The Global Partnership Initiative for Plant Breeding
Capacity Building (GIPB) brings you:
PLANT BREEDING NEWS
EDITION 189
14 April 2008
An Electronic Newsletter of Applied Plant Breeding
Clair H. Hershey, Editor
chh23@cornell.edu
Sponsored by FAO/AGPC and Cornell University,
Dept. of Plant Breeding and Genetics
Archived issues available at: FAO Plant Breeding
Newsletter.
See Instructions for Submitting Newsletter Items
1. NEWS, ANNOUNCEMENTS AND RESEARCH NOTES
1.01 New limits to growth revive
Malthusian fears
1.02 Rising food prices: what should be done? - An IFPRI
policy brief
1.03 Chinese biofuel 'could endanger biodiversity'
1.04 Let's focus on solutions to the rice price crisis
1.05 South Asian nations
team up for food security
1.06 Wania Fukuda, Embrapa cassava breeder, wins Brazil’s
prestigious Frederico de Menezes Veiga prize
1.07 GIPB Knowledge Resource Center releases
online Plant Breeding and Related Biotechnology Capacity Assessment (PBBC)
database
1.08 African branch of rice initiative launched
1.09 North Africa to
develop drought-resistant barley
1.10 Tanzania to develop drought tolerant maize
1.11 French bean breeding
in Kenya
1.12 China to launch large research programme on GM crops
1.13 ICRISAT launches Center of Excellence
in Genomics and Bio-Food Knowledge Center
1.14 New maize and new
friendships to beat Thai drought
1.15 Philippine Rice Research Institute pushes high-yielding rice
varieties to raise production
1.16 Long-term goal of public-private
partnership is to reduce crop failure, alleviate hunger and poverty
1.17 Developing field pea varieties with
resistance to black spot caused by Mycosphaerella pinodes
1.18 Looming threat to
plant breeding future in Canada
1.19 Cornell University to lead broad global partnership to combat
wheat rust disease and protect resource-poor farmers
1.20 Less can be more,
for plant breeders too
1.21 Wild barley can help improve cultivated varieties
1.22 Preserving a unique
collection of Carolina collards
1.23 Corn's roots dig deeper into South
America
1.24 Scientists develop transgenic
tomatoes with increased resistance to the common cutworm
1.25 NC State researchers
identify genes key to hormone production in plants
1.26 Cellular mechanism that controls
salt tolerance has been found in the arabidopsis plant
1.27 Useful sources of resistance to white
rust disease, caused by Albugo candida, identified in Brassica juncea
germplasm from Australia, China and India
1.28 New method 'prevents
spread of GM plants'
1.29 Soy scientists to fill "library" with genetic bookmarks
1.30 DuPont donates sequences from corn disease agent to advance research
1.31 UD researchers
discover novel 'gene toggles' in world’s top food crop
1.32 Automating the search for new genes
in the wheat genome
1.33 Barley genome
sequencing expected to complete by 2012
2. PUBLICATIONS
2.01 Report from the 8th annual congress of the African
Seed Trade Association (AFSTA)
2.02 Seed orchards: Proceedings from a conference at Umeå,
Sweden, September 26-28, 2007
2.03 Plant Genotyping II: SNP Technology
3. WEB RESOURCES
(None submitted)
4 GRANTS AVAILABLE
4.01 OECD Travel Fellowships
4.02 Higher Education Multicultural Scholars
Program Grants (CREES, USDA)
5 POSITION ANNOUNCEMENTS
5.01 Senior Research Associate, Durable
Rust Resistance in Wheat Project, Cornell University
5.02 Plant Molecular Biologist, University
of Idaho
6 MEETINGS, COURSES AND WORKSHOPS
7 EDITOR'S NOTES
=========================
1. NEWS, ANNOUNCEMENTS AND RESEARCH NOTES
1.01 New limits to growth revive Malthusian
fears
Spread of Prosperity Brings Supply Woes; Slaking China's Thirst
(See Corrections & Amplifications item below.)
Now and then across the centuries, powerful voices have warned that human
activity would overwhelm the earth's resources. The Cassandras always proved wrong.
Each time, there were new resources to discover, new technologies to propel growth.
Today the old fears are back.
Although a Malthusian catastrophe is not at hand, the resource constraints foreseen
by the Club of Rome are more evident today than at any time since the 1972 publication
of the think tank's famous book, "The Limits of Growth." Steady increases in the
prices for oil, ñwheat, copper and other commodities -- some of which have set
record highs this month -- are signs of a lasting shift in demand as yet unmatched
by rising supply.
As the world grows more populous -- the United Nations projects eight billion
people by 2025, up from 6.6 billion today -- it also is growing more prosperous.
The average person is consuming more food, water, metal and power. Growing numbers
of China's 1.3 billion people and India's 1.1 billion are stepping up to the middle
class, adopting the high-protein diets, gasoline-fueled transport and electric
gadgets that developed nations enjoy.
The result is that demand for resources has soared. If supplies don't keep pace,
prices are likely to climb further, economic growth in rich and poor nations alike
could suffer, and some fear violent conflicts could ensue.
Some of the resources now in great demand have no substitutes. In the 18th century,
England responded to dwindling timber supplies by shifting to abundant coal. But
there can be no such replacement for arable land and fresh water.
The need to curb global warming limits the usefulness of some resources -- coal,
for one, which emits greenhouse gases that most scientists say contribute to climate
change. Soaring food consumption stresses the existing stock of arable land and
fresh water.
"We're living in an era where the technologies that have empowered high living
standards and 80-year life expectancies in the rich world are now for almost everybody,"
says economist Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute,
which focuses on sustainable development with an emphasis on the world's poor.
"What this means is that not only do we have a very large amount of economic activity
right now, but we have pent-up potential for vast increases [in economic activity]
as well." The world cannot sustain that level of growth, he contends, without
new technologies.
Americans already are grappling with higher energy and food prices. Although crude
prices have dropped in recent days, there's a growing consensus among policy makers
and industry executives that this isn't just a temporary surge in prices. Some
of these experts, but not all of them, foresee a long-term upward shift in prices
for oil and other commodities.
Today's dire predictions could prove just as misguided as yesteryear's.
"Clearly we'll have more and more problems, as more and more [people] are going
to be richer and richer, using more and more stuff," says Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish
statistician who argues that the global-warming problem is overblown. "But smartness
will outweigh the extra resource use."
Some constraints might disappear with greater global cooperation. Where some countries
face scarcity, others have bountiful supplies of resources. New seed varieties
and better irrigation techniques could open up arid regions to cultivation that
today are only suitable as hardscrabble pasture; technological breakthroughs,
like cheaper desalination or efficient ways to transmit electricity from unpopulated
areas rich with sunlight or wind, could brighten the outlook.
In the past, economic forces spurred solutions. Scarcity of resource led to higher
prices, and higher prices eventually led to conservation and innovation. Whale
oil was a popular source of lighting in the 19th century. Prices soared in the
middle of the century, and people sought other ways to fuel lamps. In 1846, Abraham
Gesner began developing kerosene, a cleaner-burning alternative. By the end of
the century, whale oil cost less than it did in 1831.
A similar pattern could unfold again. But economic forces alone may not be able
to fix the problems this time around. Societies as different as the U.S. and China
face stiff political resistance to boosting water prices to encourage efficient
use, particularly from farmers. When resources such as water are shared across
borders, establishing a pricing framework can be thorny. And in many developing
nations, food-subsidy programs make it less likely that rising prices will spur
change.
This troubles some economists who used to be skeptical of the premise of "The
Limits to Growth." As a young economist 30 years ago, Joseph Stiglitz said flatly:
"There is not a persuasive case to be made that we face a problem from the exhaustion
of our resources in the short or medium run."
Today, the Nobel laureate is concerned that oil is underpriced relative to the
cost of carbon emissions, and that key resources such as water are often provided
free. "In the absence of market signals, there's no way the market will solve
these problems," he says. "How do we make people who have gotten something for
free start paying for it? That's really hard. If our patterns of living, our patterns
of consumption are imitated, as others are striving to do, the world probably
is not viable."
Dennis Meadows, one of the authors of "The Limits to Growth," says the book was
too optimistic in one respect. The authors assumed that if humans stopped harming
the environment, it would recover slowly. Today, he says, some climate-change
models suggest that once tipping points are passed, environmental catastrophe
may be inevitable even "if you quit damaging the environment."
One danger is that governments, rather than searching for global solutions to
resource constraints, will concentrate on grabbing share.
China has been funding development in Africa, a move some U.S. officials see as
a way for it to gain access to timber, oil and other resources. India, once a
staunch supporter of the democracy movement in military-run Myanmar, has inked
trade agreements with the natural-resource rich country. The U.S., European Union,
Russia and China are all vying for the favor of natural-gas-abundant countries
in politically unstable Central Asia.
Competition for resources can get ugly. A record drought in the Southeast intensified
a dispute between Alabama, Georgia and Florida over water from a federal reservoir
outside Atlanta. A long-running fight over rights to the Cauvery River between
the Indian states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu led to 25 deaths in 1991.
Economists Edward Miguel of the University of California at Berkeley and Shanker
Satyanath and Ernest Sergenti of New York University have found that declines
in rainfall are associated with civil conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. Sierra Leone,
for example, which saw a sharp drop in rainfall in 1990, plunged into civil war
in 1991.
A Car for Every Household
The rise of China and India already has changed the world economy in lasting ways,
from the flows of global capital to the location of manufacturing. But they remain
poor societies with growing appetites.
Nagpur in central India once was known as one of the greenest metropolises in
the country. Over the past decade, Nagpur, now one of at least 40 Indian cities
with more than a million people, has grown to roughly 2.5 million from 1.7 million.
Local roads have turned into a mess of honking cars, motorbikes and wandering
livestock under a thick soup of foul air.
"Sometimes if I see something I like, I just buy it," says Sapan Gajbe, 32 years
old, a dentist shopping for an air conditioner at Nagpur's Big Bazaar mall. A
month earlier, he bought his first car, a $9,000 Maruti Zen compact.
In 2005, China had 15 passenger cars for every 1,000 people, close to the 13 cars
per 1,000 that Japan had in 1963. Today, Japan has 447 passenger cars per 1,000
residents, 57 million in all. If China ever reaches that point, it would have
572 million cars -- 70 million shy of the number of cars in the entire world today.
China consumes 7.9 million barrels of oil a day. The U.S., with less than one
quarter as many people, consumes 20.7 million barrels. "Demand will be going up,
but it will be constrained by supply," ConocoPhillips Chief Executive Officer
James Mulva has told analysts. "I don't think we are going to see the supply going
over 100 million barrels a day, and the reason is: Where is all that going to
come from?"
Says Harvard economist Jeffrey Frankel: "The idea that we might have to move on
to other sources of energy -- you don't have to buy into the Club of Rome agenda
for that." The world can adjust to dwindling oil production by becoming more energy
efficient and by moving to nuclear, wind and solar power, he says, although such
transitions can be slow and costly.
