 A PBN-L interview with IRRI’s Director
General
1.05 First all-African produced genetically engineered maize is
resistant to maize streak virus
1.06 Farmers in Kenya happy with positive selection
1.07 African rice production
gets major boost
1.08 $23.5 Million boost to barley breeding
1.09 Better varieties,
better lives: success in the Andes
1.10 'Plants for the Future' - Implementation
of a European strategy for plant research
1.11 Identifying the genetic processes
that determine seed development
1.12 Iowa State University begins its new global master's degree
in seed technology and business
1.13 University of Illinois study of energy crops finds
miscanthus more productive than switchgrass
1.14 Grape vine breeding in Australia
1.15 Peru city bans
GM to protect native potatoes
1.16 African scientists and agricultural organizations
welcome AGRA clarification on biotech research
1.17 Gene bank math:
applying sophisticated statistics and population genetics to the management of
seed collections in gene banks
1.18 Gourmet chocolates to boost farmers’ incomes and preserve
biodiversity
1.19 Genes hold secret to wheat's success,
say UC Davis researchers
1.20 Adaptation to the environment has
a stronger effect on the genome than anticipated
1.21 Researchers find
a shortcut for screening resistant soybean crops
1.22 New sunflower germplasm lines resist
fungal disease
1.23 Development of lines resistant to Blast through the use of
rice wild relative
1.24 Researcher develops tomato with resistance to grey mould
1.25 Indonesia develops
new rice varieties to fight bacterial blight
1.26 Breeding plants
to produce industrial oils
1.27 Follow-up on banana hybrids
1.28 Rapid evolution of defense genes
in plants may produce hybrid incompatibility
1.29 MSU researchers JAZ (zed) about plant
resistance discovery
1.30 In evolutionary arms race, a bacterium is found that outwits
tomato plant's defenses, Cornell study finds
1.31 Plants and stress -- key players
on the thin line between life and death revealed
1.32 Towards the identification of photoperiod genes in cotton
1.33 How to boost recovery of fertile doubled-haploid onions
1.34 Selected articles from Update
7-2007 of FAO-BiotechNews
2. PUBLICATIONS
2.01 Marker-assisted
selection: Current status and future perspectives in crops, livestock, forestry
and fish
2.02 Benefits and limits of an important
biotech tool – Interview on FAO’s published study on marker-assisted
selection
3. WEB RESOURCES
3.01 A new cis-regulatory element analysis tool for rice genes
3.02 Global Facilitation Unit for Underutilized
Species sets up a blog dedicated to underutilized species
4 REQUESTS FOR INFORMATION
4.01 Quest for a history of the seed industry - A SeedQuest
project
5 POSITION ANNOUNCEMENTS
(None posted)
6 MEETINGS, COURSES AND WORKSHOPS
7 EDITOR'S NOTES
=========================
1. NEWS, ANNOUNCEMENTS AND RESEARCH NOTES
1.01 Texas A&M's Borlaug to
receive Congressional Gold Medal
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Texas A&M Agriculture's Dr. Norman Borlaug will be
presented the Congressional Gold Medal July 17 for unparalleled efforts at "bringing
radical change to world agriculture and uplifting humanity," according to the
U.S. Congress.
The presentation of the medal, created specifically for Borlaug at the U.S. Mint,
will be at 10 a.m. in the Capital Rotunda.
Borlaug, 93, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 - the first ever to receive
the prize for agricultural efforts - for his international research which led
to wheat varieties that helped feed millions of starving people. He is distinguished
professor of soil and crop sciences at Texas A&M University where he has been
actively teaching, lecturing and consulting since 1984.
In measures passed by the Senate last September and the House in December, Borlaug
was credited with "saving billions of people around the world ... (he) saved more
lives than any other person who has ever lived."
"Dr. Borlaug's life-long work in fields throughout the world is a shining example
of the importance of agriculture, not only for feeding starving people, but for
economic and political stability," said Dr. Elsa Murano, Texas A&M University
System vice chancellor and dean of agriculture and life sciences. "We are honored
to have shared in his work for more than two decades at Texas A&M, and we
applaud this recognition of his legacy."
Borlaug is often called the "Father of the Green Revolution" to depict the color
and quantity of wheat planted in the world as a result of his development of smaller,
easier-to-harvest plants which were nurtured the fertilizer, water and weed-preventing
chemicals.
"There is no magic in high-yielding seed," Borlaug once said. "People have to
know how to grow, when to plant, how to control weeds, how to manage water."
He bred a dwarf wheat first in Mexico because the traditional varieties there
grew so tall that the stalks would bend over, losing the grain heads on the ground.
His developments increased Mexican wheat production sixfold.
From there, Borlaug took the improved varieties to India and Pakistan in the mid-1960s
though scientists then thought those nations of explosive populations and poor
land were a hopeless cause.
But the effort worked. When Borlaug's work began there, India produced 11 million
metric tons per year. That country now is the world's second largest producer
of wheat and is expected to bring in 73 million tons this year, according to the
Indian Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Borlaug has continued to work globally, maintaining research in Mexico each spring
and teaching at Texas A&M each fall.
"It's difficult to come back to the United States and talk about food shortages
when we have been blessed throughout history with abundance," Borlaug recalls.
The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest civilian award given by the legislative
branch of government, bestowed on those who have made a significant "act of service
to the security, prosperity, and national interest of the United States."
George Washington was the first recipient on March 25, 1776. Borlaug also joins
the ranks of the Wright Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Thomas Edison, Dr. Jonas
Salk, Mother Theresa of India, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott
King and more than 100 other recipients.
Source: AgNews, from Texas A&M University System Agriculture Program
Writer: Kathleen Phillips, 979-845-28272,
ka-phillips@tamu.edu
Contributed by David D. Baltensperger
Professor and Head
Soil and Crop Sciences
Texas A&M University
dbaltensperger@ag.tamu.edu
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1.02 Founder of Uganda's Victoria Seeds Ltd. awarded
African Green Revolution Yara Prize for 2007
Oslo, Norway
Yara Prize awarded Josephine Okot and Akin Adesina
The Board of the Yara Foundation awards the African
Green Revolution Yara Prize for 2007 to Josephine Okot and Akinwumi Adesina for
their pioneering work with agricultural inputs and agrodealer networks. The Yara
Foundation recognizes their contributions to boosting agricultural productivity
and creating livelihood opportunities for communities across Africa.
The Yara Foundation recognizes that a green revolution in Africa can neither be
achieved nor sustained without private sector entrepreneurship to provide agricultural
inputs and develop agrodealer networks. For the Yara Prize 2007, the Yara Foundation
therefore focused on candidates who have shown both entrepreneurial excellence
and the ability to work at many levels, from on-the-ground initiatives to strategy
and policy.
The Laureates
As the founder and managing director of Victoria Seeds Ltd, Josephine Okot
is ably demonstrating how to develop new markets and a local private-sector agricultural
inputs industry in her native Uganda. Her efforts to reverse the decline in agricultural
productivity in Uganda and other countries of the region is paying off. Okot has
also taken a leadership role in lobbying for appropriate policies and an institutional
framework that help to integrate the African seed sector with the global economy.
Akinwumi Adesina is widely known for his efforts to make farm inputs available
to poor smallhold farmers. He developed a rural agrodealership model to allow
owners of small village shops to develop into agrodealers selling agricultural
inputs. He helped the Rockefeller Foundation develop a program that provides technical
training and certification to this network of agrodealers. Adesina is currently
Associate Director, Food Security and Africa Regional Program at the Rockefeller
Foundation.
The Yara Prize is awarded by the Foundation to commend outstanding efforts to
increase food production and availability in Africa, contributing to the economic
and social development of the continent and its people. The Prize is made up of
a financial grant of USD 100,000 to each of the laureates, and a diploma and a
trophy. The prizewinner is free to decide how to utilize the Prize in order to
further the sustainable greening and development of Africa.
The Yara Foundation Board hopes that this award will underpin the significant
progress that has been achieved by the two winners in their pioneering work with
agricultural inputs and agrodealer networks in Africa. It also hopes the Prize
will serve as a source of inspiration for African entrepreneurs in their efforts
to realize Africa’s green revolution, reverse hunger and create development throughout
their continent.
Further information on the Yara Prize and the African Green Revolution Conference
can be found at: www.africangreenrevolution.com
Source: SeedQuest.com
7 July 2007
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1.03 Cornell’s Plant Breeding Department
celebrates 100 years
The Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics at Cornell University, Ithaca,
New York, celebrated the centennial of its founding with a series of addresses,
alumni reflections, faculty reminiscences, tours and other events, from July 26-28,
2007. Keynote addresses planned to include Nobel laureate Dr Norman Borlaug,
but he was unable to attend due to health reasons. Dr Royce P. Murphy, professor
emeritus gave an overview of the department’s history, based on his meticulous
research of the archives and on his own memory of events. This research has resulted
in the publication, “Evolution of Plant Breeding at Cornell University” by Royce
P. Murphy, with Lee B. Kass, published by the Dept. Plant Breeding and Genetics.
This history notes that in 1907, Dean Liberty Hyde Bailey employed Herbert J.
Webber to head the Department of Plant Breeding. The period from 1920, sometimes
referred to as the Golden Era of Genetics, was remarkable for the large number
of students who went on to become great scientists and leaders in plant breeding.
Two students from that era, George W. Beadle and Barbara McClintock were named
Nobel Laureates. Through June 2007 the Department has awarded 801 MS and PhD degrees.
Follow the website for future postings regarding the Centennial ( http://plbrgen.cals.cornell.edu/)
The Editor, PBN-L
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1.04 A PBN-L interview with IRRI’s Director
General
Excerpts of an interview by the Editor, PBN-L, with Dr. Robert Zeigler
on the occasion of the Centennial Celebration of Cornell’s Department of Plant
Breeding and Genetics, 26-28 July 2007
Looking at the challenges of access to adequate food supplies in the next decade,
how do you expect the role of plant breeding to evolve as a component of the solution?
There are two main aspects to this question: calorie supplies and nutritional
makeup. There are still hundreds of millions of people in calorie-deficient areas
of the world. These tend to be the harsher environments and technology impact
is much more difficult. Plant breeding will make contributions especially in the
area of genetic improvement for adaptation to abiotic stresses. Prominent examples
in the case of rice are drought, flooding and salinity. IRRI is working hard on
each of these, and has had recent breakthroughs in finding rices that tolerate
submergence for several days to two weeks, when normal rice would be killed after
only a day of submergence.
With regard to nutritional makeup, we need to keep in mind that people in most
developing areas depend on the staples, and, world-wide, rice is the most important
of these. Diversifying diets is an excellent goal, and it is also a long-term
component of the solution. In the meantime we need to work at creating better
nutritional balance within the staple crops. The high Vitamin A Golden Rice,
high iron and high zinc are the main thrusts in the nutritional research. One
of the challenges of these specialty rices will be to assure that there is not
a stigma against them because they are viewed as a “poor person’s food.” One strategy
could be to market as well to higher income groups, so the universal benefits
are seen and they are not rejected because people do not want to be viewed as
inadequate in feeding their families.
Given the likelihood of increasing areas of cropland being used for energy
crops, what are the implications for food access for the poor?