Global Thirst
There are no substitutes for water, no easy alternatives to simple conservation.
Despite advances, desalination remains costly and energy intensive. Throughout
the world, water is often priced too low. Farmers, the biggest users, pay less
than others, if they pay at all.
In California, the subsidized rates for farmers have become a contentious political
issue. Chinese farmers receive water at next to no cost, accounting for 65% of
all water used in the country.
In Pondhe, an Indian village of about 1,000 on a barren plateau east of Mumbai,
water wasn't a problem until the 1970s, when farmers began using diesel-powered
pumps to transport water farther and faster. Local wells used to overflow during
the monsoon season, recalls Vasantrao Wagle, who has farmed in the area for four
decades. Today, they top off about 10 feet below the surface, and drop even lower
during the dry season. "Even when it rains a lot, we aren't getting enough water,"
he says.
Parched northern China has been drawing down groundwater supplies. In Beijing,
water tables have dropped hundreds of feet. In nearby Hebei province, once large
Baiyangdian Lake has shrunk, and survives mainly because the government has diverted
water into it from the Yellow River.
Climate change is likely to intensify water woes. Shifting weather patterns will
be felt "most strongly through changes in the distribution of water around the
world and its seasonal and annual variability," according to the British government
report on global warming led by Nicholas Stern. Water shortages could be severe
in parts Africa, the Middle East, southern Europe and Latin America, the report
said.
Feeding the Hungry
China's farmers need water because China needs food. Production of rice, wheat
and corn topped out at 441.4 million tons in 1998 and hasn't hit that level since.
Sea water has leaked into depleted aquifers in the north, threatening to turn
land barren. Illegal seizures of farmland by developers are widespread. The government
last year declared that it would not permit arable land to drop below 120 million
hectares (296 million acres), and said it would beef up enforcement of land-use
rules.
The farmland squeeze is forcing difficult choices. After disastrous floods in
1998, China started paying some farmers to abandon marginal farmland and plant
trees. That "grain-to-green" program was intended to reverse the deforestation
and erosion that exacerbated the floods. Last August, the government stopped expanding
the program, citing the need for farmland and the cost.
A growing taste for meat and other higher-protein food in the developing world
is boosting demand and prices for feed grains. "There are literally hundreds of
millions of people...who are making the shift to protein, and competition for
food world-wide is a new reality," says William Doyle, chief executive officer
of fertilizer-maker Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan.
It takes nearly 10 pounds of grain to produce one pound of pork -- the staple
meat in China -- and more than double that to produce a pound of beef, according
to Vaclav Smil, a University of Manitoba geographer who studies food, energy and
environment trends. The number of calories in the Chinese diet from meat and other
animal products has more than doubled since 1990, according to the U.N. Food and
Agriculture Organization. But China still lags Taiwan when it comes to per-capita
pork consumption. Matching Taiwan would increase China's annual pork consumption
by 11 billion pounds -- as much pork as Americans eat in six or seven months.
Searching for Solutions
The 1972 warnings by the Club of Rome -- a nongovernmental think tank now based
in Hamburg that brings together academics, business executives, civil servants
and politicians to grapple with a wide range of global issues -- struck a chord
because they came as oil prices were rising sharply. Oil production in the continental
U.S. had peaked, sparking fears that energy demand had outstripped supply. Over
time, America became more energy efficient, overseas oil production rose and prices
fell.
The dynamic today appears different. So far, the oil industry has failed to find
major new sources of crude. Absent major finds, prices are likely to keep rising,
unless consumers cut back. Taxes are one way to curb their appetites. In Western
Europe and Japan, for example, where gas taxes are higher than in the U.S., per
capita consumption is much lower.
New technology could help ease the resource crunch. Advances in agriculture, desalination
and the clean production of electricity, among other things, would help.
But Mr. Stiglitz, the economist, contends that consumers eventually will have
to change their behavior even more than then did after the 1970s oil shock. He
says the world's traditional definitions and measures of economic progress --
based on producing and consuming ever more -- may have to be rethought.
In years past, the U.S., Europe and Japan have proven adept at adjusting to resource
constraints. But history is littered with examples of societies believed to have
suffered Malthusian crises: the Mayans of Central America, the Anasazi of the
U.S. Southwest, and the people of Easter Island.
Those societies, of course, lacked modern science and technology. Still, their
inability to overcome resource challenges demonstrates the perils of blithely
believing things will work out, says economist James Brander at the University
of British Columbia, who has studied Easter Island.
"We need to look seriously at the numbers and say: Look, given what we're consuming
now, given what we know about economic incentives, given what we know about price
signals, what is actually plausible?" says Mr. Brander.
Indeed, the true lesson of Thomas Malthus, an English economist who died in 1834,
isn't that the world is doomed, but that preservation of human life requires analysis
and then tough action. Given the history of England, with its plagues and famines,
Malthus had good cause to wonder if society was "condemned to a perpetual oscillation
between happiness and misery." That he was able to analyze that "perpetual oscillation"
set him and his time apart from England's past. And that capacity to understand
and respond meant that the world was less Malthusian thereafter.
By JUSTIN LAHART, PATRICK BARTA and ANDREW BATSON
Write to Justin Lahart at justin.lahart@wsj.com, Patrick Barta at
patrick.barta@wsj.com and Andrew Batson
at andrew.batson@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications:
China's annual pork consumption would increase by 11 billion pounds if China
matched Taiwan's per-capita consumption rate. A previous version of this article
incorrectly gave the figure as 11 million pounds.
Source: Wall Street Journal
March 24, 2008; Page A1
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++++++++++++++++++++++
1.02 Rising Food Prices: What Should Be Done? - An IFPRI
policy brief
Income growth, climate change, high energy prices, globalization, and urbanization
are transforming the world food situation. Food prices are rising and are becoming
increasingly linked with energy prices. Why are food prices are rising? What are
the implications for food production, markets, trade, and consumption? What are
the consequences for the livelihoods of the poor and food-insecure?
Full report: http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/bp/bp001.asp
Note from the Editor, Plant Breeding News: The following recommended policy
action is included here, as the one most relevant to plant breeding interests.
Sound Policy Actions for the Short and Long Term
Fourth, to achieve long-term agricultural growth, developing-country governments
should increase their medium- and long-term investments in agricultural research
and extension, rural infrastructure, and market access for small farmers. Rural
investments have been sorely neglected in recent decades, and now is the time
to reverse this trend. Farmers in many developing countries are operating in an
environment of inadequate infrastructure like roads, electricity, and communications;
poor soils; lack of storage and processing capacity; and little or no access to
agricultural technologies that could increase their profits and improve their
livelihoods. Recent unrest over food prices in a number of countries may tempt
policymakers to put the interests of urban consumers over those of rural people,
including farmers, but this approach would be shortsighted and counterproductive.
Given the scale of investment needed, aid donors should also expand development
assistance to agriculture, rural services, and science and technology.
by Joachim von Braun
Source: SeedQuest.com
April 2008
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++++++++++++++++++++++++
1.03 Chinese biofuel 'could endanger biodiversity'
[BEIJING] Using China's forests and 'idle land' to produce biofuels could
pose a threat to biodiversity, warned experts at an international meeting.
Spike Millington, chief technical advisor to the European Union-China Biodiversity
Programme, raised the problem earlier this month (7 March) at the International
Workshop on Biodiversity and Climate Change, held in Beijing, China.
In July 2007, China released its middle- and long-term plan for renewable energy.
While shunning corn or soya-based biofuel production to avoid endangering food
security, the plan encourages the development of non-grain biofuels, including
cassava- and sorghum-based ethanol in northeast and south China, and jatropha-based
biodiesel in southwest China's Guizhou, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.
In line with the national plan, companies and government agencies including PetroChina,
the State Forestry Administration and local governments in Sichuan and Yunnan
have revealed ambitious plans to develop jatropha-based biodiesel projects.
But Millington said, "The region of southwest China targeted for biofuels coincides
with the home of the last remaining intact natural forests in China." He added
that the degraded forests in the area also play an important role in biodiversity.
Millington is echoed by Chen Shengliang, a biologist at Chongqing Environmental
Protection Bureau in southwest China.
"The rapid growth of single species of jatropha trees could inhibit other plants
such as grasses," Chen told SciDev.Net.
Liu Xuehua, an associate professor of environment at Tsinghua University, adds
that land classed as idle is often not empty land, and can be home to diverse
undomesticated species.
To cope with potential risks, Millington recommends that environmental assessment
is carried out to distinguish high biodiversity areas from low biodiversity areas
that are suitable for jatropha trees or other biofuel plants.
The workshop organiser, the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA)
which became the Ministry of Environment this week (15 March) at the annual
plenary meeting of the National People’s Congress announced earlier this
month (6 March) that it is initiating a major research programme to evaluate the
impacts of climate change on national biodiversity.
In addition, according to a paper published by scientists at the University of
California in Berkeley in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
last week (10 March), China's carbon dioxide emissions are growing faster than
previously estimated.
The country's annual growth rate of carbon emissions between 2004 and 2010 could
be more than 11 per cent, instead of the 2.5–5 per cent growth predicted by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
by Jia Hepeng
Source: SciDev.net
18 March 2008
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++++++++++++++++++++++
1.04 Let's focus on solutions to the rice price crisis
Philippines calls for regional meeting
Los Baños, Philippines – The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)
is calling on the international community – with particular emphasis on donors
- to start focusing on solutions to what’s being described as a “rice price crisis”
in Asia and elsewhere.
The Institute’s Board of Trustees met this week at IRRI’s headquarters in the
Philippine city of Los Baños, and looked at six key issues seen as vital to increasing
rice production in Asia. Increased production is needed to ease the sharp rise
in rice prices that has swept across the region causing uncertainty and concern
“The problems related to rice production and supply in Asia over the past year
or more are cause for serious concern, but not for panic,” said Prof. Elizabeth
Woods, the newly appointed chair of IRRI’s Board of Trustees. “IRRI and its partners
solved similar rice production problems in Asia in the 1960s and 70s and we can
do it again – what we need is the committed support of donors and policy makers
as well as better awareness among the media and general public of the problems
we face.”
The Institute is calling for increased focus – from both the public and private
sectors - on the following six key areas:
1. An agronomic revolution in Asian rice production to reduce existing yield gaps.
Farmers have struggled to maximize the production potential of the rice varieties
they are growing, so there is a gap between the potential yield and the actual
yield. Farmers must improve their crop management skills so they can better deal
with higher input prices.
2. Accelerate the delivery of new post-harvest technologies. Post harvest includes
the storage, drying and processing of rice. Exciting new technologies exist for
on-farm storage and drying that are not being widely used. The use of old, inadequate
technologies causes major post-harvest losses in rice.
3. Accelerate the introduction of higher yielding rice varieties. New varieties
exist that could increase production, but farmers are not using them mainly because
the system(s) that develop and introduce new varieties to farmers are under-resourced.
4. Strengthen and upgrade the rice breeding and research pipelines. Funding for
the development of new rice varieties has steadily been reduced over the past
decade or more – this must be reversed. Likewise, record high fertilizer prices
and new pest outbreaks demand that rice crop and resource management research
need urgent revitalization.
5. Accelerate research on the world’s thousands of rice varieties so scientists
can tap the vast reservoir of untapped knowledge they contain. Working with IRRI,
the nations of Asia have spent decades carefully collecting the region’s thousand
of rice varieties. There are now more than 100,000 rice varieties being carefully
managed and utilized at IRRI and in the nations around Asia. However, scientists
have only studied in detail about 10 per cent of these varieties. We need to urgently
learn more about the other 90 per cent so they can be used in the development
of new rice varieties.
6. Develop a new generation of rice scientists and researchers for the public
and private sectors. Another vital concern for the Asian rice industry is the
education and training of young scientists and researchers from each rice-producing
country. Asia urgently needs to train a new generation of rice scientists and
researchers before the present generation retires.
IRRI Board member and Philippine Secretary of Agriculture, Arthur C. Yap used
the meeting at IRRI to call for a ministerial level meeting of Asian nations to
discuss the global rice situation. He said the meeting should include developed
and developing countries and focus on increased collaboration to deal with the
problems facing rice production and the need for increased food aid in the interim.
“We must address the plight of food poor families in the countries most affected
by the rice price crisis,” Secretary Yap said.
Prof Woods said: “The problems facing rice production in Asia are not unique to
one country; they are shared by nearly all the rice consuming nations of Asia.
We need to work together to find the right solutions.”
“We must also recognize the global scale of the problem, especially the fact that
many African nations depend on Asian rice production for their food security.”
###
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is the world’s leading rice research
and training center. Based in the Philippines, with offices in 13 other countries,
IRRI is an autonomous, nonprofit institution focused on improving the well-being
of present and future generations of rice farmers and consumers, particularly
those with low incomes, while preserving natural resources. IRRI is one of 15
centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
(CGIAR), an association of public and private donor agencies (www.cgiar.org).
Contact: Adam Barclay
a.barclay@cgiar.org
International Rice Research Institute
Source: EurekAlert.org
April 2008
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1.05 South Asian nations team up for food
security
[NEW DELHI] Eight South Asian countries have launched a regional food security
programme, pooling together scientific and natural resources to improve crop production
and nutrition in the region.
The 'South Asia Food Security Programme' will receive an estimated US$25 million
for ten projects addressing South Asia's food security.
The announcement was made by Ram Badan Singh secretary general of the Indian
Farmers Fertilizer Cooperatives Limited at a meeting of South Asian agriculture
ministers, crop scientists and farmers' cooperatives in Delhi, India, last week
(5 March).
The donors include the Asian Development Bank, the International Fund for Agricultural
Development and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The programme was approved at a meeting organised by the FAO and the South Asian
Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in Colombo, Sri Lanka, last month
(27–29 February) and will begin in 2009.
Key regional issues discussed at the Colombo meeting included low crop yields,
high pre-harvest losses due to sudden rains or winds and post-harvest losses due
to poor storage conditions. Degradation of land resources, the absence of biosecurity
measures to prevent disease outbreaks in plants and animals, and inadequately
trained staff were also discussed.
At the Delhi meeting, the eight South Asian countries Afghanistan, Bangladesh,
Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka emphasised the key
role of science in transforming the region's agriculture and fighting poverty
and hunger.
Regional cooperation in research to develop interventions at all stages of the
agricultural chain should be top of the agenda, said India's agriculture minister
Sharad Pawar. "There is potential to turn agriculture in the SAARC region into
a dynamic sector with rapid technological innovation accelerating growth and reducing
poverty."
A serious concern, crop scientists said, is the huge gaps in yield between crops
grown in experimental fields and in farmers' fields, suggesting that potential
yields are not realised due to inadequate crop management practices.
The projected impact of climate change on South Asia's crop production is also
causing concern. Delayed rains, unexpected temperature surges and frost due to
climate change are changing when crops can be harvested.
South Asian countries should work together on science and technology interventions,
ranging from nanotechnology to genetic markers for selecting crops with useful
traits, scientists said at the meeting.
by T. V. Padma
Source: SciDev.net
11 March 2008
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1.06 Wania Fukuda, Embrapa cassava breeder, wins Brazil’s
prestigious Frederico de Menezes Veiga prize
Winners of the 30th edition of the Frederico de Menezes Veiga Prize
(2008) have been announced. Chosen by the selection commission were Wania Maria
Gonçalves Fukuda of Embrapa Cassava and Tropical Fruits (CNPMF), Cruz das Almas,
Bahia, and the agronomist Glauco Olinger of the Agricultural Research and Rural
Extension Center of Santa Catarina (Epagri/SC).
The theme for this year was: “Integration of Research and Extension: Factor for
Success in Modern Brazilian Agriculture.”
Wania Fukuda has developed work based on the active inclusion of farmers and extensionists
in the process of cassava breeding. The application of this participatory model
facilitated an understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of the products
of research, and aided in the adoption of new varieties by farmers. The work began
in 1993, and has now been adopted by a large number of municipalities in Brazil’s
Northeast.
Now 96 years of age, Glauco Olinger dedicated a large part of his life to
agricultural research and rural extension in Santa Catarina state.
The prize is promoted by the Brazilian Institute for Agricultural Research – Embrapa,
with the support of the magazine Globo Rural a publication of Editora
Globo. Awards are presented for agricultural research that represents outstanding
research that has contributed to sustainable rural development, in the area of
rural agrobusiness, and especially related to the theme chosen for each edition
of the prize. The prize is named in honor of Frederico de Menezes Veiga, the research
scientist from the Amazon region who developed new varieties of sugarcane, which
placed Brazil as a world leader of cane production. The prize was first created
in 1974. Two scientists are chosen each year to be honored with the prize – one
from Embrapa and another from the national system of agricultural research (SNPA).
The prize includes a cash award of 77,810 Brazilian reals (about US$46,000).
http://www.embrapa.br/imprensa/noticias/2008/abril/1a-semana/embrapa-anuncia-agraciados-do-premio-frederico-de-menezes-veiga
Source: Globo Rural (excerpted
and translated by the editor, Plant Breeding News)
4 April 2008
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1.07 GIPB Knowledge Resource Center releases online
Plant Breeding and Related Biotechnology Capacity Assessment (PBBC) database
Rome, Italy
The GIPB Knowledge Resource Center has released
the online Plant Breeding and Related Biotechnology Capacity Assessment (PBBC)
Database.
This is the result of an effort initiated in 2002 by FAO and its partners to help countries acquire information
to implement comprehensive national strategies towards better crop breeding and
delivery systems.
We invite you to visit and review the information so far available in the PBBC
Database by accessing the link located in the front page of the GIPB
Knowledge Resource Center.
Source: GIPB
3 April 2008
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1.08 African branch of rice initiative
launched
The African component of a research initiative aiming to provide smallholder
farmers with new rice varieties has been launched in Benin.
The project, led by the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute
(IRRI) and the Africa Rice Center, was launched at a meeting at the Africa Rice
Center laboratories in Cotonou, Benin, earlier this month (5–8 March).
It is part of a larger scheme for IRRI, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
to improve rice varieties in Africa and Asia (see Gates
Foundation boost for climate-hardy rice).
The project aims to provide smallholder farmers who rely on rain-fed agriculture
and are therefore vulnerable to drought, flooding and high salinity
with improved rice varieties and farm management practices to increase yields
by 50 per cent over the next ten years.
"In these regions, farmers are always getting yields which are only one or two
tons per hectare, when normally they could get up to five tons per hectare or
even more," plant breeder Baboucarr Manneh of the Biotechnology Unit at the Africa
Rice Center, told SciDev.Net.
"The idea is to develop rice varieties, distribute the seeds of these varieties
and make sure they're available to all farmers."
Work will be carried out in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria
and Tanzania to design rice varieties best-suited to each country.
"We need to work with each country's national and agricultural research systems
to develop varieties and test them with the farmers," Manneh told SciDev.Net.
Some stress-tolerant rice breeds are already being tested. "A breed which tolerates
completely submerged conditions for up to two weeks was found in a traditional
rice variety in India," explains plant breeder David Mackill from IRRI. "We were
able to transfer this gene from the traditional variety."
by Esther Tola
Source: SciDev.net
17 March 2008
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1.09 North Africa to develop drought-resistant
barley
Agricultural researchers in Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia have teamed up to create
drought-resistant and salt-tolerant varieties of barley better suited to the North
African region.
The project, funded by the Canadian International Development Research Centre
and overseen by the New Partnership for Africa's Development North Africa Biosciences
Network, will see thirty scientists from five organisations spending the next
two years developing the barley varieties.
Barley is traditionally used as animal feed in much of North Africa, but lack
of alternative food sources is leading to human consumption.
Algeria's National Institute of Agricultural Research (INRAA), Egypt's National
Research Centre and Agricultural Genetic Engineering Research Institute, and Tunisia's
Centre of Biotechnology and National Institute of Agriculture Research will be
involved in the project.
The researchers met in Borj Essedria in southern Tunisia last month (10–11 February)
to discuss genetic techniques including genetic modification that
could be used to increase barley's nutritional quality, as well as make it drought-
and saltwater-tolerant.
"We want to develop two varieties of barley in each country, making a total of
six varieties expected to be resistant to drought and high salinity," says Hussein
Irikti, coordinator of scientific activities and research for INRAA, which is
overseeing Algeria's role in the project.
"If we succeed in achieving the goal, we will launch another programme bigger
and broader than this," he adds.
Irikti says they are focusing on barley because it is "exceptional, very adaptable
to different climates, resisting drought and high temperature compared to other
cereals in addition to containing vitamins that are not found in other grains.
It is a strategic challenge for North Africa, which suffers from drought and high
degree of salinity."
Skander Mekersi, deputy director of INRAA, said researchers would share skills
and equipment, adding that INRAA has invested equipment worth US$20,000 into the
project.
Source: SciDev.net
11 March 2008
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1.10 Tanzania to develop drought tolerant maize
Tanzania
A ten-year public private partnership on drought tolerant maize varieties for
small scale farmers will be launched in Kampala, Tanzania to address food shortage
and alleviate hunger and poverty.
Dr. Alais Kullaya, researcher at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives,
says that new drought tolerant technologies will be developed, tested, and eventually
distributed to African seed companies without royalty and made available to smallholder
farmers.
The project will involve local public and private institutions. The synergy among
the institutions are expected to enhance capacity and experience in crop breeding,
biotechnology, and biosafety.