This is potentially a real issue in the coming years, even for rice, which
will probably not be directly used in energy production. Rice prices have mirrored
those of other grains in the past year. As demand for crops for energy has soared,
the amount of land dedicated to rice has fallen to less than 154 million hectares
from 156 million hectares in 1999, despite increasing demand. India and China
are drawing down stocks of rice and buying in the international marketplace. Northern
China is a surplus producer of maize, and much of this surplus used to be shipped
to the south. Recently, this maize surplus has shifted to local ethanol production,
hence putting pressure on southern China to shift from rice to corn. It is likely
that there will be many, many similar types of adjustments and adaptations in
the marketplace that put pressure on food prices.
With regard to ethanol production, it is worth noting the potential for use of
rice straw in production of cellulosic ethanol. In many places, the straw is simply
burned in the fields after harvest. One side effect of removing the straw could
be the need to replace lost nutrients, especially potassium. However, the need
for the straw as a source of organic matter to build the soil is not as critical
in paddy rice.
In IRRI’s research portfolio for the next five years, what are the general
directions that plant breeding will take? How does this influence training needs
at universities?
Breeding at IRRI will place strong emphasis on abiotic stresses in the next
several years. This area has not received nearly as much attention as disease
resistance in the past. Some of the most important of these stresses include drought,
flooding and salinity. Hybrid rice is rapidly becoming a standard technology and
IRRI’s breeders will make maximum use of heterosis in our program.
Our next generation of plant breeders will need to combine a molecular background
with field experience. The declining opportunities for training of this type of
breeding are well-known. There will also be a strong demand for graduates with
a physiology background combined with a breeding major. One of the advantages
of recruiting rice breeders is that rice is now essentially a model system, with
a genetic map and a multitude of molecular and tissue culture techniques available.
This gives molecular-trained people a motivation to get field experience in a
species that fits their interests from a molecular level. IRRI and Cornell University
have teamed up in a project to give molecular-trained people exposure to field
breeding.
What are the two or three main factors holding back a Green Revolution in Africa?
Demand for rice is growing fast on the continent. Adequate irrigation infrastructure
and post-harvest processing (milling and starch) are probably the main constraints
for success of rice in Africa. Fertilizer is certainly a constraint, but not as
big an issue at this time.
The Editor, PBN-L
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1.05 First all-African produced genetically
engineered maize is resistant to maize streak virus
Maize streak viruses (MSV), geminiviruses that can destroy most of a maize
crop, are endemic to sub-Saharan Africa and adjacent Indian Ocean islands where
they are transmitted by leafhoppers in the genus Cicadulina. Maize can supply
50% of the caloric intake in sub-Saharan Africa but, in certain years, a farmer’s
entire crop can be wiped out. Now, scientists at the University of Cape Town,
South Africa, along with colleagues at the South African seed company, PANNAR
Pty Ltd, have developed a resistant variety of maize that they hope will help
alleviate food shortages as well as promote the reputation of genetically engineered
(GE) foods in Africa. Dr. Dionne Shepherd of the University of Cape Town will
be presenting the results of her recent work and that of coauthors B. Owor, R.
Edema, A. Varsani, D.P. Martin, J.A. Thomson and E.P. Rybicki, at the annual meeting
of the American Society of Plant Biologists in Chicago (July 8, 11:20 AM) in a
major symposium on Plant Biology in Sub-Saharan Africa organized by Debby Delmer
of UC Davis.
Maize, which originated in Mexico, was carried to Africa in the 1500s and eventually
displaced native food crops such as sorghum and millet. Maize streak virus, an
endemic pathogen of native African grasses, was then carried to maize plants by
viruliferous leafhoppers. African scientists have been working for more than a
quarter century on developing resistant varieties of maize by selecting and crossing
varieties with various degrees of resistance to the virus.
However, resistance requires multiple genes located on different chromosomes,
so the process is not straightforward. The group at the University of Cape Town
took the opposite approach. They mutated a viral gene that encodes a protein that
the virus needs to replicate itself and inserted it into maize plants. When the
virus infects one of these transgenic maize plants, the mutated protein, which
is expressed at a high level, prevents the virus from replicating and killing
the plant. The transgenic maize variety has proven consistently resistant to MSV
and the trait can be reliably passed on to the next generation and in crosses
to other varieties. Field trials are scheduled to begin soon, not only to test
the effectiveness of the technology in the field but also to ensure that the GE
maize variety has no unintended effects on beneficial organisms that may feed
on it. The resistant maize will also be tested to ensure that the viral protein
is digestible and non-allergenic. The MSV-resistant maize is the first GE crop
developed and tested solely by Africans.
This group of scientists also surveyed 389 Ugandan MSV isolates to assess the
diversity and genetic characteristics of this destructive pathogen. They found
that the most prevalent strain of this virus is a product of recombination of
different viral genotypes, thus identifying an important source of new pathogenic
variants and illustrating the constantly changing evolutionary battle between
plants and pathogens. MSV was first sequenced in 1984 and found to contain a genome
of only 2700 DNA bases in a circle of single-stranded DNA. When it infects susceptible
plants, they produce deformed cobs and are often severely dwarfed. As the name
of the virus suggests, the leaves are marked with parallel, yellow-white streaks.
The timing of infection, the maize genotype, and prevailing climatic conditions
can all influence the extent of damage wreaked by this viral pathogen. Young plants
cannot survive the infection but older plants are better able to contain the infection,
resulting in smaller losses of grain. However, drought can have a devastating
effect on maize fields over a wide geographical area. Under warm and wet conditions,
a long-bodied morph of the leafhopper C. mbila emerges, but this form only travels
short distances of 10 meters or less, thus limiting its damage to crops. Under
drought conditions, a stronger, short-bodied morph that can fly great distances
spreads the disease over large areas, thus exacerbating the effects of the drought
itself.
Disease caused by similar geminiviruses, Wheat dwarf virus (WDV) and various sugarcane
streak viruses, also affect other crops, including barley, wheat, oats, sugarcane,
and millet. Thus, the technology developed for MSV could potentially be adapted
to develop resistance in these other crops. Virologist Edward Rybicki and microbiologist
Jennifer Thomson are hopeful that this year’s field trials will demonstrate not
only the effectiveness of this technology in producing resistance to a destructive
pathogen but also the safety of GE foods. Part of the objective is to provide
seed that will be sold at a minimal profit to subsistence farmers, thus removing
the objection that GE technology is principally profit-driven.
###
Contact: Brian Hyps
bhyps@aspb.org
Contributed by Luciano Lourengo Nass
Embrapa Labex-USA Genetic Resources
USDA/ARS/NCGRP
Fort Collins, CO, USA
Luciano.Nass@ars.usda.gov
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1.06 Farmers in Kenya happy with positive selection
Potato farmers in Kenya, as well as potato thieves, are reaping the rewards
of positive selection, a technology that is simple to adopt and requires only
sticks and labor. Farmers increased their potato production by 30 percent simply
by using tubers from selected healthy-looking plants as seed. The International
Potato Center (CIP), the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) and the
Ministry of Agriculture of Kenya have trained extension agents and farmer trainers
in positive selection, who in turn trained over 70 farmer groups involving more
than 1000 farmers since 2004.
Farmer groups are being trained on distinguishing between sick and healthy plants.
Healthy looking plants are pegged before flowering and monitored up to harvesting.
Pegged plants are harvested one by one and a final seed potato selection is made
based on the number, size and quality of the tubers. By repeating this process
over a few seasons, potato yields can be gradually increased.
The success of positive selection is seen from unlikely indicators - potato thieves.
"My last crop looked so good that thieves came during the night to harvest it,"
said Peter Kinyae from the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute in Tigoni. "Interestingly
we have seen several cases of theft from fields where groups had planted positive
selected seed. This is a good indicator that the technology works."
The press release is available at http://www.cipotato.org/pressroom/press_releases_detail.asp?cod=38
.
From CropBiotech Update 29 June 2007:
Contributed by Margaret E. Smith
Dept. of Plant Breeding & Genetics
Cornell University
mes25@cornell.edu
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1.07 African rice production gets major boost
Cotonou, Benin
With rising international rice prices threatening to double their US$2 billion
annual rice import bill, the rice-consuming nations of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
have finally received some good news.
Three of the world’s leading international agricultural research institutes have
announced plans to combine their activities in Africa and so create a powerful
new force focused on boosting African rice production and saving the region millions
of dollars in lost foreign exchange.
The three centers are the Africa Rice Center (WARDA) based in Benin, the
Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical
(CIAT) based in Colombia and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) based
in the Philippines. With only 13% of the world’s population, Africa accounts for
32% of world rice imports, which makes it a big player in the international rice
trade.
In 2006, SSA imported more than 9 million tonnes of rice worth an estimated US$2
billion. With world rice reserves at the lowest level since 1983-84, international
rice prices are expected to double in the next couple of years. This is especially
alarming for SSA nations, which need to import about 40 per cent of their rice
to satisfy local demand.
In a joint declaration announcing a major programmatic alignment, the three centers
– all of whom are supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR) – affirmed their commitment to bring the best of science and
their experience in Asia, Latin America and Africa to address the major challenges
facing Africa’s rice sector.
“To me this is the best way to reach a consensus on rice research in Africa,”
said Dr Papa Abdoulaye Seck, Director General of the Africa Rice Center (WARDA).
“By harmonizing our activities we can cover the whole continent, have critical
mass, address most of the problems facing rice, and at the end of the day we can
have a very high impact.”
Among their initial proposals is the establishment of a sub-Saharan Africa Rice
Consortium (SARC), which will consolidate the two existing regional rice networks
– the West and Central Africa Rice Research and Development Network (ROCARIZ)
and the Eastern and Central Africa Rice Research Network (ECARRN). The new combined
entity will also cover other parts of SSA that are not members of the existing
regional rice networks.
The three Centers have also agreed that SARC will provide a platform for collective
action by the three CGIAR centers and collaboration with national agricultural
research and extension systems (NARES). The Consortium will provide a united front
for promoting rice and rice research in SSA and a common conduit for channeling
technology and information from international research to NARES and farmers in
the region.
Outlining SARC’s objectives, they said they wanted to maximize the level of coordination
among the three Centers and their interaction with NARES. They also hoped to provide
better farmer access to improved seeds and technologies; and, develop a critical
mass of trained scientists, thereby enhancing Africa’s capacity in rice research.
Other objectives include improving knowledge sharing and training; increased economies
of scale through reduced transactions costs in rice research in Africa and globally;
and better coordination of research and development activities in the rice sector
in Africa with spillover to Asia and Latin America in terms of germplasm use.
Source: SeedQuest.com
3 August 2007
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1.08 $23.5 Million boost to barley breeding
The University of Adelaide has signed the final agreement of a five-year,
$23.5 million research program with industry and government to develop new barley
varieties, expected to be worth billions of dollars to domestic and export markets.
The latest agreement, worth $5.7 million, has been signed with leading agribusiness
ABB Grain. ABB Grain will provide cash and in-kind support for the University’s
research activities.
“The University of Adelaide is highly regarded for its plant breeding programs,
with the research at our Waite Campus recognised as among the best in the world,”
says the University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Research), Professor
Alan Johnson AM.
“This deal ensures that our barley breeding program will remain at the forefront
of agricultural research and development in Australia, for the benefit of industry
and the community. It will strengthen our already strong links with industry
and government.”
The University of Adelaide leads the southern node of the nationally coordinated
barley breeding venture, Barley Breeding Australia (BBA).
BBA is supported by growers and the Australian Government through the Grains
Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), the Department of Agriculture &
Food WA, the NSW and Victorian Departments of Primary Industries, the Queensland
Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries and the University of Adelaide.
Commercialisation of varieties developed through the southern node of BBA will
be conducted by ABB Grain.
“This agreement wouldn’t be possible without the support of both industry and
government,” says Dr Jason Eglinton, Barley Program Leader in the University’s
School of Agriculture, Food & Wine.
“For example, ABB Grain plays a critical role not only in commercialisation but
also evaluating new malting varieties through its wholly owned subsidiary, Joe
White Maltings, and conducting export market development. Our links with
government at State and Federal levels are also important, with germplasm from
departments of primary industry in New South Wales and Victoria contributing to
the development of new varieties.”
The University’s commercialisation arm, Adelaide Research & Innovation, last
year named ABB Grain as its commercialisation partner for the barley varieties
FlagshipA and Fleet AustraliaA. This is the first
year that commercial volumes of FlagshipA – which has been specifically
developed for the large brewing and malting markets in South East Asia, China
and Japan – have been available for general planting by growers.
####
David Ellis, Media Officer, University of Adelaide, Mob: 0421 612 762
Contributed by Dr Jason Eglinton, Barley Program Leader, School of Agriculture,
Food & Wine, University of Adelaide, Tel: (08) 8303 6553, Mob: 0429 689 040
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1.09 Better varieties, better lives: success in the Andes
Mexico
What started with better crop varieties from CIMMYT and other CGIAR centers
has resulted in development that is helping resource-poor, Andean farmers climb
the steep slope out of poverty.
“Perhaps the best indicator is this: you never used to see trucks regularly
driving out of the valley loaded with produce for the market; now you do.” Luís
Eduardo Minchala Guaman, legume breeder for Ecuador’s National Institute of Agricultural
and Livestock Research (INIAP), looks out over rolling Andean mountainsides in
the cold air and blistering equatorial sunlight at some 2,600 meters above sea
level. This is the Saraguro regiona tough, two-day drive south from Ecuador’s
capital, Quito. Minchala is discussing the achievements of a development project
begun in 1995 with farmers in 21 local communities. Among other things, it has
provided them with seed of improved cultivars of several crops, micro-credit,
small-scale water-harvesting and irrigation works, and training on profitable
and sustainable farming.
Tangible impact
As a result of the project, hundreds of subsistence farm families now obtain
several times their previous yields of small grains, potatoes, maize, and peas,
and their average incomes have increased from USD 1 to USD 2 per day. The increased
yield in wheat, for example, meant they could move it to more marginal land and
still have enough. With food security assured this released land for crops with
enhanced market value. Farmers are moving into diverse cash cropsimproved
pea varieties from Minchala’s work, tomatoes, onions, and fruitsas well as
home gardens to improve household diets. With support from the project, producers
are also adopting resource-conserving practices. One example is use of a perennial
grass that anchors steep slopes against erosion and also serves as excellent forage
for the cuy, a small mammal raised in the Andes and whose meat goes for around
US$ 7 per kilogram on local markets. Finally, and not of least importance for
Minchala, farmers are active, motivated, and organizing to obtain inputs and better
market access.
Close, fruitful connections with international centers
Funding for recent work has come from INIA-Spain and the Canadian International
Development Agency (CIDA). The project’s operational budget is less than USD 30,000
per year, but participants have drawn freely on products and support from local
authorities and several centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR).
The project began with one farmer and a high-yielding barley variety introduced
by Hugo Vivar, former barley breeder from the International Center for Agricultural
Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) who was posted at CIMMYT (and who is now the
CIMMYT consultant on the project), and INIAP cereals specialist Jorge Coronel.
On the heels of that barley’s success, Vivar has brought Coronel seed of improved
drought-tolerant wheat from CIMMYT and an excellent quality protein maize (QPM)
variety now being used in food programs for children at two rural schools and
sold as green ears by farmers for extra income. The erosion-controlling grass
is a variety that Vivar saw in Bolivia; convinced of its potential for Saraguro,
he sent sprouts to Coronel. Improved, disease-resistant potato clones from the
International Potato Center (CIP) have been introduced by Coronel and are being
adopted throughout the valley.
Feeding the soil to foster food security
Farmers say that, prior to the project, they often ran out of annual grain
supplies well before harvesting the next crops. As a result, many had to work
for months in the cities, sending back money so their families could eat, and
others would send their children to labor in mines. Now farmers once again see
hope of making a living from their land. “Here we have no profession or livelihood
other than farming,” says Arturo Salvador Ortega Ortega, a small-scale farmer
from Lluzhapa village and one of the project’s farmer-leaders. “We are returning
to work our fields with improved seed and fertilizer, and we’ll be able to get
by.” With improved harvests and support from the project, Ortega and his peers
are investing in community development works, including reservoirs and irrigation
for home gardens and a mill to provide less-expensive flour and noodles for local
sale. “But fertilizer is the main thing we need,” says Ortega. “It’s the basis
of everything.”
Farmers throughout Saraguro have seen that fertilizer makes the difference between
subsistence and surplus harvests in the region’s hardscrabble soils. Most farmers
lack the cash to purchase fertilizer at today’s prices. Suppliers sometimes shortchange
farmers by “bleeding” a kilo or two out of 20 kilogram bags they sell, or by mixing
in a white sand that is nearly indistinguishable from the fertilizer. “We’ve been
providing fertilizer and seed of guaranteed quality at wholesale prices,” says
Coronel. “In the current arrangement, farmers pay half up front and the remainder
at harvest. Our payback rate is always well above 90%.” Building on the trust
and contacts established this way, Coronel is encouraging a local project technician
to launch an agro-vet business in Saraguro to provide quality seed, fertilizer,
and other inputs.
INIAP’s “star” project
Julio César Delgado Arce, Director General of INIAP, visited Saraguro in 2006,
and was impressed at how resource-poor farmers had improved their livelihoods
through the adoption of improved varieties and other practices. “Saraguro is the
star project of INIAPit’s broad and involves diverse interventions that address
farmers’ needs. We’re trying to give it all the support possible.” Delgado also
had words of praise for CIMMYT: “The Center continues to provide free access to
its materials, and we’re very happy with this.”
For more information: Kevin Pixley, Associate Director, Global Maize Program (k.pixley@cgiar.org), or Javier Peña, wheat
grain quality specialist (j.pena@cgiar.org).
Source: SeedQuest.com
29 June 2007
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1.10 'Plants for the Future' - Implementation of a European
strategy for plant research
Brussels, Belgium
Source: European Pland Science Organisation (EPSO) News
No. 2
By Uli Schurr, EPSO Member of the Steering Committee ‘Plants for the Future’
The European Technology Platform (ETP) ‘Plants for the Future’ launched its Strategic
Research Agenda (SRA) on 25 June 2007 at the European Parliament. This is
yet another milestone on the road to putting plant sciences back on the agenda
in Europe and its Member States. EPSO as an organisation and with the help of
its members has played a crucial role in shaping this SRA. Now we need your support
to implement the European SRA for plant research.
ETP ‘Plants for the Future’ has a short but successful history: it was established
in 2004 as one of the first European technology platforms with the publication
of ‘2025, a European vision for plant genomics and biotechnology’. This vision
was signed by 21 European stakeholder organisations representing academia, farmers,
industry and consumers – a clear indication of the broad impact and recognition
of plant science in Europe. ETP then mobilised representatives of all stakeholders
to discuss the development of a Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) in their Member
States.
The first impact of the SRA is already evident: 25% of Theme 2 funding for the
2007 Work Programme of the Seventh Framework Programme was dedicated to plant
research. In addition, national funding programmes in a growing number of Member
States now refer to SRA and ERA-NET Plant Genomics for closer collaborations with
future technology platform activities.
The SRA launch is also the appropriate occasion to thank all EPSO members who
have contributed to ‘Plants for the Future’ and Member State consultations in
19 European countries during the last few years. We are especially grateful to
the former EPSO president Marc Zabeau and previous EPSO Board members Mike Bevan
and Mark Stitt. Special thanks also goes to Karin Metzlaff, who serves as Executive
Director for both ‘Plants for the Future’ and EPSO, and her team for their dedicated
and successful efforts in bringing European plant sciences back to the front.
Our work, however, has just started. Today, just three years after its launch,
the broad representation of stakeholders in ETP ‘Plants for the Future’ is one
of its strongest assets. The ETP continues to have an important mission in Europe,
which is increasingly becoming aware of the importance of plants for its future.
ETP ‘Plants for the Future’ belongs to the family of technology platforms that
are working towards a European knowledge-based bio-economy. Joining forces with
these platforms will provide the necessary momentum for plant research.
ETP ‘Plants for the Future’ will continue its efforts to integrate plant sciences
with emerging European research strategies. ETP will use and urge to direct new
financial instruments, encourage the development of national plant research platforms
and become the reference point for the agricultural and plant-based sectors.
ETP ‘Plants for the Future’ will need your continuing support and support from
its stakeholders, industry, academia and farmers, to achieve these goals. EPSO
members will provide this support from the academic side. The SRA has been launched,
now it must be implemented.
Source: SeedQuest.com
2 July 2007
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1.11 Identifying the genetic processes that determine seed development
United Kingdom
Scientists at the University of Oxford have paved the way for bigger
and better quality maize crops by identifying the genetic processes that determine
seed development.
Plant scientists have known for some time that genes from the maternal plant control
seed development, but they have not known quite how. The Oxford research, supported
by the Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research
Council (BBSRC) and highlighted in the new issue of BBSRC Business, has found
at least part of the answer.
Working in collaboration with researchers in Germany and France, Professor Hugh
Dickinson's team found that only the maternal copy of a key gene responsible for
delivering nutrients is active. The copy derived from the paternal plant is switched
off. This gene encodes a potential signalling molecule found in the endosperm
- a placenta-like layer that nourishes the developing grain, which is involved
in 'calling' for nutrients from the mother plant, and so triggers an increased
flow of resources. Similar mechanisms can almost certainly be expected in other
cereals, and with cereal grain being a staple food across the world, the potential
to harness this science to improve yields is clear.
Prof. Dickinson explains: "By understanding the complex level of gene control
in the developing grain, we have opened up opportunities in improving crop yield.
"The knowledge and molecular tools needed to harness these natural genetic processes
are now available to plant breeders and could help them improve commercial varieties
further. For example, they can better understand how to successfully cross-breed
to produce higher quality crops. The cereal grain is a staple food of the world's
population: with the changing climate and growing population, the need for sustainable
agriculture is increasingly pressing."
The mechanism used to switch off paternal genes ensures supremacy of maternally-derived
genes. This process is known as 'imprinting' and is achieved mainly through 'methylation'
- a naturally occurring chemical change in the DNA. A very similar mechanism takes
place in animal embryos. However, unlike the animal imprinting systems where genes
are often grouped in the chromosomal DNA, in maize imprinted genes are 'solitary'
and independently regulated.
This project was a collaboration between the University
of Oxford's Department of Plant Sciences, researchers at the University of Hamburg and Biogemma, a French biotech company.
It was funded initially through the EC Framework Programme V, and then under BBSRC's
initiative on Integrated Epigenetics.
The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is the UK
funding agency for research in the life sciences. Sponsored by Government, BBSRC
annually invests around £380 million in a wide range of research that makes a
significant contribution to the quality of life for UK citizens and supports a
number of important industrial stakeholders including the agriculture, food, chemical,
healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors.
Source: SciDev.net
30 July 2007
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1.12 Iowa State University begins its new global master's
degree in seed technology and business
Ames, Iowa
This week Iowa State University began offering the first
class in its new global master's degree in seed technology and business.