Read more about this partnership at
http://africasciencenews.org/asns/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=280&Itemid=1
Source: CropBiotech Update via SeedQuest.com
11 April 2008
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1.11 French bean breeding in Kenya
French bean is an important crop in Kenya. Its annual production is about
37,000 tons at a value of US$ 98,556,437. Most of the produce is exported to Europe
as fresh pods but also in cans.
Seed for growing French beans is almost all imported from Europe, from where often
certified seed is first dispatched to eastern Africa; next, a crop is grown there
and the seed yield transported to Europe. After sorting, treating and packaging,
the seed is forwarded to customers, for instance those in eastern Africa, Kenya
included.
Moi University at Eldoret, Kenya initiated a new French bean breeding program
in 2004. The aim was to develop in a participatory fashion varieties with high
and stable pod yields and pod qualities. The demand is mainly for fine and extra-fine
pods.
As from 2006 the program was supported by Kirhouse Trust at the Institute of Advanced
Technology, Oxford University, Kidlington, England.
Four parent varieties were selected to form a population from a four-way cross.
Generations were advanced by using a rapid screening technique in mini-pots at
relatively high temperatures. A replicated trial was conducted during 2007 at
four locations, which ranged in altitude from 1000 – 2000 m above sea level. Encouraging
results were obtained, both yield-wise (11.121 t ha-1) and quality-wise
(86.25 % fine and extra-fine pods); the location x variety interaction effect
was statistically significant, while stability parameters varied.
Developing a suitable variety locally has obvious advantages for local employment,
reduction of fuel consumption for transportation, which in turn will contribute
to sustain a healthy environment and climate.
The corresponding author will appreciate comments from readers of Plant Breeding
Newsletter, who are interested in the described field of work.
Contributed by Esther Edith Arunga (corresponding author)
and Henk A. van Rheenen
Department of Biotechnology
Moi University, P.O. Box 1125, Eldoret, Kenya.
edith83ke@yahoo.com
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1.12 China to launch large research programme on GM
crops
Beijing, China
China is to launch a huge research programme on genetically modified (GM) crops
by the end of the year, according to top agricultural biotechnology advisors.
Huang Dafang, former director of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural
Sciences' (CAAS) Institute of Biotechnologies, says the programme could receive
as much as 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) over the next five years - five times
more than the country spent on GM research in the preceding five years.
A member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's
upper house, and a key government advisor on biotechnology policies, Huang revealed
the news at a briefing on the annual report of the International
Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), a non-profit
organisation promoting agricultural biotechnology.
The ISAAA report indicates in 2007 a total of 114.3 million hectares of GM crops
were cultivated worldwide - an increase of 18.3 per cent from 2006.
The most widely adopted GM crop is Bt cotton, engineered to produce a toxin from
Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) to fight bollworm. China has developed GM petunias,
tomatoes, sweet peppers, poplar and papaya, and several varieties of rice but
to date policymakers have only allowed GM cotton to be marketed.
Huang says that yield, quality, nutritional value and drought resistance will
be major targets of the new research programme. As well as rice and cotton - which
have been the focus of GM technology research in the past - corn and wheat will
also now be priority crops for research.
Hu Jifa is chief research fellow at the the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)
Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy (CCAP), China's chief think tank on food
policy issues.
He confirms the programme is set to go ahead and says that funding for research
on safety and environmental monitoring will be included in the programme.
The GM seeding programme was mentioned in China's 11th Five-year science and technology
development plan (2006-2010) but decisions on the funding and scope of the programme
have been delayed for two years due to the sensitivity of the area, Hu says.
But policymakers are now more receptive to GM technologies, says Hu, and that
could lead to more GM crops getting the go-ahead for commercialisation.
Judy Wang of Croplife China, an organisation representing agricultural biotech
firms, welcomes the news, and says that the research programme could help make
GM crops more acceptable to Chinese farmers.
Liu Xuehua, an associate professor of environment planning at Tsinghua University,
says that while she is not opposed to GM technologies, policymaking in the area
should be more cautious and transparent.
'Stakeholders, rather than scientists alone, should be involved in the policy-making
process concerning GM commercialisation so that more potential risks can be identified,'
Liu says. 'The decision to commercialise them should not be based simply on the
fact that there is now big government funding for the area,' she adds.
© Royal Society of Chemistry 2008
Source: Royal Society of Chemistry via SeedQuest.com
27 March 2008
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1.13 ICRISAT launches Center of Excellence in Genomics
and Bio-Food Knowledge Center
Patancheru, India
The International Crops Research Institute for
the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has launched a Center of Excellence in Genomics
(CEG) at its global headquarters at Patancheru, India, in partnership with the
Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India. ICRISAT is also announcing
the launch of a Bio-Food Knowledge Center (BFKC) in its Agri-Science Park with
financial support from the Government of Andhra Pradesh.
The CEG, through the financial support of DBT, strengthens the existing molecular
breeding facilities at ICRISAT to a high throughput, cost-effective facility,
which can be used for crop improvement research. The facility, which is fully
operational, is available for researchers from agricultural research institutes
throughout India and globally via ICRISAT’s network of partners.
The BFKC, for which the Andhra Pradesh Government made the first tranche of funding
available, will be a platform for R&D and innovation in food processing with
focus on cereals, legumes, fruits and vegetables, and medicinal and aromatic plants.
According to Dr William Dar, Director General of ICRISAT, the collaboration with
the Indian Government for the CEG and the Andhra Pradesh Government for the BFKC
are examples of ICRISAT’s strengthening relationship with the national and the
state governments in India and in other countries. “Though these projects are
funded by national and state governments, their impacts will flow to all the 55
countries that ICRISAT works in.”
Center of Excellence in Genomics
The CEG is a result of a Memorandum of Agreement signed by Dr William Dar,
Director General of ICRISAT, and Dr MK Bhan, Secretary of the Department of Biotechnology
(DBT) of the Government of India, in December 2006. The DBT has financially provided
US$ 1 million for establishing the CEG.
The CEG has started providing the following services:
-High-throughput, low-cost, allele detection platforms, to help with molecular-marker
assisted breeding.
-Access to large-scale field screening for abiotic stresses, such as drought and
salinity.
-Biometrics (agricultural statistics) and bioinformatics (information management
and analysis) support.
-Training courses for scientists and students from Indian institutes in the use
of high-throughput methods in breeding and research.
According to Dr William Dar, in addition to having state-of-the-art equipment,
the CEG will also provide training for building the capacity of national scientists
from India and other countries. As the CEG was launched, 19 scientists from the
Indian Council for Agricultural Research institutes started their training on
molecular breeding techniques at the CEG.
“The CEG will provide new technological options, build capacity of scientists
and also accelerate crop improvement by reducing the time required to develop
new varieties by half,” Dr Dar said.
Dr Simon Best, Chair of the ICRISAT Governing Board, said that the CEG illustrates
the cutting-edge science and technology research that ICRISAT is doing to improve
crop productivity in the drylands. Ultimately its research products will benefit
the poor farmers of the drylands.
Dr Mangala Rai, Vice-Chair of ICRISAT Governing Board and Director General of
the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, said that the premier facility on
agri-biotechnology has the potential for improving natural resources management
through genetic improvement of crops.
Bio-Food Knowledge Center
The BFKC is a public-private partnership venture in the Agri-Science Park
at ICRISAT. The Government of Andhra Pradesh has provided financial support of
US$ 500,000 for the establishment of the BFKC at ICRISAT.
Dr Barry I Shapiro, Managing Director, Agri-Science Park @ICRISAT, said: “ Food
biotechnology interventions play a major role in adding value to the food processing
industry. This added value can be realized if a conducive research platform is
available, which is capital and knowledge intensive. Given ICRISAT’s strengths
as a world-class research center, the Government of Andhra Pradesh has sanctioned
financial support for the establishment of the BFKC.”
The BFKC will develop a platform for R&D, innovation, technology transfer,
and commercialization in food processing focusing on cereals, legumes, fruits
and vegetables. It will be developed as a public-private partnership model and
also backstop food processing related research requirements for ICRISAT mandate
crops.
The objectives of the BFKC include:
-Pool available technologies for commercialization and transfer;
-Align strategically with food research Institutions ( India and Abroad);
-Provide infrastructure and platform for innovation and research for the private
sector;
-Take up collaborative and contract research;
-Provide knowledge support to the private sector;
-Undertake trainings and capacity building programs for the Industry; and
-Offer food safety testing and services.
The knowledge center will be completely developed over a period of 5 years with
a total outlay of approximately US$ 5.25 million. It will also collaborate with
several central and state government organizations, IITs and agricultural research
universities.
The collaborations are also from countries outside India. In January 2008, ICRISAT
and Crop and Food Research, a Crown Research Institute of New Zealand, signed
a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in Lincoln, New Zealand. Through the MOU,
both organizations will work together to develop the proposed Bio Food Knowledge
Center (BFKC) at the Agri-Science Park within ICRISAT. Early discussions have
identified many opportunities to leverage New Zealand’s world-class agri science
for the benefit of progressing ICRISAT’s mission and goals and significantly accelerate
the commissioning of the BFKC.
Source: SeedQuest.com
26 March 2008
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1.14 New maize and new friendships to beat Thai drought
CIMMYT fosters regional partnerships and provides
seed to help researchers in Thailand get drought resistant maize to farmers.
“We are very, very dry,” says farmer Yupin Ruanpeth. “Last year we had a drought
at flowering time and we lost a lot of yield.” In fact, she explains, during the
last five years, her family’s farm has suffered from severe drought three times
in a row. The soil is good and in a year with no drought they can harvest five
tons of maize per hectare, but last year they could only harvest three tons per
hectare.
Geographically, the Thai province of Nakhon Sawan lies only a short drive from
lush lowland paddy fields, but it seems a world away. In this region the rainy
season (between May and September) brings enough water for a single crop, usually
of maize or cassava, and in the dry season the fields lie fallow. Almost all maize
in Thailand is rainfed, grown under similar conditions.
At the Thai Department of Agriculture’s Nakhon Sawan Field Crops Research Center,
Pichet Grudloyma, senior maize breeder, shows off the drought screening facilities.
Screening is carried out in the dry season, so that water availability can be
carefully controlled in two comparison plots: one well-watered and one “drought”
plot, where watering is stopped for two weeks before and two weeks after flowering.
Many of the experimental lines and varieties being tested this year are here as
the result of the Asian Maize Network (AMNET). Funded by the Asian Development
Bank, this CIMMYT-led project has brought together scientists from the national
maize programs of five South East Asian countries to develop drought tolerant
maize varieties and deliver them to farmers.
AMNET achievements
“We already have two releases under AMNET,” explains Grudloyma. These are varieties
produced by the national maize program, focusing prior to AMNET on resistance
to the disease downy mildew, which have also proved themselves under drought screening.