The interdisciplinary degree is a cooperative effort between the colleges of Business
and Agriculture and Life Sciences. It combines business courses similar to those
in the first year of a master's of business administration program with classes
relating to scientific and technical subjects in seed and genetic improvement.
Classes are offered through the Internet.
"We are excited to have this new multi-college interdepartmental program under
way," said Manjit Misra, director of the Seed Science Center. "This program integrates
technical and business subjects into a single graduate program for seed that does
not exist anywhere else. Such integration will contribute to students' ability
to make decisions in the real world".
The program has attracted 23 students from the United States and four other continents,
and from a variety of seed organizations.
"The students are attracted to a program that is focused on seed and seed-related
science and technology, that's available over the Internet and paced so that they
can continue to work at their regular jobs," said Mike Crum, associate dean of
the College of Business. "Many of the students have been sponsored by their employers.
Employers are interested in new educational approaches that will prepare students
to undertake innovative roles in their organizations and in the seed sector."
The program's scope is global in keeping with changes in the marketplace for seed.
"All around the world the seed industry is in transition," said Paul Christensen,
program manager. "In the developing world, the roles of governments in seed are
changing, and that's changing the roles of others involved. Everywhere, technology
is changing seed opportunities for all those involved in the seed sector. These
changes are increasing the need for well-prepared, informed decision-makers."
Students participating in the master's program are required to complete 36 credits
of coursework, including three credits for the creative component. Two graduate
certificates, one in seed science and technology and one in seed business management,
also are being offered as part of the program. The certificates are designed to
enhance students existing experience and training.
Additional information is available at: http://www.seeds.iastate.edu/class/.
26 July 2007
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1.13 University of Illinois study of energy crops finds
miscanthus more productive than switchgrass
Rockville, Maryland
At the annual meeting of the American Society of
Plant Biologists in Chicago (July 7-11, 2007), scientists will present findings
on how to economically and efficiently produce plant crops suitable for sustainable
bioenergy. Improving the production of such biomass is important because it should
significantly ease and eventually replace dependence on petroleum-based fuels.
Biomass is plant material, vegetation or agricultural waste used as fuel.
Converting biomass into biofuels can be costly and slow. Two crops, both classified
as C4 perennial grasses, have been studied extensively to determine how best to
improve costs and production rates. Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) has been trialed
across the United States. Miscanthus (Miscanthus x giganteus) has been studied
throughout the European Union. Both show great promise, but until now, nobody
has been sure which crop is more efficacious. The study completed by Frank Dohleman
of the Plant Biology Department at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and
his colleagues, is the first to compare the productivity of the two grasses in
side-by-side field trials. Results from trials throughout Illinois show that Miscanthus
is more than twice as productive as switchgrass.
Dohleman’s team, which included Dafu Wang, Andrew D.B. Leakey & Stephen P.
Long also of University of Illinois, along with Emily A. Heaton of Ceres Inc.,
theorized that Miscanthus produces more usable biomass than switchgrass because
of these three key attributes:
1. Miscanthus can gain greater amounts of photosynthetic carbon per unit of leaf
area
2. Miscanthus has a greater leaf area
3. Miscanthus has a longer growing season.
The research team measured the amount of gas exchanged on the upper canopy of
Miscanthus leaves from pre-dawn to post-dusk on 20 dates in the 2005 and 2006
growing seasons. The averages from two years’ data showed that Miscanthus gained
33% more carbon than switchgrass. Integrated measurements also showed that the
Miscanthus leaf area was 45% greater than switchgrass and that Miscanthus plants
grew an average of eleven days longer than switchgrass. This extended growing
season and accompanying lower temperatures proved to further boost the photosynthetic
activity of Miscanthus. Specifically, pyruvate Pi dikinase was found to be expressed
at higher rates when ambient temperatures are lower. This enzyme supports C4 photosynthesis
in Miscanthus.
Unraveling the mystery of why Miscanthus is the more productive crop will enable
researchers to engineer this and other potential bioenergy crops. These developments
will increase production options as well as support efforts within biofuel research
and industry to work with non-food based biomass resources.
The ASPB is please to support the scientists who conducted this study as they
contribute to the plant research community’s cutting-edge progress in conservation
and resources management.
Founded in 1924, ASPB (formerly known as the American Society of Plant Physiologists),
is headquartered in Rockville, Maryland. This professional society has a membership
of approximately 5,000 plant scientists from the United States and more than 50
other nations. ASPB publishes two of the most widely cited plant science journals
in the world, Plant Cell and Plant Physiology. Further information concerning
ASPB can be found on its website, www.aspb.org.
Source: SeedQuest.com
10 July 2007
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1.14 Grape vine breeding in Australia
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) continues
to breed improved grapevine varieties that will be a part of one's dining experience,
gourmet or not. CSIRO has developed varieties such as Tarrango and Tyrian for
the wine industry, and has selected clones and varieties such as rain-tolerant
currant Carina and rain-tolerant sultana type, Sunmuscat for the dried-grape industry.
The table grape breeding program has already released seedless black grape and
early ripening seeded grape varieties. The rootstock program, on the other hand,
is continuing with an emphasis on tolerance of Phylloxera and nematodes, salt
and drought tolerance, stock-scion compatibility and water use efficiency.
Read the article at http://www.csiro.au/science/psjb.html.
Source: CropBiotech Update 20 April 2007:
Contributed by Margaret E. Smith
Dept. of Plant Breeding & Genetics
Cornell University
mes25@cornell.edu
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1.15 Peru city bans GM to protect native potatoes
Paula Leighton
The regional government of Cusco, Peru has banned genetically modified (GM) products
in the region to protect the diversity of thousands of native potato varieties
and other Andean food crops.
The order was announced last week (20 July) at a press conference. It forbids
GM research and the sale, cultivation, use and transport of GM products in the
Cusco region.
Abel Caballero, head of the regional government's natural resources and environment
department, said the government made the decision after considering the risk of
genetic and environmental contamination from GM products, as well as the threat
to people's health and their ancient culture.
Instead of GM, the government will support organic agriculture, Caballero told
SciDev.Net. "Small farmers from the highlands cannot be forced into high productivity.
It's better to carry on supporting their use of traditional farming practices
to produce clean organic products," he said.
Around 4,000 varieties of native potato exist in the Andean region, most of them
cultivated organically, without pesticides or agricultural chemicals. Cusco is
one of the main centres of potato diversity, with nearly 2,000 varieties identified.
Andean communities have farmed native potatoes for thousands of years. Genetically,
the potatoes have not changed since they were domesticated 8,000 years ago.
The government announced they will promote conservation programmes for native
biological crops and programmes to recover ancient knowledge and practices related
to biodiversity.
The ban was passed in response to proposals submitted by a network of indigenous
potato-farming communities and the Cusco-based Association for Nature and Sustainable
Development (ANDES Association), a nongovernmental organisation that defends the
rights of indigenous people to conserve biological and cultural resources.
Alejandro Argumedo, head of the ANDES Association, told SciDev.Net that Cusco's
decision is likely to convince other regions to follow its example. He said regional
governments in the Andean regions of Puno, Apurímac and Ancash, and the Madre
de Dios region in the Amazon, are ready to approve similar orders. This could
put pressure on the federal government to ban GM in all of Peru, he said.
Developing and using genetically modified organisms is currently not allowed in
Peru, as the country has not yet adopted laws governing their safe use.
Source: SciDev.Net
24 July 2007
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1.16 African scientists and agricultural organizations
welcome AGRA clarification on biotech research
Africa
African scientists and agricultural organizations yesterday welcomed the clarification
by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa
(AGRA) that the organization “supports the use of science and technology”
– including genetic modification (GM) technology – “to aid Africa’s smallholder
farmers in their urgent efforts to end widespread poverty and hunger”.
Five major organizations working in agriculture – AfricaBio, the Africa Biotechnology
Stakeholders Forum (ABSF), Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International (AHBFI),
Biotechnology-Ecology Research and Outreach Consortium (BioEROC) and the International
Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) – said the AGRA
position is consistent with that of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development
(NEPAD) in its report on biotechnology which states that “regional economic integration
in Africa should embody the building and accumulation of capacities to harness
and govern modern biotechnology”.
AGRA says in a statement that its mission “is not to advocate for or against the
use of genetic engineering. We believe it is up to governments, in partnership
with their citizens, to use the best knowledge available to put in place policies
and regulations that will guide the safe development and acceptable use of new
technologies, as several African countries are in the process of doing”.
The Alliance said its mission is to use the wide variety of tools and techniques
available now to make a dramatic difference for Africa’s smallholder farmers as
quickly as possible. It said it has chosen to focus on conventional breeding techniques
but would “consider funding the development and deployment of such new (GM) technologies
only after African governments have endorsed and provided for their safe use”.
The Alliance clarified that conventional breeding was its starting point, however
it pointed out that since science and society are continually evolving, and it
does preclude future funding for genetic engineering as an approach to crop variety
improvement when it is the most appropriate tool to address an important need
of small-scale farmers.
Last week, AGRA’s new president, former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, was
reported as having ruled out the GM technology as one of AGRA’s strategies in
the fight against poverty and hunger in Africa. Anti-GM organizations hailed his
statement as a sign that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - a funding partner
to AGRA – has changed its strategy on the GM technology.
South African-based AfricaBio President, Prof. Diran Makinde, said “African agricultural
organizations welcome the clarification from AGRA. We cannot fault their strategy
and we agree that conventional plant breeding has not received sufficient attention
or investment in Africa, leaving untapped the inherent genetic potential available
in African crops”.
Africa Harvest CEO, Dr. Florence Wambugu, said “Africa’s leaders had asked African
scientists to come up with a consensus position on this new technology. The NEPAD
report clearly states that the continent must have the freedom to innovate. Many
countries and regional organizations are busy domesticating the NEPAD Biotechnology
Policy and will resist any effort to erode their freedom to innovate”.
The African Biotechnology Stakeholders Forum (ABSF) CEO, Prof. Norah Olembo, said:
“Africa is not choosing between the GM and conventional breeding technologies.
Given the desperate situation the continent faces, we need desperate measures.
The African Green Revolution will not come through one technology only. While
we applaud the focus of AGRA on conventional breeding technologies, we also welcome
their clarification that the GM technology has an important role to play in fighting
poverty, hunger and malnutrition”.
Dr. Margaret Karembu of the Africa Center of ISAAA said “No country has resolved
her food security needs using a single approach. The clarification from AGRA therefore
clears the misconception that Africa should be restricted to traditional methods
while the rest of the global community moves fast in embracing new and advanced
tools including GM technology to enhance agricultural productivity”.
Executive Director of BioEROC in Malawi, Mr. Wisdom Changadeya, said “nobody can
deny Africa its right to a technology that will help it solve some of its most
serious and urgent problems. Biotechnology needs to be embraced alongside other
equally useful conventional technologies”
Statement from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa
(AGRA) on Plant Breeding and Genetic Engineering
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa supports the use of science and
technologyin everything from field-based soil ecology to cyberspace-based
market information systemsto aid Africa’s smallholder farmers in their urgent
efforts to end widespread poverty and hunger.
An important Alliance initiative is the development of new crop varieties that
will withstand pests and disease; cope with drought, marginal soils and other
environmental stresses; and dramatically increase farmers’ yields. Only with sustainable
increases in farm productivity will smallholder farmers be able to feed themselves
and their families, end widespread hunger, produce a marketable surplus, and stimulate
economic growth.
Our goal is to develop 1000 new varieties as rapidly as possible, using conventional
breeding and participatory methods in which plant breeders work closely with farmers
to develop varieties with the traits farmers need.
The Alliance is not at this time funding the development of new varieties through
the use of genetic engineering. We have chosen to focus on conventional breeding
techniqueswhich can be quite technologically sophisticatedfor two main
reasons:
We know that conventional methods of plant breeding can produce significant benefits
in the near term at relatively low cost. Until now, however, conventional plant
breeding has not received sufficient attention or investment in Africa, leaving
untapped the inherent genetic potential available in African crops. With improved
seeds produced through conventional breeding methods, plant scientists and farmers
could readily raise average cereal yields from one tonne to two tonnes per hectaremaking
a major contribution toward ending hunger and poverty in Africa.
Conventional crop breeding fits within the regulatory frameworks now in place
in most African countries, enabling relatively rapid dissemination to farmers
of the new varieties they desire.
Therefore, conventional breeding is our starting point. However, we also know
that science and society are continually evolving. The Alliance itself will be
funding initiatives that strengthen Africa’s scientific capacity at a number of
levels. We do not preclude future funding for genetic engineering as an approach
to crop variety improvement when it is the most appropriate tool to address an
important need of small-scale farmers and when it is consistent with government
policy.
Our mission is not to advocate for or against the use of genetic engineering.
We believe it is up to governments, in partnership with their citizens, to use
the best knowledge available to put in place policies and regulations that will
guide the safe development and acceptable use of new technologies, as several
African countries are in the process of doing. We will consider funding the development
and deployment of such new technologies only after African governments have endorsed
and provided for their safe use.
Our mission is to use the wide variety of tools and techniques available now to
make a dramatic difference for Africa’s smallholder farmers as quickly as possible.
Source: www.agra-alliance.org
25 July 2007
News release issued on behalf of:
• AfricaBio
• Africa Biotechnology Stakeholders Forum (ABSF)
• Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International
(AHBFI)
• Biotechnology-Ecology Research and Outreach Consortium (BioEROC)
• International Service for the Acquisition of
Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA)
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1.17 Gene bank math: applying sophisticated
statistics and population genetics to the management of seed collections in gene
banks
Mexico
Two decades ago, CIMMYT scientist Jose Crossa began to apply sophisticated
statistics and population genetics to the management of seed collections in gene
banks. Now, the methodologies developed at CIMMYT for the maintenance and classification
of genetic resources are used throughout the world.
Germplasm banks (also called gene banks) often seem like museums or bank vaults,
keeping precious treasures locked away for the next generation. Banks like the
Wellhausen-Anderson Plant Genetic Resources Center at CIMMYT are certainly built
to withstand disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and power failures. But
there’s much more to it than security. Germplasm banks are really more like a
zoo, and a batch of stored seeds is more like a cage full of monkeys than the
Mona Lisa. Zoo animals require constant maintenance. Old animals die and have
to be replaced, often by careful breeding to ensure that the genetic diversity
of a captive population is maintained.
The scientists who manage collections of genetic resources face similar challenges.
Even at the very low temperatures and humidity levels used in germplasm banks,
seeds can’t be stored indefinitely. Over time, they lose their ability to germinate:
how fast this happens depends on species and storage conditions, but all the seeds
in a collection will eventually become useless for breeders or farmers. Before
this happens they have to be planted, grown to maturity, and a new generation
of seeds harvested for return to the bank. CIMMYT’s seeds are monitored every
5-10 years, and scheduled for regeneration when their viability drops below 80%.
This process is relatively straightforward in self-pollinating crops like wheat,
where the offspring are genetic copies of the parent. But it is much trickier
in cross-pollinated crops like maize, where the offspring have a jumbled-up mixture
of the parents’ genes. A single maize ‘accession’a batch of seeds from a
single variety or race of maizecontains seeds with quite different combinations
of genes. When these genes are recombined in the next generation, the risk is
that some, rarer, genes will be lost.
Twenty years ago, Crossa had recently arrived at CIMMYT as a biostatistician,
when colleague Suketoshi Taba, now Head of the Maize Germplasm Collection, approached
him with a problem. He wanted to know the best way to regenerate accessions to
retain a high level of genetic diversity, including how to work out how many seeds
to plant, and how to manage the pollination process. “I had no idea,” says Crossa,
“but I started looking into it. I really wanted to work on genetic resources because
I knew how valuable they were. I’d been working in the US, and everyone spoke
about how unique and important CIMMYT’s collection was.” And so began a long and
fruitful collaboration.
Crossa realized that ideas from population genetics held the key, but these were
not being applied to genetic resources. The crucial concept was effective population
size (EPS), a measure of the number of parents that contribute to the next generation.
A larger sample is likely to contain more of the population’s genetic diversity,
so the progeny are likely to represent the original population better. Therefore
the number of seeds planted for regeneration should be as large as possiblebut
in reality this is limited by the capacity and funding available.
However, the effective population size of the parent sample can also be maximized
by carefully controlling the regeneration process so that each parent contributes
equally to the progeny. The plants are not allowed to cross-pollinate freely.
Instead, crossing is done by hand, with each plant being used to pollinate one
other, ensuring that the male reproductive cells or “gametes” (i.e. pollen) from
each plant are represented equally. So that the contributions of female gametes
are also equal, a fixed number of seeds is taken from each plant, rather than
simply harvesting all the seeds.
The models developed by Crossa and his colleagues allow scientists to make informed
trade-offs between genetic diversity and regeneration costs. For example, to have
a high probability of retaining a gene variation that occurs in 3% of the population,
making it fairly rare, an EPS of 200 is needed. Using systematic regeneration
to maximize EPS, this means planting around 250 seeds, to allow for some regeneration
failure.
“I think the work has made a difference,” says Crossa. “People used to use much
smaller samples, but now they are more aware of the genetic erosion caused by
not using appropriate sample sizes, and the need to control male and female gametes.”
The methodologies developed at CIMMYT have shown scientists around the world how
genetic diversity can be managed successfully, and are used to ensure the preservation
of many national and international collections. The team’s models have been extended
to species with any degree of self- and cross-fertilizationeven wheat, since
in reality accessions are never completely homogeneous.
Crossa continues to apply the tools of statistics and population genetics to the
field of genetic resources. His team has done a great deal of work on core collections,
small subsets of accessions that represent as much as possible of collections’
overall genetic diversity. In the case of maize, they have grouped farmer landraces
into racial groups, and generated core collections for each one. These allow researchers
to study a few tens of accessions rather than trying to select from the thousands
available. The team has developed ways to combine a large amount of data in order
to select the most varied subsets, including data from molecular markers and data
on physical traits, both quantitative and qualitative. This way of organizing
and combining many types of data is now being applied as a valuable tool for selection
for plant breeding. Crossa has also worked on the challenges faced by researchers
out in the field collecting samples for germplasm banks, developing methodologies
to efficiently capture the genetic diversity of farmers’ crops.
“When Taba first asked me about seed regeneration I knew nothing about it, and
there wasn’t much work in the area, so the challenge really appealed to me,” says
Crossa. “Twenty years later I’m still happy I can make my contribution to preserving
genetic diversity. There aren’t many people working in this fieldbecause,
although each gene bank is extremely important, numerically there really aren’t
very manyso every advance we make has a big impact.”
For more information: Jose Crossa, Head, Biometrics and Statistics
Source: CIMMYT
E-News, vol 4 no. 7 - July 2007 via SeedQuest.com
July, 2007
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1.18 Gourmet chocolates to boost farmers’ incomes and preserve
biodiversity
Gourmets will enjoy new delights of complex-flavored chocolates based on single
varieties of cacao. Bioversity International will be helping farmers in Nicaragua
improve the quality of cacao being planted, and have the cocoa beans exported
to Europe and North America. Many farmers have a few cacao trees, and most of
these are modern disease-resistant hybrids, but of low quality and low earning
potential. Older trees, called criollo, produce much better cocoa, but these are
vanishing rapidly as a result of neglect. The new project will focus on improving
these older and diverse trees to yield more high-quality cocoa beans.
Read the news release at http://www.cgiar.org/newsroom/releases/news.asp?idnews=568.
From CropBiotech Update 11 May 2007:
Contributed by Margaret E. Smith
Dept. of Plant Breeding & Genetics
Cornell University
mes25@cornell.edu
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1.19 Genes hold secret to wheat's success, say UC
Davis researchers
Davis, California
The success of wheat as a food crop can be traced through thousands of years of
genetic changes that occurred as wheat was domesticated for human use, write UC
Davis plant scientists Jorge Dubcovsky and Jan Dvorak in the cover article
of the current issue of the journal Science.
In this review article of the molecular genetics and genomics of wheat, the authors
paint the picture of how gene mutations and the presence of multiple chromosomes
-- a characteristic known as "polyploidy" -- enabled modern wheat to overcome
several genetic bottlenecks that occurred during wheat domestication and subsequent
evolution.
The authors conclude that, "Polyploid wheat has been able to compensate for diversity
bottlenecks by capturing a relatively large proportion of the variability present
in wild wheat. In addition, new variation is rapidly generated in the dynamic
wheat genomes through gene deletions and insertions of repetitive elements into
coding and regulatory gene regions."
Domestication of wheat began roughly 10,000 years ago as people in western Asia
began the transition from hunting and gathering to raising crops and animals.
Some of the important traits that were selected for during the domestication process
include increased grain size, changes in the toughness of chaff so that the wheat
can be easily threshed, and retention of the grain on the plant so that it doesn't
scatter in the wind before or during harvest.
Globally, approximately 620 million tons of wheat are now produced each year,
providing one-fifth of the calories consumed by people around the world. Ninety-five
percent of the wheat crop goes into making baked goods such as bread, cookies
and pastries, while the remaining 5 percent is durum wheat used for making pasta
and related products.
Funding for this study was provided by grants from the National Research Institute,
U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Science Foundation.
Source: SeedQuest.com
3 July 2007
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1.20 Adaptation to the environment has a stronger effect
on the genome than anticipated
Faster growth, darker leaves, a different way of branching - wild varieties
of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana are often substantially different from the laboratory
strain of this small mustard plant, a favorite of many plant biologists. Which
detailed differences distinguish the genomes of strains from the polar circle
or the subtropics, from America, Africa or Asia has been investigated for the
first time by research teams from Tübingen, Germany, and California led by Detlef
Weigel from the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology. The results were
surprising: The extent of the genetic differences far exceeds the expectations
for such a streamlined genome, as the scientists write in this week’s edition
of Science magazine.
To track down the variation in the genome of the different Arabidopsis
strains, the researchers compared the genetic material of 19 wild strains with
that of the genome of the lab strain, which was sequenced in the year 2000. Using
a very elaborate procedure, they examined every one of the roughly 120 million
building blocks of the genome. For their molecular sleuthing they used almost
one billion specially designed DNA probes. "All together, these probes would have
seven times the length of human genome," illustrates Weigel the extent of the
project. The data were evaluated with several specially designed statistical methods,
including a variant of machine learning.
The result of this painstaking analysis: on average, every 180th DNA building
block is variable. And about four percent of the reference genome either looks
very different in the wild varieties, or cannot be found at all. Almost every
tenth gene was so defective that it could not fulfill its normal function anymore!