The first, Nakhon Sawan 2, was released in 2006. The second, experimental hybrid
NSX 042029, has been popular in farmer participatory trials and with local seed
companies, and is slated for release in 2008. “This is the best hybrid we have,”
says Grudloyma with pride. “It's drought tolerant, disease resistant, and easy
to harvest by hand.” The two hybrids incorporate both CIMMYT and Thai breeding
materials, a legacy of Thailand’s long relationship with the Center.
In current work under AMNET, the Thai breeders are crossing lines from the national
breeding program with new drought tolerant materials provided each year by CIMMYT.
“We screen for drought tolerance in the dry season and downy mildew resistance
in the rainy season, and take the best materials forward each year,” explains
Grudloyma. “We now have many promising hybrids coming though.”
Funding from the project has also had a big impact on the team’s capacity to screen
those hybrids. “We had a small one to two hectare facility before; now we have
four hectares with a perfect controlled-irrigation system. Because we’ve been
in AMNET, we have good varieties and good fieldwork and screening capacity. This
is leading to other projects, for example we’re currently working with GCP [the
Generation Challenge Program].” Thailand has also taken on a role in seed distribution,
receiving and sharing seed from the AMNET member countries, and testing the varieties
on the drought screening plots at the Research Center.
Sharing knowledge across borders
For Grudloyma, this collaborative approach is a big change. “We’ve learned a lot
and gained a lot from our friends in different countries. We each have different
experiences, and when we share problems we can adapt knowledge from others to
our own situations.”
The Thai researchers can come up with many examples of things they have learned
from their AMNET partners. “We saw the very friendly relationships between a number
of seed companies and the Vietnam team, and we tried to modify the way we worked
in Thailand,” says Grudloyma. “This year we shared promising hybrids with seed
companies before release. Before that we just worked with farmers and small seed
producers, and the seed companies could buy seed after varieties were released.”
The result has been wider distribution of new drought tolerant varieties: this
year the group received orders for enough parental materials for NSX 042029 to
produce 300 tons of seed.
“We learned how to evaluate farmer preferences better from the Philippines team,”
adds Amara Traisiri, an entomologist working on responding to these preferences.
“We now use their method in all our field trials with farmers and we’re getting
a more accurate picture of what farmers want.” This information caused the group
to include ease of hand harvest as another trait to consider in their breeding
program, after realizing how important it is to farmers. And the learning continued
at this month’s annual regional training meeting. “Today, we learned a system
for farmer participatory trials,” says Grudloyma, referring to a session on planning
and analyzing trial data from CIMMYT maize breeder Gary Atlin. “With these new
ideas to direct us we’ll be able to get better results.”
Almost all Thai maize farmers grow improved hybrid varieties, and for Ruanpeth,
her priorities are clear. “Drought tolerance is very important”, she says, and
dismisses other traits, such as yellow color. “No, I want varieties that are drought
tolerant.” She likes to try the latest hybrids and has grown more than 10 commercial
varieties. She eagerly accepts the suggestion from Grudloyma’s team to try their
new hybrids on a small area this year.
The project has built capacity and relationships that will endure, according to
Grudloyma. “Our station is now very good at working with drought,” he says, “and
we’ll continue cooperation and providing germplasm. We already have plans for
collaboration with China and Vietnam.” CIMMYT’s role in providing germplasm and
access to new knowledge and technologies has been vital, as has its leadership.
“It’s very hard to get hold of germplasm from anywhere except CIMMYT,” says Grudloyma.
“It’s also difficult to come together: we needed an international organization
to coordinate and facilitate regional interaction. With CIMMYT everything is easier.”
Source: CIMMYT E-News,
vol 5 no. 3, March 2008 via SeedQuest.com
1 April 2008
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1.15 Philippine Rice Research Institute
pushes high-yielding rice varieties to raise production
Manila, The Philippines
The Philippine Rice Research Institute
(PhilRice) is pushing for the use of rainfed-land-suitable high-yielding, disease-resistant
rice varieties that can significantly contribute to the country's effort to reduce
rice import-dependence.
"The country must be able to increase productivity tremendously if it wants to
achieve a semblance of food security and end the dependence on imported rice,"
said PhilRice Director Leocadio S. Sebastian in a statement.
Two bacterial leaf blight (BLB) resistant varieties are being pushed for a more
massive commercial propagation by PhilRice, the Tubigan 7 and Tubigan 11.
With resistance to BLB, a disease manifested by leaf wilting, Tubigan 7 can escape
damage (which can reach to 40-50 percent of harvest) and retain yield of five
to six metric tons per hectare which is already a high yield for inbred rice varieties.
Rice authorities believe that the use of these high yielding varieties has become
imperative in the country's aim to cut rice import which can reach to 2.7 to three
million MT this year, according to estimates.
Tubigan 7 is a recommended variety specially in light of the present rainy season
planting.
Biotechnology advocates have been pushing for the use of new rice varieties since
this is now an important factor in raising the country's rice production with
limited land much of which is also now being converted to other crops like corn
that requires less water.
PhilRice noted that compared to world's biggest rice producers-exportersThailand
which has 9.9 million hectares of rice fields and Vietnam which has 7.5 million
hectares of rice land the Philippines only has 1.9 million hectares of rainfed
rice farms.
"In 2004, the Philippines only harvested from 4.12 million hectares of land while
Vietnam profited from 9.82 million hectares of land that grew rice."
Farmers should take advantage of the fact that government has been able to develop
better inbred varieties faster through more advanced biotechnology techniques
like molecular marker-assisted breeding.
"While the development of conventional rice takes between eight and 10 years,
genetically enhanced varieties using the tools of biotechnology would take only
five years to develop. While the initial cost of cultivating biotech rice is higher,
the long-term benefit is positive since the gross income of individual farmers
would rise by at least 26 percent," Sebastian said.
By Melody M. Aguiba
Manila Bulletin via SEAMEO SEARCA
Source: SeedQuest.com
11 April 2008
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1.16 Long-term goal of public-private partnership is
to reduce crop failure, alleviate hunger and poverty
Kampala, Uganda
The African Agricultural Technology Foundation
(AATF) today announced a public-private partnership to develop drought-tolerant
maize varieties for Africa. The partnership, known as Water Efficient Maize for
Africa (WEMA), was formed in response to a growing call by African farmers, leaders,
and scientists to address the devastating effects of drought on small-scale farmers
and their families. Frequent drought leads to crop failure, hunger, and poverty.
Climate change will only worsen the problem.
AATF announced the effort at the end of a two-day planning meeting that included
representatives from each of the countries participating in the project: Kenya,
Uganda, Tanzania, and South Africa. The partners will use marker-assisted breeding
and biotechnology to develop African maize varieties with the long-term goal of
making drought-tolerant maize available royalty-free to African small-scale farmers.
The benefits and safety of these maize varieties will be assessed by national
authorities according to the regulatory requirements in each country.
‘This partnership fits well with the AATF mandate of facilitating innovative public/private
partnerships that bring to smallholder farmers in Africa the tools needed to increase
productivity for better food and income security,’ Said Mpoko Bokanga, Executive
Director AATF.
AATF will work with the non-profit International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center
(CIMMYT); the private agricultural company, Monsanto; and the national agricultural
research systems in the participating countries. The new drought-tolerance technologies
have already been licensed without charge to AATF so they can be developed, tested,
and eventually distributed to African seed companies through AATF without royalty
and made available to smallholder farmers.
Bokanga added that the project will involve local institutions, both public and
private, and in the process expand their capacity and experience in crop breeding,
biotechnology, and biosafety.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Howard G. Buffett Foundation contributed
a total of $47 million to this effort.
The Director General of the National Agricultural Research Organisation of Uganda
Dr. Dennis Kyetere presided over the official announcement of the initiative and
said that the project will help address drought and contribute to food security
in Africa.
‘Drought is a source of suffering and food insecurity for many people in Uganda
and it is recognised as a challenge by the government. Drought causes up to 100
percent crop failure in Uganda in some instances’, said Dr. Kyetere.
Africa is a drought-prone continent, making farming risky for millions of small-scale
farmers who rely on rainfall to water their crops. Maize is the most widely grown
staple crop in Africa: more than 300 million Africans depend on it as their main
food source. It is severely affected by frequent drought.
In the next five years, the partnership will develop the new maize varieties,
incorporating the best drought-tolerance technologies available internationally.
CIMMYT will provide conventionally developed drought tolerant high-yielding maize
varieties that are adapted to African conditions and expertise in conventional
breeding and testing for drought tolerance. Monsanto will provide proprietary
germplasm, advanced breeding tools and expertise. Additionally, Monsanto and BASF
will provide drought-tolerance transgenes that they have developed through their
collaboration. These contributions will be provided without royalty. The national
agricultural research systems, farmers’ groups, and seed companies participating
in the project will contribute their expertise in breeding, regulatory issues
and will be responsible for country-specific implementation including project
governance, testing, germplasm evaluation, seed production and distribution.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has funded an independent program at the
McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health (University of Toronto) to assess and
monitor social, cultural, ethical and commercial issues related to the WEMA Project.
The independent organization will conduct annual audits of WEMA and serve as an
additional communication channel for stakeholders.
According to eminent scientist Professor Calestous Juma, who is the Director of
the Science, Technology and Globalisation Project at Harvard University, the WEMA
project is a powerful signal of the relevance of biotechnology to African agriculture.
The collaboration between CIMMYT and national agricultural research systems has
already yielded excellent gains in drought tolerance through conventional breeding.
The partners in the WEMA project expect the combination of advanced breeding and
biotechnology to bring even greater gains. The partners estimate that the maize
products developed over the next 10 years could increase yields by 20 to 35 percent
under moderate drought, compared to current varieties. This increase would translate
into about two million additional tons of food during drought years in the participating
countries, meaning 14 to 21 million people would have more to eat and sell.
The first conventional varieties developed by WEMA could be available after six
to seven years of research and development. The transgenic drought-tolerant maize
hybrids will be available in about ten years.
Risk of crop failure from drought is one of the primary reasons why small-scale
farmers in Africa do not adopt improved farming practices. A more reliable harvest
could give farmers the confidence to improve their techniques. Good soil health,
improved training and support, pest and disease management, and access to markets
to sell their surplus are all necessary for small-scale farmers to boost their
yields and incomes. To date, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has invested
more than $660 million as part of a broad agricultural development strategy that
includes efforts in all of these areas so small-scale farmers could have access
to the tools and opportunities they need to build better lives.
The African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) is an African-led charity
designed to facilitate and promote public/private partnerships for the access
and delivery of appropriate proprietary technologies with potential to increase
the productivity of resource-poor smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. (www.aatf-africa.org)
Source: SeedQuest.com
19 March 2008
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1.17 Developing field pea varieties with resistance
to black spot caused by Mycosphaerella pinodes
Western Australia
According to GRDC-supported DAFWA researcher, Dr Tanveer Khan, black
spot caused by Mycosphaerella pinodes is the most important disease of field pea
in southern Australia.