Results such as these raise fundamental questions. For one, they qualify the value
of the model genomes sequenced so far. "There isn’t such a thing as the genome
of a species," says Weigel. He adds "The insight that the DNA sequence of a single
individual is by far not sufficient to understand the genetic potential of a species
also fuels current efforts in human genetics."
Still, it is surprising that Arabidopsis has such a plastic genome. In
contrast to the genome of humans or many crop plants such as corn, that of Arabidopsis
is very much streamlined, and its size is less than a twentieth of that of humans
or corneven though it has about the same number of genes. In contrast to
these other genomes, there are few repeats or seemingly irrelevant filler sequences.
"That even in a minimal genome every tenth gene is dispensable, has been a great
surprise," admits Weigel.
Detailed analyses showed that genes for basic cellular functions such as protein
production or gene regulation rarely suffer knockout hits. Genes that are important
for the interaction with other organisms, on the other hand, such as those responsible
for defense against pathogens or infections, are much more variable than the average
gene. "The genetic variability appears to reflect adaptation of local circumstances,"
says Weigel. It is likely that such variable genes allow plants to withstand dry
or wet, hot or cold conditions, or make use of short and long growing seasons.
Such genome analyses of unprecedented details will allow a much better understanding
of local adaptation, and this was indeed one of the main reasons for conduction
the study. "By extending these types of studies to other species we hope to help
breeders to produce varieties that are optimally adapted to rapidly changing environmental
conditions," explains Weigel. He is already collaborating with the International
Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines to apply the methods and experience
gathered with Arabidopsis to twenty different rice varieties.
How environment and genome interact is also the goal of new, even more powerful
methods. While the technology used so far can only identify genes that have changed
or are lost relative to the reference genome, direct sequencing of the genome
of wild strains will allow the detection of new genes. The plan is to decipher
the genomes of at least 1001 Arabidopsis varieties. A new instrument, with
which the entire genome of a plant can be read in just a few days, is already
available. Still missing are the computational algorithms to interpret the anticipated
flood of data.
Researchers from Tübingen who contributed to the study include Richard Clark,
Stephan Ossowski and Norman Warthmann from the MPI for Developmental Biology,
Georg Zeller and Gunnar Rätsch from the Friedrich Miescher Laboratory of the Max
Planck Society, Gabriele Schweikert and Bernhard Schölkopf from the MPI for Biological
Cybernetics, and Daniel Huson from the University Tübingen. Researchers from California
who contributed to this study include Huaming Chen, Paul Shinn and Joseph Ecker
from the Salk Institute, Christopher Toomajian, Tina Hu and Magnus Nordborg from
the University of Southern California, and Glenn Fu, David Hinds and Kelly Frazer
from Perlegen Sciences, Inc.
Original work:
Richard M. Clark, Gabriele Schweikert, Christopher Toomajian, Stephan Ossowski,
Georg Zeller, Paul Shinn, Norman Whartmann, Tina T. Hu, Glenn Fu, David A. Hinds,
Huaming Chen, Kelly A. Frazer, Daniel H. Huson, Bernhard Schölkopf, Magnus Nordborg,
Gunnar Rätsch, Joseph R. Ecker, Detlef Weigel
Common Sequence Polymorphisms Shaping Genetic Diversity in Arabidopsis thaliana
Science, July 20, 2007
Contact: Prof. Dr. Detlef Weigel
Max
Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Tübingen
weigel@tuebingen.mpg.de
Source: Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology via EurekAlert.org
20 July 2007
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1.21 Researchers find a shortcut for
screening resistant soybean crops
MADISON, WI- Across the southern United States, an invisible, yet deadly parasite
known as the root-knot nematode is crippling soybean crops. While plant breeders
are racing to develop cultivars resistant to the root-knot nematode, they are
being slowed down by current time-consuming and expensive methods of screening
for resistant plants. Now, researchers believe they have found a shortcut for
screening resistant soybean crops.
Researchers at the University of Georgia report the discovery of several molecular
markers that will help soybean breeders to accurately screen for root-knot resistant
plants at a fraction of the time and cost of current screening techniques in the
July issue of The Plant Genome.
While previous studies of soybean crops helped researchers to locate genes associated
with root-knot nematode resistance, University of Georgia scientists recently
identified single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), slight variations in the DNA,
nearby genetic regions that code root-knot nematode resistance. After linking
the identified SNPs to root-knot nematode resistance, scientists developed a marker
assisted screening test that used SNPs to determine whether or not plants were
resistant to root-knot nematode.
“The basic objective of any breeding scheme is to identify elite individuals that
can pass on their desirable characteristics,” explained Bo-Keun Ha, lead author
of study. While Ha says most conventional breeders rely on phenotypic evaluations
of plants to select the plant with most desirable traits, this process takes time
and money. For example, if a breeder wants to select plants with resistance to
root-knot nematode based upon a phenotypic evaluation alone, he or she must grow
a large population of plants, inoculate plants with nematode eggs, wait until
the growth of the nematode and evaluate the damage before selecting the most resistant
plants.
Instead of relying on the time-consuming phenotypic screening to determine whether
or not the root-knot resistance genes are present in soybean crops, “marker assisted
selection can inform breeders about the presence of the resistance gene in individual
plants,” said Ha. Also, because marker assisted selection involves the screening
of a few markers across thousands of plants Ha pointed out that the marker assisted
selection is rather inexpensive and time efficient.
“Our results found SNPs linked to two root-knot nematode resistance genes and
developed the resources for a relatively high throughput method of selection for
the two genes,” said Ha. “The SNP assays that we have reported will empower soybean
breeders to efficiently incorporate root-knot resistance genes into new productive
cultivars.”
###
The Plant Genome (http://www.crops.org/genome/) is a peer-reviewed,
international journal of applied plant genomics research published four times
a year by the Crop Science Society of America.
The American Society of Agronomy (ASA) www.agronomy.org, the Crop Science Society
of America (CSSA) www.crops.org and the Soil
Science Society of America (SSSA) www.soils.org are educational organizations helping
their 10,000+ members advance the disciplines and practices of agronomy, crop
and soil sciences by supporting professional growth and science policy initiatives,
and by providing quality, research-based publications and a variety of member
services.
Contact: Sara Uttech
suttech@crops.org
Crop Science Society of America
Source: EurekAlert.org
15 July 2007
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1.22 New sunflower germplasm lines
resist fungal disease
Washington, DC
Three new germplasm lines are now available for breeding elite sunflower hybrids
that will resist downy mildew and produce oil rich in oleic fatty acid.
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and North Dakota Agricultural Experiment
Station (NDAES) scientists in Fargo jointly developed, tested and released
the new sunflower lines, dubbed HA 458, HA 459 and HA 460. Besides resistance
to the fungus Plasmopara halstedii, which causes downy mildew, the sunflower lines
are being released for their high levels of oleic fatty acid, which imparts desirable
flavor, frying characteristics and other traits to oil.
The downy mildew fungus attacks sunflowers as both seedlings and mature plants,
causing white cottony growths in the young plants, and large, clublike roots and
stunted growth in the older ones.
Until recently, sunflower growers kept mildew in check by planting seed treated
with metalaxyl, but the fungus has become resistant to this fungicide. Seed company
breeders scrambled to develop downy-mildew-resistant hybrids, making these new
germplasm releases invaluable. The emergence of virulent new downy mildew races--from
two before 2003 to 15 currently--has spurred the need for hybrids with new sources
of disease resistance, notes Tom Gulya. He's a plant pathologist in the ARS Sunflower
Research Unit (SRU) at Fargo.
Gulya assisted SRU geneticist Jerry Miller, now retired, in developing HA 458,
HA 459 and HA 460 by crossing elite sunflower lines with wild sunflowers collected
from Idaho and Texas by SRU botanist Gerald Seiler over the past 20 years. Jack
Rasmussen of NDAES collaborated with them.
In repeated field and greenhouse tests at Fargo, all three lines resisted the
most virulent races of downy mildew fungus found in North America. HA 458 and
HA 460 also withstood a French race not yet found in America. Oil extracted from
HA 458 and HA 459 averaged 86.5 percent and 87.3 percent oleic acid, respectively.
Oil from HA 460 had 88.8 percent oleic acid.
SRU research leader Brady Vick is filling seed requests.
ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.
August 3, 2007
Jan Suszkiw
jan.suszkiw@ars.usda.gov
Source: SeedQuest.com
3 August 2007
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1.23 Development of lines resistant to Blast through the use of rice
wild relative
(Dwinita W.U., I.Hanarida, A.D. Ambarwati, S. Moeljopawiro, Santosa, D. Tharreau,
J.B. Morel, J.L.Nottegheim. Laporan Penelitian RUTI, 2005-2007)
Oryza rufipogon is one of wild rice species that may be used as a source
of gene (s) in rice varietal improvement program. Backcross (BC5) and double haploid
populations had been developed from a cross between IR64 and O. rufipogon
in order to exploit the useful genes. These two populations were used
to map blast resistant genes and to develop durably resistant varieties.
This study has been conducted in collaboration with CIRAD with the following objectives:
(1) to identify resistance genes to blast, Pir4(t), originated from
O. rufipogon and Pir7(t) originated from IR64, on chromosome 2,
and (2) to evaluate the durable resistance of double haploid lines generated from
BC2F3 of IR64 x O. rufipogon to blast. Result
of the previous study indicated that Pir (4&7) was mapped in the position
between two Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) markers RM263-RM250, with the
distance of 28.5 cM (Utami et al, 2005). Fine map is to be established
to detect the exact position of the target genes. For this purpose, two lines
BC5 population, namely 317-25-1-6 and 317-25-1-3 were selected as lines with the
needed level of introgression for fine mapping and target gene identification.
In order to complement and to enhance candidate gene analysis at the target position
the insilico analysis was applied at the target fragment region peak between RM263-RM250
markers, which resulted in consecutive order 25 putative resistance genes in this
fragment region. These putative genes were further analyzed by sequencing the
bases of the selected genes above to design specific primer on the basis of TIGR
gene genome browser. These designed primers are Single Nucleotide Polymor-phism
(SNP) that has high polymorphism levels to be used to enhance fine mapping development
activities.
Result of the interval mapping analysis (CIM) (Figure 1) on BC5F2 population the
highest LOD value obtained was 17.1, while on the BC2F3 population was only 3.59.
GLM analysis result for the association test indicated significance between PiSNP4
primer, at 110.9 cM position and blast isolate ID31 having avr2 allele (CM28)
at avr gen locus, other ACE1 Primer is PiSNP7, with LOD value 7.3 which
is significant for ID9 blast isolate having avr1 (PH14) allele on avr gen ACE1
locus.
Gambar 1. Analisis interval mapping (CIM) Pir4 (introgresi dari O. rufipogon)
dan Pir7 (introgresi dari IR64) pada populasi silang balik lanjut BC5
dibandingkan dengan pada populasi silang balik ke-2 (BC2)
Result of progeny contrast test for the two target genes shown in Figure
2. IR64 resistant to ID9 (PH14) blast isolate but recessive to ID31 (CM28)
isolate. Whereas O. rufipogon resistant to ID31 isolate but recessive
to ID9 isolate. On the basis of introgression analysis on BC5F2 progenies
it was indicated that NIL 317-25-1-6 that has the introgression of IR 64 at the
Pir7 position resistant to ID9 isolate. While NIL 317-25-1-3 that has the
introgression of O. rufipogon at the Pir4 position resistant to ID31 isolate.
Resistance of these two lines derived from BC5 population similar to that of their
parents, IR64 and O. rufipogon.
Until now the identification of Pir4 and Pir7 genes on the basis
nucleotide sequence for detecting the presence of insertion or deletion is still
underway.
Editor’s note: This article was extracted from a poster sent by the first author.
For a complete copy of the poster, including figures, please contact Dr Utami,
below.
Contributed by Dwinita Utami
Indonesian Center for Agricultural Biotechnology and Genetic Resources Research
dnitawu@hotmail.com
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1.24 Researcher develops tomato with resistance to grey mould
New tomato varieties resistant to grey mould (Botrytis cinerea) will
be coming soon, thanks to the work of Richard Finkers, a doctorate student from
Wangenin University. Finkers started off by crossing the grey mould-resistant
wild tomato Solanum habrochaites LYC4 with the susceptible S. lycopersicum
cv. Moneymaker, and identifying two areas with resistant genes in the DNA.
Through DNA-marker technology, Finkers was able to track the presence of resistance
factors in tomato plants. The leading company De Ruiter Seeds is already applying
these methods in its breeding program.
Read the news release at http://www.nwo.nl/nwohome.nsf/pages/NWOA_6ZPA4C_Eng.
Source: CropBiotech Update 20 April 2007:
Contributed by Margaret E. Smith
Dept. of Plant Breeding & Genetics
Cornell University
mes25@cornell.edu
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1.25 Indonesia develops new rice varieties to fight bacterial blight
Bacterial blight (BB) disease of rice is caused by Xanthomonas oryzae.
It is one of the most important diseases of rice in most of the rice growing countries.
The Indonesian Agricultural Biotechnology and Genetic Resources Research Institute
in collaboration with the Indonesian Institute for Rice Research, the West Java
Assessment Institute for Agricultural Technology and the Agricultural Office of
Cianjur have developed by conventional breeding methods new rice varieties with
improved tolerance to BB, the Angke and Code varieties.
"With the using of superior varieties as Angke and Code, Indonesia will
have a big opportunity to increase the national rice production and also meet
the government target for rice self sufficiency," said Dr. Sutrisno, Head of Indonesian
Agricultural Biotechnology and Genetic Resources Research Institute.
Visit http://www.litbang.deptan.go.id/berita/one/463/
or contact Elfa Hermawan at l4hermawan@yahoo.com for more information.
From CropBiotech Update 11 May 2007:
Contributed by Margaret E. Smith
Dept. of Plant Breeding & Genetics
Cornell University
mes25@cornell.edu
(Return to Contents)
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1.26 Breeding plants to produce industrial oils
Washington, DC
Plants do the most amazing things. They're a steady source of life-sustaining
oxygen, food, fiber for clothing and, increasingly, renewable fuels.
As if that weren't enough, scientists with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS)
are also eyeing these leafy dynamos as a virtual spring of never-before-seen oils
that could someday rival petroleum in industrial uses and even stave off heart
disease.
Plants are already tapped for a variety of useful oils--think of the shimmering
liquids pressed from canola, corn and olives--but most of them are destined for
the skillet or dinner plate.
However, an even greater potential for oilseed crops, according to John Dyer--who
works at the agency's Southern Regional Research Center (SRRC) in New Orleans,
La.--resides in their capacity to pump out unusual fatty acids that have valuable
chemical, industrial and nutritional properties. Fish-oil-type fatty acids derived
from plants, for instance, could benefit the heart, brain and eyes.
Dyer, a chemist, and Jay Shockey, a plant geneticist who also works at the SRRC,
are getting inspiration from tung trees for how plants could be coaxed into churning
out such impressive oils.
Tung trees, which used to be cultivated in great plantations along the U.S. Gulf
Coast, produce eleostearic acid, an unusual fatty acid with applications ranging
from furniture finish to computer chip production. The trees' major shortcomings?
They're slow to grow and vulnerable to hurricanes.
Similar limitations apply to other currently grown oilseed crops. With traditional
breeding alone, it's almost impossible to raise crops that will manufacture abundant
amounts of unusual fatty acids.
That's why Dyer and Shockey are looking to engineer plants that will practically
gush forth unique fatty acids, such as eleostearic acid. They recently discovered
that a gene involved in the production of the important enzyme DGAT2--short for
diacylglycerol acyltransferase type-2--may well be the "magic bullet" for boosting
plants' oil-oozing abilities.
Read more about the research in the August 2007 issue of Agricultural Research
magazine, available online at:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/aug07/tung0807.htm
ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.
Erin Peabody
erin.peabody@ars.usda.gov
Source: SeedQuest.com
2 August 2007
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1.27 Follow-up on banana hybrids
A Bioversity-sponsored scientist, Beloved Mensah Dzomeku of the Crops Research
Institute in Ghana, will be studying the impact of new banana hybrids to banana
farmers in Africa. The so-called FHIA hybrids were produced by the Honduran Foundation
for Agricultural Research. The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture
(IITA) and the African Center for Research on Bananas and Plantains (CARBAP) have
also released new hybrids bred for disease resistance. Dzomeku and his collaborators
will visit selected households that received IITA, CARBAP and FHIA hybrids to
determine the extent to which the technologies have been adopted and have spread.
They also plan to assess the impact of these technologies on banana yields, farm
income, food security, and social dynamics.
Read the press release at http://news.bioversityinternational.org/index.php?itemid=1782.
From CropBiotech Update 25 May 2007:
Contributed by Margaret E. Smith
Dept. of Plant Breeding & Genetics
Cornell University
mes25@cornell.edu
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1.28 Rapid evolution of defense genes in plants may produce hybrid
incompatibility
How one species becomes two: Molecular mechanisms of speciation in plants
One of the basic tenets of evolution is speciation in which populations of
the same species become so genetically and morphologically variable that they
can be classified as two different species. Individuals of these species may be
capable of mating, but they may not produce offspring, and if offspring are produced,
they will be sterile or so defective that they die before they are able to reproduce.
Although speciation has been observed and studied since Darwin and Wallace first
proposed their theory, the complex molecular mechanisms responsible are not yet
fully known. One of these molecular mechanisms, hybrid necrosis, was studied by
Dr. Detlef Weigel and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental
Biology in Germany. Dr. Kirsten Bomblies will present their results at the President’s
symposium at the annual meeting of the American Society of Plant Biologists (July
11, 2PM). Bomblies and Weigel observed hybrid necrosis in crosses of thale cress,
Arabidopsis thaliana, a member of the mustard family, and found that it is associated
with plant genes that respond to pathogen attack.
Plants must frequently cope with environmental stresses such as heat, cold, high
acidity or salinity, or attack by pathogens such as viruses or insect predators.
Such stresses mobilize defense genes that initiate physiological responses that
help the plants to survive. One such response is programmed cell death, which
occurs in response to invasion by viruses or bacteria. The cells invaded by the
pathogens are quickly marked by the plant for death so that the microbe cannot
use them to replicate and spread to the rest of the plant. These types of genes
have been shown to evolve rapidly, giving plants the capability to adapt to changing
conditions and pathogens. Bomblies and Weigel found that the same type of gene
is involved in hybrid incompatibility in Arabidopsis. Because these genes evolve
so rapidly, there are likely to be different forms present in the population,
and when two of these are joined in a hybrid, they can cause fatal defects in
the hybrid offspring.
A biological species is defined as a population of individuals that can interbreed
among each other freely, but not with members of other species. What finally establishes
two populations as different species is that gene flow between them stops. However,
this does not happen suddenly. Rather, it is a gradual process in which one barrier
after another is raised between two species, including inviable embryos and defective
and sterile adults, as well as genetic incompatibilities that prevent even the
formation of an embryo. The hybrid incompatibility identified by Bomblies and
Weigel is an example of the kind of genetic incompatibility that can result in
speciation.
Because plant reproduction often requires an outside agent like a pollinator or
the wind, which spreads pollen far from the parent plant, the offspring can be
hybrids between parents from two different populations or even from two different
although closely related species. Such hybrid offspring can be successful but
may also be prevented or defective because some of the parents’ genes are not
compatible. In their survey of 900 first generation hybrid offspring among 293
strains of thale cress, Bomblies and Detlef found that 2% of the offspring were
severely defective. They call this phenomenon “hybrid necrosis” or “hybrid weakness,”
and identified the gene responsible for the incompatibility as a disease resistance
gene that has different forms in the two parents.
Some of the molecular mechanisms that prevent hybridization between species are
well-known in both animals and plants. There are a number of gene flow barriers
in plants that are similar to those of animalsamong them are ecological factors
such as reproductive season, morphological differences, and hybrid sterility.
However, hybrid necrosis produced by autoimmune responses due to pathogen resistance
genes has not been observed in animals and may represent a molecular pathway to
speciation unique to plants. Knowledge of these mechanisms is important not only
in the study of the evolutionary history of plants but can also provide tools
for ensuring the safety of genetically engineered crops. If incompatibility genes
can be bred into a GE crop, it might be possible to prevent the formation of superweeds
and to lessen the probability that harmful genes can be spread to other species.
Contact: Brian Hyps
bhyps@aspb.org
American Society of Plant Biologists
Source: EurekAlert.org
8 July 2007
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1.29 MSU researchers JAZ (zed) about plant resistance discovery
EAST LANSING, Mich. The mystery of how a major plant hormone works to
defend plants against invaders has been revealed, thanks to collaborative research
efforts by Michigan State University and Washington State University.
While scientists have known for years that a common plant hormone, jasmonate,
plays a crucial role in plant development and function, the steps that convert
the hormone’s signal into genetic and cellular action have remained elusive. MSU
scientists Sheng Yang He and Gregg Howe were part of two back-to-back discoveries
that solved the mystery, described in the July 18 online issue of the journal
Nature.
Jasmonate is the last major plant hormone to have its signaling process revealed.
Initial research by WSU researchers identified the family of proteins – dubbed
JAZ proteins – that are critical to plants receiving and responding to the jasmonate
signal.
“In a healthy environment, these JAZ proteins are doing their job – they’re blocking
all the defenses and signals, because they are not needed,” said Howe, an MSU
professor of biochemistry and molecular biology. “But when a plant becomes stressed
by an insect or pathogen, the plant needs to respond very quickly if it’s going
to be successful in warding off the attacker.”
Independent of the WSU work, Howe and He used Arabidopsis, a common lab plant,
and tomato plants to determine how the JAZ proteins work. Their experiments showed
that the jasmonate signal causes direct interaction between JAZ proteins and a
second protein complex, SCFCOI1, that works to eliminate the JAZ protein
so that the plant can mount a defense response.
Based on the research findings, there is strong evidence to suggest that Howe
and He might have identified the SCFCOI1 protein complex as the receptor
for jasmonate.
“We found that when jasmonate is present the COI1 and JAZ proteins bind together,”
said He, an MSU professor of plant biology, plant pathology, and microbiology
and molecular genetics. “This opens the way for the plant to turn on the necessary
genetic or cellular response.”
As part of their research, Howe and He have proposed a model for how this interaction
works.
“Now that we know what the active signals are and have identified the key regulatory
proteins – the JAZ proteins – involved, the hope is to either genetically modify
plants or develop compounds that mimic the jasmonate hormone,” Howe said. “The
research may help scientists engineer plants for increased resistance to insects
and pathogens.”
Researchers at both universities will continue to work on other critical aspects
of this research.
“Understanding how the jasmonate system works will shed light on all the processes
in which the hormone is involved, notably plant reproduction and defense,” said
John Browse, head of the WSU Institute of Biological Chemistry research team.