Dr Khan says attempts to develop black spot resistance have been frustrated due
to low levels of naturally available resistance and the reliability of screening
methods.
He said that more than a decade of work in WA with a module of the National Pea
Breeding Program has provided a "glimmer of hope."
Although new lines with moderate resistance and agronomically desirable traits
are emerging,
the breeding line WAPEA2211 is still a leader in terms of resistance and agronomic
characteristics.
Breeding lines showing promising resistance at early stages of the breeding cycle
will go to yield trials in 2008.
Source: SeedQuest.com
2 April 2008
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1.18 Looming threat to plant breeding future in Canada
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
Student symposium looks to the future of plant research
There is a looming threat across Canada in the Plant Sciences sector as researchers
in the baby boomer generation near retirement and a lack of workers are available
to fill their roles. This is an issue that is of huge concern to the Western
Grains Research Foundation, particularly when it comes to plant breeders.
This last weekend (March 14 & 15, 2008) a Plant Science Grad Student Symposium
was held in Saskatoon with the goal of bringing students from western Canada and
across the border to learn about the opportunities that exist within this important
field in general and specifically within Saskatchewan.
“WGRF is heavily involved in funding public wheat and barley breeding programs
on behalf of farmers with check-off dollars, and because of this we want to do
anything we can to encourage upcoming students to consider plant breeding as a
career path. That is why we found it so important to get involved in supporting
the symposium,” says Lanette Kuchenski, Executive Director of the Western Grains
Research Foundation.
“Students are the future,” adds Kuchenski. “Without these dedicated individuals
to take over the public breeding programs and continue the development of strong
varieties, Canada will face the threat of falling behind the rest of the world
when it comes to research.”
There were a total of 75 attendees, with students from North Dakota State University,
University of Manitoba, University of Alberta, University of Saskatchewan and
even a representative from Mexico. The symposium location rotates annually with
the University of Saskatchewan hosting this year’s event.
“We were very excited to host the 24th year of the Plant Science Grad Student
Symposium,” said Leah Fedoruk, co-organizing chair and U of S Plant Science grad
student. “Bringing students together from all over to exchange ideas and learn
about the research other students are conducting is important to the future of
this sector. It is also a great opportunity to learn about the job opportunities
within Plant Sciences.”
”This event takes a lot of work to put together, but is definitely worth it in
the end. Sponsors like the Western Grains Research Foundation are imperative to
make this event happen annually,” comments Fedoruk.
Source: SeedQuest.com
20 March 2008
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1.19 Cornell University to lead broad
global partnership to combat wheat rust disease and protect resource-poor farmers
ITHACA, N.Y. Cornell University today announced a $26.8 million grant
from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to launch a broad-based global partnership
to combat a deadly wheat disease that poses an enormous threat to global food
security. The Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project will bring together 15
partner institutions to combat the emergence of deadly new variants of stem rust
that can spread quickly, reducing healthy wheat to broken, shriveled stems. The
partners will focus on developing improved rust-resistant wheat varieties to protect
resource-poor farmers and consumers from catastrophic crop losses in vulnerable
regions, particularly India, but also Pakistan, East Africa, China, the Middle
East, and North Africa.
Ronnie Coffman, director of international programs at Cornell’s College of Agriculture
and Life Sciences, made the announcement in northwest Mexico at wheat research
facilities near Cd. Obregón that are owned by a union of Sonoran farmers and used
by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Nobel Laureate Norman E. Borlaug, who spoke at the event, developed the “green
revolution” wheats at the facilities beginning in the 1940s.
“The rust pathogens recognize no political boundaries and their spores need no
passport to travel thousands of miles in the jet streams. Containing these deadly
enemies of the wheat crop requires alert and active scientists, strong international
research networks, and effective seed supply programs,” said the 94-year-old Borlaug,
who is credited with bringing radical change to world agriculture and saving hundreds
of millions of lives. “The new Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project led by
Cornell University is a critical component in building an effective research and
development response to the current stem rust threat, and can help avert a global
rust pandemic that can rob tens of millions of tons from production.”
Wheat is among the world’s most important primary staple food crops, representing
approximately 30 percent of the world’s production of grain crops. In the last
year, global wheat stocks have plummeted and the price for wheat quadrupled.
The virulent new wheat stem rust type identified in Uganda, called Ug99, has now
escaped Africa and is spreading across the Middle East. Scientists estimate
that 90% of all wheat varieties planted around the globe are susceptible to Ug99.
More than 50 million small-scale farmers in India rely on wheat for their food
and income.
World awareness of the highly feared wheat disease is largely due to Dr. Borlaug’s
tireless advocacy, most recently through the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative. The
Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project will work closely with this existing
initiative.
The project will enlist the Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research
(EIAR) and the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) to be key research
sites to develop new resistant varieties, in collaboration with scientists at
three international agricultural research centers, including CIMMYT, in Mexico;
the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA),
in Syria; and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and advanced
research laboratories in the United States, Canada, China, Australia and South
Africa will also collaborate on the project.
Coffman will direct the consortium of global partners. Rick Ward, previously a
wheat breeder with CIMMYT and Michigan State University, has been hired as the
project coordinator.
“Resource-poor farmers are particularly vulnerable to wheat stem disease, which
has the potential to wipe out entire crops,” said Dr. Rajiv Shah, director of
agricultural development for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global
Development Program. “We’re excited about the potential of this partnership to
catalyze the increased global investments necessary to fight this powerful disease.”
David J. Skorton, president of Cornell University, noting the importance of this
project, said: “Global problems require a coordinated global response. With its
long-standing commitment to international outreach, research and teaching, Cornell
is pleased to join with our partners worldwide to safeguard the food supply, particularly
for the rural and urban poor for whom bread is a dietary staple.”
“Farmers need access to wheat varieties that can resist the new type of wheat
stem rust, especially in developing nations where reliance on wheat is high and
budgets for fungicides almost nonexistent,” said Coffman, the project’s director
and Cornell professor of plant breeding. “Our goals are to coordinate an international
effort to combat the threat of emerging wheat rust diseases, develop improved
wheat varieties that protect resource-poor farmers in vulnerable regions, foster
global awareness of Ug99, and track the spread of the wheat rust pathogens.”
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has to date committed over $700 million
in grants as part of a broad agricultural development strategy aimed at providing
millions of small farmers in the developing world with tools and opportunities
to boost their productivity, increase their incomes, and build better lives.
For more information about the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project, see http://www.wheatrust.cornell.edu
(Editor’s note: see related item in Positions Available section)
Contributed by Linda McCandless
llm3@cornell.edu
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1.20 Less can be more, for plant breeders too
San Francisco, California
Imagine you are a rice breeder and one day within a large field you discover a
plant that has just the characteristics you have been looking for. You happily
take your special plant to the laboratory where you find out that the spontaneous,
beneficial event was due to inactivation of a single gene. This is a great observation;
however, there are many different strains grown in different parts of the world,
well adapted to the particular region they grow in. How can you now transfer the
inactivated gene to other strains of rice? Conventionally, you would have to go
through years and years of breeding, until you have successfully transferred that
single gene, without affecting all the other genes that are responsible for the
target strains being so well adapted to their local environment. Would it not
be great, if one could do this faster?
Using inactivated genes for rice breeding might sound far-fetched, but is not
unusual. For example, the main change enabling the green revolution in rice resulted
from loss of a gene that normally makes rice grow tall (and hence prone to toppling
over if a plant makes many heavy rice grains). Thus, transferring inactivated
genes is something rice breeders are indeed very much interested in.
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Developmental
Biology in Tübingen, Germany in collaboration with the International Rice
Research Institute in the Philippines, have now generated a tool that should greatly
speed up this particular aspect of rice breeding: According to a study published
in PLoS ONE this week, a team led by Norman Warthmann (MPI) successfully demonstrated
highly specific gene silencing using so-called artificial miRNAs in rice (Oryza
sativa).
MicroRNAs are 20-22 bp long RNA molecules. In animals as well as in plants they
have important functions in regulating gene activity. In plants, they cause highly
specific degradation of sequence-matched messenger RNAs, which encode enzymes,
regulatory factors or other proteins. The end effect is that the corresponding
gene is silenced. With artificial miRNAs (amiRNAs), this natural silencing pathway
can be harnessed to inactivate genes of interest to the breeder, with unprecedented
specificity.
Detlef Weigel’s research group at the Max Planck Institute in Tübingen had initially
pioneered this technique in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. The plethora
of potential applications in agriculture now motivated them to try the method
in rice. One of the rice genes they targeted is called Eui1. When Eui1 is inactive,
flowers tend to be fertilized by pollen from other plants, rather than being self-fertilized.
While this trait would be harmful to a wild rice plant, breeders use this genetic
trick for hybrid seed production. Originally identified as a spontaneous mutant
in a japonica rice variety, the eui1 mutation was introduced into indica varieties
by several years of breeding. With an artificial miRNA targeting the Eui1 messenger
RNA, the researchers at the International Rice Research Institute obtained within
weeks plants with the desired property in two different rice varieties, including
the agronomically important indica variety IR64, the most commonly grown strain
in South-East Asia. Similarly, the researchers also report successful silencing
of two other genes, Pds and SPl11.
Besides allowing the quick transfer of reduced gene function between different
varieties, artificial miRNAs also accelerate the initial identification of important
genes and the discovery of functions of genes that have not been studied before.
Potential applications in rice breeding are manifold and they don’t stop at rice
genes. By targeting pathogen-derived genes, for example, it should be possible
to enhance virus and insect resistance. In addition, because they act dominantly,
they are also perfectly suited for hybrid breeding.
MiRNAs have been found in all plant species examined so far. It should hence be
possible to adapt the technique of gene silencing by artificial miRNAs to other
crops and it may provide an important new avenue to enhance agronomic performance
and nutritional value. Computer software to design the required oligonucleotide
sequences and detailed protocols to produce amiRNAs are provided free of charge
on the authors’ web site, at http://wmd2.weigelworld.org. Similarly, the artificial miRNA
vector is provided free of charge to colleagues.
Highly Specific Gene Silencing by Artificial miRNAs in Rice
Warthmann N, Chen H, Ossowski S, Weigel D, Hervé P (2008)
Co-authors on the study include: Norman Warthmann, Stephan Ossowski, Detlef Weigel
(Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Tübingen, Germany) and Hao Chen,
Philippe Hervé (International Rice Research Institute, Los Baños, Philippines).
PLoS ONE 3(3): e1829. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001829
http://www.plosone.org/doi/pone.0001829
Disclaimer
This press release refers to an upcoming article in PLoS ONE. The release has
been provided by the article authors and/or their institutions. Any opinions expressed
in this are the personal views of the contributors, and do not necessarily represent
the views or policies of PLoS. PLoS expressly disclaims any and all warranties
and liability in connection with the information found in the release and article
and your use of such information.