“This study represents a significant advance in our understanding of a major plant
hormone and how it works,” He said. “We are excited to be part of this collaborative
effort and look forward to extending the understanding and application of this
important work.”
The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department
of Energy and supported by the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station.
A copy of the Nature article is available at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/index.html.
###
Michigan State University has been advancing knowledge and transforming lives
through innovative teaching, research and outreach for more than 150 years. MSU
is known internationally as a major public university with global reach and extraordinary
impact. Its 17 degree-granting colleges attract scholars worldwide who are interested
in combining education with practical problem solving.
Contacts: Sheng Yang He, MSU-Department of Energy Plant Research Laboratory: hes@msu.edu;
Gregg Howe, MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory, howeg@msu.edu;
or Val Osowski, Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, osowskiv@anr.msu.edu
Source: EurekAlert.org
20 July 2007
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1.30 In evolutionary arms race, a bacterium is found that outwits
tomato plant's defenses, Cornell study finds
Ithaca, New York
By Krishna Ramanujan
An arms race is under way in the plant world. It is an evolutionary battle in
which plants are trying to beef up their defenses against the innovative strategies
of pathogens. The latest example of this war is a bacterium (Pseudomonas syringae)
that infects tomatoes by injecting a special protein into the plant's cells to
undermine the plant's defense system.
"Plant breeders often find that five or six years after their release, resistant
plant varieties become susceptible because pathogens can evolve very quickly to
overcome plant defenses," said Gregory Martin, Cornell University professor of plant pathology,
a scientist at the Boyce
Thompson Institute for Plant Research (BTI) on the Cornell campus and the
senior author of the research paper, published in the July 19 issue of the journal
Nature. "However, every now and then, breeders develop a plant variety that stays
resistant for 20 years or more."
Understanding why some varieties have more durable disease resistance is important
to the development of more sustainable agricultural practices, he said.
The study by Cornell and BTI scientists describes how a single bacterial protein,
AvrPtoB, which is injected by P. syringae into plant cells through a kind of molecular
syringe, can overcome the plant's resistance. Normally, the plant's defense system
looks out for such pathogens and, if detected, mounts an immune response to stave
off disease. As part of this surveillance system, tomatoes carry a protein in
their cells called Fen that helps detect P. syringae and trigger an immune response.
But some strains of P. syringae have evolved the AvrPtoB protein that mimics a
tomato enzyme known as an E3 ubiquitin ligase, which tags proteins to be destroyed.
Once injected, AvrPtoB binds the Fen protein, and the plant's own system eliminates
it, allowing the bacteria to avoid detection and cause disease.
"This paper explains how a pathogen can evolve to escape detection," said lead
author Tracy Rosebrock, a graduate student in Cornell's Department of Plant Pathology
and BTI. "The bacterium has one specific protein that it uses to turn off the
plant's immunity."
The researchers found that the Fen gene is present in both cultivated tomatoes
and many wild tomato species, leading them to believe that the gene is likely
ancient in origin and that many members of the tomato family have used it to resist
P. syringae infections over the years. Since the Fen protein still detects AvrPtoB-like
proteins from some strains of P. syringae, prompting an effective immune response,
the researchers believe new P. syringae strains have only recently evolved a version
of AvrPtoB that includes an E3 ubiquitin ligase enzyme that interferes with the
plant's surveillance.
"This paper provides molecular data that supports the evolutionary 'arms race'
theory" that as pathogens develop new ways to spread and attack organisms, the
organisms in turn create novel defenses, each in a continuous battle to outdo
the other, said Rosebrock.
The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science
Foundation and the Triad Foundation, a private charitable trust.
Source: SeedQuest.com
20 July 2007
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1.31 Plants and stress -- key players
on the thin line between life and death revealed
Louvain, Belgium
Our crops are not doing well these days: too much water, too little sunlight...
In short, they are suffering from stress. Scientists from VIB, associated with
the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (K.U.Leuven), have revealed a new mechanism
demonstrating the intricate ways in which plants deal with stress. The newly discovered
control system has a remarkable way of orchestrating the activity of hundreds
of genes, forcing the plant into ‘safety mode’; the consumption of energy is contained
while the organism is stimulated to mobilize reserves. This may have a negative
impact on growth, but it allows the plant to temporarily safeguard itself against
pernicious stress conditions. These findings also may prove to be useful beyond
the case of plants, for the results are likely to be valuable in understanding
disorders such as cancer and diabetes.
Life thanks to plants
Plants catch sunlight and use it as an energy source to produce sugars from CO2
and water. In doing so, they are at the very basis of the food chain. Ultimately,
all life on earth depends upon this biochemical process: photosynthesis. Without
plants, life as we know it today would simply not be possible. But what if things
go wrong" When there is too little sunlight, for example" And what with other
stressful conditions for plants" Environmental changes can compromise photosynthesis
and exhaust energy supplies.
Plants control their own energy balance
Fortunately, plants have developed different mechanisms to detect and cope with
'stress’. Together with his American colleagues at Harvard Medical School (Boston,
USA), VIB scientist Filip Rolland, associated with the Katholieke Universiteit
Leuven, is uncovering a new system of detection and control. It is driven by KIN10
and KIN11. These ‘kinases’ – which are also found in human beings – react to energy
shortages, when, for example, there is too little sunlight or too little sugar
production. They control the activity of a broad network of genes, promoting the
release of energy (catabolism) from alternative sources and blocking its assimilation
(anabolism). In this way, the plant protects itself against stress conditions;
like a really bad summer.
The key players: KIN10 & KIN11
The model organism for this study was Arabidopsis thaliana or thale cress. For
decades, this small weed has been used as a model in molecular and genetic plant
research. The scientists have tested numerous stress conditions that affect photosynthesis
and energy production, such as darkness, herbicide treatment and flooding (lack
of oxygen). By overexpressing the KIN10 gene, causing the plant to produce more
of this protein, stress tolerance is increased and plants survive longer. By switching
off these genes, their control function is eliminated.
With this research, the Flemish and American scientists have succeeded for the
first time in attributing KIN10 and KIN11 a key role in the control of the plant
energy budget and metabolism and thus the fragile balance between growth and survival;
in short, the choice between life and death.
Are humans similar to plants?
The new insights gained by this study are not limited to the functioning of plants;
they may also be important for human beings. KIN10 and KIN11, as ’fuel gauges’
controlling the expression of a whole set of genes, are also found in mammals.
The results with plants, therefore, may play a pioneering role in discovering
new functions of these proteins in disorders such as diabetes, cancer, obesity,
and aging.
Contact: Ann Van Gysel
ann.vangysel@vib.be
VIB, Flanders Interuniversity Institute of Biotechnology
Source: EurekAlert.org
1 August 2007
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1.32 Towards the identification of photoperiod genes in cotton
Induced mutations can be used to produce cotton without day-length sensitivity.
This technique can allow wild and primitive cotton germplasm to be fully utilized
in improvement programs. Most of the cotton exotic germplasm are photoperiod-sensitive
that does not flower in long-day conditions of summer cultivations.
A group of researchers from the United States and Uzbekistan have presented conversion
studies in cotton that turned photoperiod sensitive germplasm into day-neutral
(where flowering is not affected by day-length). The researchers used 32P irradiation
to derive the cotton mutants. The mutants were subsequently examined by using
250 microsatellite (SSR) primer pairs to determine patterns of mutation in the
SSR loci.
It was found out that the induced mutagenesis both increased and decreased the
allele sizes of SSRs in mutants with the higher mutation rate in SSRs containing
dinucleotide motifs. The researchers have also determined that there was significant
modification of mutants from their original wild types, with most mutants having
improved agronomic qualities. The results may be useful in understanding photoperiod-related
mutations, and can aid in the identification of photoperiodic flowering genes
in cotton in the future.
For the complete paper published by the Journal of Heredity, please visit http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/esm007v1.
Source: CropBiotech Update 20 April 2007:
Contributed by Margaret E. Smith
Dept. of Plant Breeding & Genetics
Cornell University
mes25@cornell.edu
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1.33 How to boost recovery of fertile
doubled-haploid onions
Three strategies were described by Cornell University researchers to help
maximize the recovery of fertile doubled-haploid (DH) onions and meet the needs
of breeding programs for a large number of plants.
The strategies include 1) the use of whole basal explants from haploid plants
treated with the anti-mitotic agents amiprofos methyl (APM) or oryzalin, (2) spontaneous
and induced chromosome doubling in somatic regenerants from cultured flower buds,
and (3) ploidy reduction through a second cycle of gynogenesis. Gynogenesis is
development in which the embryo contains only maternal chromosomes.
Onion breeders may benefit from these strategies by being able to recover diploid
plants and minimizing losses of gynogenic plants due to ploidy-related complications.
The researchers further recommend the application of 100 to 150 mM APM to whole
basal explants is an excellent initial step toward recovery of DH materials.
The paper published in Plant Science can be accessed by subscribers at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.plantsci.2007.03.010.
From CropBiotech Update 22 June 2007:
Contributed by Margaret E. Smith
Dept. of Plant Breeding & Genetics
Cornell University
mes25@cornell.edu
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1.34 Selected articles from Update 7-2007 of FAO-BiotechNews
*** NEWS *** (
http://www.fao.org/biotech/news_list.asp?thexpand=1&cat=131)
1) FAO biotechnology activities and documents
Two main sections of the FAO biotechnology website have recently been updated.
The first, on FAO Activities, includes an introductory webpage on FAO activities
in the field of biotechnology as well as one webpage each for its four main activities
i.e. providing i) advice to governments ii) technical assistance iii) information
and iv) a meeting place for nations. The second, on FAO Documents, provides an
annotated list of freely-downloadable documents and now includes over 160 web
links to a wide range of articles, books, meeting reports, proceedings and studies
published by FAO, or prepared in collaboration with FAO, over the last 10 years
concerning biotechnology in food and agriculture. See http://www.fao.org/biotech/act.asp
and http://www.fao.org/biotech/doc.asp
respectively (in Arabic, Chinese, English, French and Spanish) or contact biotech-website@fao.org
with any comments.
3) Benefits and limits of marker-assisted selection
In conjunction with the publication of the new FAO book on "Marker-assisted
selection: Current status and future perspectives in crops, livestock, forestry
and fish", the FAO Newsroom has just released a web interview with Shivaji Pandey,
Chairperson of FAO's Working Group on Biotechnology, on marker-assisted selection
entitled "Benefits and limits of an important biotech tool". The interview can
be read at http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2007/1000630/index.html
or can be received by e-mail from Charlotte.Lietaer@fao.org.
5) FAO/IAEA Plant Breeding and Genetics Newsletter 19
The July 2007 newsletter from the Plant Breeding and Genetics Section of the
Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture and the
FAO/IAEA Agriculture and Biotechnology Laboratory is now available. This 52-page
newsletter, issued twice a year, gives an overview of their past and upcoming
events (meetings, training courses etc.), ongoing projects and publications. The
editorial discusses the use of induced mutations in crop improvement. See http://www-naweb.iaea.org/nafa/pbg/public/pb-nl-19.pdf
(2.2 MB) or contact k.allaf@iaea.org to request a copy.
7) Green revolution to gene revolution - Conference proceedings
On 27-31 May 2003, an international conference entitled "In the wake of the
double helix: From the green revolution to the gene revolution" took place in
Bologna, Italy, co-sponsored by FAO. Proceedings of the conference, edited by
R. Tuberosa, R.L. Phillips and M. Gal