PLoS is a nonprofit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making
the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource.
Source: Public Library of Science (PLoS) via SeedQuest.com
19 March 2008
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1.21 Wild barley can help improve cultivated varieties
Alexandria, Egypt
Scientists say that wild species of barley can help improve cultivated barley
as the wild species are a treasure trove of useful genes.
Prof Brian Steffenson, Professor and Lieberman-Okinow Endowed Chair of Cereal
Disease Resistance at the University of Minnesota, says that incorporating some
of the genes from the wild varieties into the domesticated barley could increase
the range of environments in which the crop can be cultivated.
"Wild species are a treasure trove of useful genes for improving cultivated crop,"
said Prof Steffenson, who is here attending the 10th International Barley Genetics
Symposium, organized by the International Center
for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and Bibilotheca Alexandrina.
"Cultivated barley came from wild varieties. When barely was first domesticated
some 10,000 years ago the farmers chose a variety in which seeds were non shattering
type so that harvesting was easy. So the genetic diversity narrowed down leading
to dramatic loss of it," he pointed out.
Prof Steffenson is working on evaluating traits in wild varieties collected from
nature and gene banks to look for diversity that has been left behind since first
domestication.
Genebanks like that of ICARDA are extremely important to have because they preserve
the biodiversity and germplasm of varieties whose habitat has now been destroyed,
he said
"Cultivated barely is extremely vulnerable to some diseases and epidemics of pathogens
and pests," Prof Steffenson said. "Some of the wild barley varieties when characterized
have been found resistant to Ug99. The Ug99 race of the stem rust has not arrived
in America but when it does, it can be devastating."
Agriculture scientists are endeavoring to stop the spread of the devastating fungus,
which has now been found in Iran. Historically, sporadic epidemics of stem rust,
also known as black rust, have plagued wheat production. An outbreak of the disease
in North America in the 1950s destroyed up to 40% of the spring wheat crop. The
fungus also infects barley.
Stem rust is once again on the move. In 1999, scientists discovered a new strain
of the fungus in Uganda, now known as Ug99 that has defeated the resistance in
varieties that were resistant to stem rust in the past. Over the past few years,
Ug99 has infected crops in North and East African countries and in early 2006
it was found in Yemen.
Prof Steffension said about 30 varieties of wild barley have been identified as
having resistance to stem rust, including the Ug99 strain, and all are from ICARDA.
Also, some of the accessions of wild barley collection from ICARDA planted in
Minnesota have survived extremely cold temperatures, which at times goes down
to –35 degrees. "It means that we can put a new gene that can extend the range
of environments in which barley can be grown as a winter crop," Prof Steffenson
said.
Source: SeedQuest.com
10 April 2008
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1.22 Preserving a unique collection of Carolina collards
Washingotn, DC
Some people comb through neighborhood yard sales and secondhand stores to find
that one-of-a-kind treasure. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) plant geneticist Mark Farnham
used similar tacticsbut on a much larger scalein his search for distinctive
varieties of Carolina collards.
Collard, a cole crop related to broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower, has always
been a local staple in the South. But its commercial cultivation expanded dramatically
in the 20th century, and is now dominated by a few hybrid varieties.
Farnham, at the U.S. Vegetable
Laboratory in Charleston, S.C., teamed up with Clemson University entomologist Powell Smith
and Emory & Henry College geographers
John T. Morgan and Edward Davis to look for unique collard varieties in the Carolina
coastal plains.
The team of collectors wanted to find and preserve "heirloom" collards, local
varieties of the leafy vegetable that had been cultivated from seeds passed down
through generations. So for several years, they traveled through North Carolina
and South Carolina in the late winter looking for signs of local collard production:
dark green collard leaves or bright yellow blossoms.
If Farnham and his colleagues found a field where heirloom collards were being
cultivated, they asked the owner if they could collect some of its seeds. During
their travels, most of the growers they metpeople who grew collard in garden
plots for their own use, or to sell at local marketswere at least 70 years
old.
The research team collected 87 distinctive collard seed samples from these small
gardensvarieties that might otherwise have disappeared in the near future.
Additional research is needed to see if these finds contain genetic material that
plant breeders could use to enhance popular commercial collard hybrids and other
cole crops.
The collard seeds are now kept in the U.S. Plant Introduction Collection of vegetable
Brassicas in Geneva, N.Y., where scientists maintain facilities for the preservation
of plant germplasm.
Read more
about this research in the April 2008 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.
By Ann Perry
ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
chief scientific research agency.
Source: SeedQuest.com
10 April 2008
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1.23 Corn's roots dig deeper into South America
Earliest signs of maize as staple food found after spreading south from
Mexican homeland
Corn has long been known as the primary food crop in prehistoric North and
Central America. Now it appears it may have been an important part of the South
American diet for much longer than previously thought, according to new research
by University of Calgary archaeologists who are cobbling together the ancient
history of plant domestication in the New World.
In a paper published in the March 24 advanced online edition of the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), U of C PhD student Sonia Zarrillo
and archaeology professor Dr. Scott Raymond report that a new technique for examining
ancient cooking pots has produced the earliest directly dated examples of domesticated
corn (maize) being consumed on the South American continent. Their discovery shows
the spread of maize out of Mexico more than 9,000 years ago occurred much faster
than previously believed and provides evidence that corn was likely a vital food
crop for villages in tropical Ecuador at least 5,000 years ago.
“The domestication and dispersal of maize has been a hot topic in archaeology
for decades and these are the earliest indisputable dates for its presence in
South America,” Raymond said. “It has long been thought that maize may have been
used south of Panama at this time for ritual purposes but this shows it was also
being consumed as food.”
Raymond led the excavation of tropical village sites in western Ecuador in the
early 1980s, which are the oldest known villages in the Americas. Using pottery
fragments recovered from the sites, Zarrillo obtained the charred remnants of
prehistoric meals and found they contained starch granules from domesticated corn.
“Plant material typically does not preserve very well in tropical sites but it
turns out that microscopic starch grains do survive very well over the years and
can be used to identify exact species of plants,” Zarrillo said. “Analyzing starch
from charred food residues is a new technique in archaeology and it is exciting
because it will stimulate research around the world when people realize they can
recover starch from cooking pots and use it to date and identify what people were
using as food.”
Starch analysis was also used by Zarrillo and Raymond for a study published in
Science last year that traced the domestication and spread of chili peppers throughout
South America, Central America and the Caribbean more than 6,000 years ago.
###
The paper “Directly dated starch residues document early formative maize (Zea
mays L.) in tropical Ecuador” by Sonia Zarrillo, Deborah M. Pearsall (University
of Missouri), J. Scott Raymond, Mary Ann Tisdale (Canadian Heritage, Government
of Canada) and Dugane Quon (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) will be available
in the March 24 online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences at: www.pnas.org at 3 pm (MDT).
Source: EurekAlert.org
24 March 2008
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1.24 Scientists develop transgenic tomatoes with increased
resistance to the common cutworm
Scientists from the Suranaree University of Technology
in Thailand and Louisiana State University have
developed transgenic tomato lines with increased resistance to the common cutworm.
The transgenic lines were modified to express a potato gene coding for the enzyme
polyphenol oxidase (PPO). Polyphenol oxidase, which has also been implicated for
plant resistance to the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae catalyzes the conversion
of phenolics to quinones, plant secondary metabolites that are involved in pathogen
defense.
Growth rates of cutworm in the PPO-expressing lines were up to three times lower
compared to their non-transgenic counterparts. Higher levels of PPO also resulted
to increased larval mortality, with the cutworm third instar consuming less foliage.
The results suggest a critical role for PPO-mediated phenolic oxidation in pest
resistance.
Article published by the Plant Journal at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.plantsci.2008.01.006
Source: Plant Science
via SeedQuest.com
Volume
174, Issue 4, April 2008, Pages 456-466
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1.25 NC State researchers identify genes key to hormone production
in plants
Researchers at North Carolina State University have pinpointed a small group
of genes responsible for “telling” plants when, where and how to produce a hormone
that is key to their development. Their findings shed light on the ways in which
hormone production in plants affects both a plant’s growth and its ability to
adapt to changing environments.
Dr. Jose Alonso, assistant professor of genetics, and a team of geneticists and
plant biologists from NC State, Germany and the Czech Republic conducted the research.
Their findings are published in the April 4 edition of the journal Cell.
Plant growth and development are regulated by a small number of hormones, which
plants combine in various ways so that they can adapt to and thrive in changing
environmental conditions. Auxin and ethylene are two of the most important of
these growth-regulating hormones.
Scientists had previously established that plants respond differently to ethylene
depending upon the type of plant tissue it is applied to, the developmental stage
of the plant, and the surrounding environmental conditions. They also knew that
the presence of auxin, another key growth-regulator, often served as a “trigger”
for a plant to produce more ethylene, but were unsure of the ways in which auxin
was synthesized.
“Auxin controls almost every process in a plant,” Alonso says, “and so it’s very
important to understand how and why auxin is produced within the plant.”
In order to find out more about how auxin production is triggered, the NC State
team identified a mutant strain of Arabidopsis – or mustard weed – that had a
root system insensitive to the growth inhibitory effect of ethylene.
When the team looked at the genome of this mutant strain of mustard weed, they
discovered that its lack of response to ethylene was due to the changes in a gene
that they named TAA1. This gene produces a protein that is necessary for auxin
synthesis. In a normal plant, the TAA1 gene recognizes the presence of ethylene
as its signal to make proteins that in turn synthesize auxin, which controls growth.
The researchers found that if the TAA1 gene and two other related genes were “knocked
out” or inactive, the plant had 50 percent less auxin than normal.
Their findings are the first to definitively establish a relationship between
a particular family of genes, tissue-specific ethylene response, and auxin production
in plants.
“If we want to do intelligent manipulation of plants, to breed them so that they
ripen at a certain rate, or so that they’re well-adapted to particular environments,
then we need to understand more about the ways that these hormones interact or
‘talk’ to each other,” Alonso says. “This research gives us concrete evidence
for at least one way in which this happens.”
###
Abstract:
“TAA1-mediated Auxin Biosynthesis is Essential for Hormone Crosstalk and Plant
Development”
Authors: Anna N. Stepanova, Joyce Robertson-Hoyt, Jeonga Yun, Larissa M. Benavente,
De-Yu Xie, and Jose M. Alonso, NC State University; et al
Published: April 3, 2008, in Cell
Plants have evolved a tremendous ability to respond to environmental changes by
adapting their growth and development. The interaction between hormonal and developmental
signals is a critical mechanism in the generation of this enormous plasticity.
A good example is the response to the hormone ethylene that depends on tissue
type, developmental stage, and environmental conditions. By characterizing the
Arabidopsis wei8 mutant we have found that a small family of genes mediates tissue-specific
responses to ethylene. Biochemical studies revealed that WEI8 encodes a long anticipated
tryptophan aminotransferase, TAA1, in the essential, yet genetically uncharacterized,
indole-3-pyruvic acid (IPA) branch of the auxin biosynthetic pathway. Analysis
of TAA1 and its paralogues reveals a link between local auxin production, tissue-specific
ethylene effects, and organ development. Thus, the IPA route of auxin production
is key to generating robust auxin gradients in response to environmental and developmental
cues.
Contact: Tracey Peake
tracey_peake@ncsu.edu
North Carolina State University
Source: EurekAlert.org
3 April 2008
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1.26 Cellular mechanism that controls salt tolerance
has been found in the arabidopsis plant
College Station, Texas
Whether a plant withers unproductively or thrives in salty conditions may now
be better understood by biologists.
The cellular mechanism that controls salt tolerance has been found in the arabidopsis
plant by a Texas AgriLife Research scientist
collaborating with an international team.
Complex-N-glycan, a carbohydrate linked to a protein in plant cells, was previously
thought to have no helpful function for plant growth and to cause certain allergies
in humans, according to Dr. Hisashi Koiwa, lead author of the study in this week’s
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
“This gene has been considered non-essential or even a nuisance,” Koiwa said.
“People thought it was an allergen and couldn’t find anything good it was doing
in plants. So, it was thought of as not necessary for the growth or development
of a plant.”
However, the team discovered that this carbohydrate may, in fact, be responsible
for a plants’ ability to contend with salt water. The team’s finding “significantly
clarifies” the role of the gene and could lead to the development of food crops
and other plants capable of producing well in areas with salty water, according
to the science academy’s journal reviewers.
Almost one-third of nation’s irrigated land and half of the world’s land is salt-affected,
according to the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Agriculture Research Service. Salt
left in the soil after the water evaporates, the research service notes, means
plants don’t grow as well and, therefore, yield less.
The study used arabidopsis, a plant commonly used in labs because it grows quickly
and has a relatively simple, well-known genome.
The researchers applied salt to the growing plants and then examined sick plants,
or those that appeared salt sensitive.
“We had to study the diseased status of the plant to understand its health,” Koiwa
said. “We looked for sick plants in the lab to find out why they were that way.”
He said the finding may help plant breeders look for this gene as they cross plants
in order to develop varieties less affected by salt.
Source: SeedQuest.com
8 April 2008
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1.27 Useful sources of resistance to white rust disease,
caused by Albugo candida, identified in Brassica juncea germplasm
from Australia, China and India
Australia
Researchers from the School of Plant Biology at University
of Western Australia and Department of
Agriculture and Food, Western Australia have identified useful sources of
resistance to white rust disease, caused by the fungus Albugo candida, in Brassica
juncea germplasm from Australia, China and India.
Members of a research team funded through an ACIAR and GRDC
project, Associate Professor Martin Barbetti and Dr Caixia Li, said yield losses
of up to 20 per cent can occur in Australia in B. juncea and B. rapa due to white
rust.
Genotypes from China showed the best resistance, followed by those from Australia
and India.
The research identified genotypes with very high levels of resistance to strains
of A. candida present in WA and a much more rapid method of screening seedlings
for resistance under controlled environments, compared with more expensive, more
time consuming field screening.
This is the first time very high levels of resistance, or a reliable method of
rapid characterisation of genotype responses to A. candida, has been made available
for Australian mustard breeders.
Source: SeedQuest.com
26 March 2008
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1.28 New method 'prevents spread of GM plants'
[BEIJING] Chinese scientists have developed a strategy to identify and contain
the potential release of genetically modified (GM) crops into conventional plant
populations.
Shen Zhicheng and colleagues from Hangzhou-based Zhejiang University modified
a strain of rice to be susceptible to a common herbicide used to kill unwanted
GM plants in non-GM fields. Their method was published in PLoS ONE last
week (19 March).
Genetic modification can improve plant traits such as resistance to pests and
tolerance to harsh environments. But there are worries that modified genes could
leak into the wider environment and enter the food chain.
Researchers and farmers have guarded against this by using GM-free sections in
fields, or engineering plants so that any seeds produced from breeding are sterile.
But according to Shen and colleagues, these methods are not enough to prevent
contamination, particularly that caused by human error such as the planting
of GM seeds in the incorrect field.
The researchers used bentazon, a conventional, low-cost herbicide to which rice
and other crops, including cotton, have natural resistance.
They blocked the expression of the enzyme that confers this resistance, rendering
the rice strain susceptible to the herbicide. As a result, a single spray of bentazon
at a regular dose will kill any genetically modified rice plants.
"When we use this technique to target GM plants, we can simply identify and kill
the accidentally released GM strains without hurting conventional plants," Shen
told SciDev.Net.
Shen says these genes can be added to GM plants at the same time as those added
to improve specific traits, and so will not significantly increase the cost of
producing these plants commercially.
But he adds that more work is needed to determine the proper dosage of bentazon
and evaluate the environmental impacts of increased use of the pesticides.
Huang Dafang, former director of the Institute of Biotechnologies of the Chinese
Academy of Agricultural Sciences, says the method offers a creative scientific
approach to GM plant containment.
"But, in practice, better field management and pollination control could be more
easily operable and economically more advantageous," says Huang, adding that studies
are also needed to identify the possible interaction between modified genes in
the GM containment strategy.
Link
to the full paper in PLoS ONE
by Jia Hepeng
Source: SciDev.net
26 March 2008
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1.29 Soy scientists to fill "library" with genetic bookmarks
Washington, DC
Soybean varieties with improved yield, pest resistance, protein and oil quality
and quantity and other traits are among the benefits expected of a new project
in which Agricultural Research Service (ARS)
scientists will create a "library" of 50,000 DNA markers called single nucleotide
polymorphisms (SNPs).
Geneticists David Hyten
and Perry Cregan
will "stock" the library as part of their ongoing studies with SNP DNA markers
at ARS' Soybean
Genomics and Improvement Research Unit in Beltsville, Md. The United Soybean
Board (USB) is funding the $2.9 million,
three-year project from the organization's soybean checkoff program.
The library's completion will provide soybean researchers and breeders with a
valuable resource to use in characterizing the genetic variation available for
soybean improvement. For example, they'll be able to determine the position and
characteristics of alleles, or alternate forms of genes, within the oilseed crop's
20 chromosomes.
A goal is to genotype nearly 20,000 lines, called accessions, in the USDA soybean
germplasm collection, which ARS curator and collaborator Randall Nelson
maintains on the University of Illinois campus
at Urbana-Champaign. The library's anticipated 50,000 SNPs will help researchers
to take the next step in applying the soybean whole genome-sequence datareleased
by the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint
Genome Instituteto make soybean breeding more efficient and precise.
Of particular interest is using SNP marker technology to rapidly identify plants
that carry important traits like high-quality oil and resistance to pests including
soybean cyst nematodes.
The SNPs themselves are small changes, or variations, in the sequence of four
biochemical "letters"A (adenine), C (cytosine), T (thymine) and G (guanine)that
make up an organism's DNA "alphabet." Cregan and Hyten, together with their ARS
and university colleagues, have so far identified 43,000 SNPs in soybean and mapped
the genome locations of 15,000 of them.
ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
chief scientific research agency.
The USB is made up of 68 farmer-directors who oversee investments of the soybean
checkoff on behalf of all U.S. soybean farmers.
By Jan Suszkiw
Source: SeedQuest.com
21 March 2008
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1.30 DuPont donates sequences from corn disease agent to
advance research
Des Moines, Iowa
DuPont, through its Pioneer Hi-Bred business, today announced that
it is making publicly available genomic sequences of a major fungal pathogen of
corn plants to enable scientists worldwide to more quickly complete the sequence
of this pathogen and to accelerate disease-resistance studies. Pioneer is donating
the sequences to GenBank®, the publicly available
genetic sequence database of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Colletotrichum graminicola is a fungal pathogen that causes Anthracnose Leaf Blight
and Stalk Rot, which lead to corn yield losses worldwide due to premature death
and weakened stalk strength. Pioneer has commercialized
Anthracnose-resistant corn hybrids in Latin America and is planning to incorporate
an Anthracnose-resistant gene into corn hybrids that will grow in the Northern
Hemisphere.
"Defining and donating the gene sequences of C. graminicola will accelerate the
scientific community's study of this important corn pathogen, creating knowledge
that universities and ultimately companies can use to protect corn yields around
the world," said William S. Niebur, vice president, DuPont Crop Genetics Research
and Development.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Cooperative State Research, Education, and
Extension Service (CSREES) is currently supporting the mapping and sequencing
of a different strain of the fungal pathogen through the Broad
Institute's Fungal Genome Initiative. Pioneer's donation will accelerate the progress
of the CSREES initiative. These research efforts represent the first time any
groups have sequenced strains of this key pathogen.
GenBank® is a registered trademark of the National Institutes of Health.
Source: SeedQuest.com
31 March 2008
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1.31 UD researchers discover novel
'gene toggles' in world’s top food crop
In laboratory research at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute, Pamela Green,
the Crawford Greenewalt Chair of Plant Sciences at UD, led the discovery of a
new type of molecule--a kind of”micro-switch”--that can turn off genes in rice.
4:18 p.m., April 9, 2008--University of Delaware researchers, in collaboration
with U.S. and international colleagues, have found a new type of molecule--a kind
of “micro-switch”--that can turn off genes in rice, which is the primary source
of food for more than half the world's population. The discovery is reported in
the March
25 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America.
Composed of short lengths of ribonucleic acids (RNAs), on the order of about
20 nucleotides long, these novel molecules, called natural antisense microRNAs
(nat-miRNAs), target the genes sitting directly across from them on the opposite
strand of DNA in a rice cell.
In addition to uncovering a new genetic switch and gaining insight about its pathways
and evolution, which are important to the health of a grain that feeds most of
the world, the research also may help scientists locate this type of novel gene
regulator in other organisms, including humans. MicroRNAs regulate 30 percent
of human genes and thus are critical to human health and development.
The research was led by Pamela Green, the Crawford Greenewalt Chair of Plant Sciences
at UD, and Blake Meyers, associate professor of plant and soil sciences, and their
laboratory groups at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute, including associate
scientist Cheng Lu, postdoctoral researchers Dong-Hoon Jeong and Kan Nobuta, graduate
students Karthik Kulkarni, Manoj Pillay, and Shawn Thatcher and research associate
Rana German.
Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and at the Chinese Academy of Sciences
collaborated on the project.
MicroRNAs are small RNA molecules that play a key role in regulating cellular
processes, including a cell's development and its responses to stress. These micro-molecules
bind to specific messenger RNA molecules, which carry instructions to the cells
to make particular proteins. This binding typically causes the messenger RNAs
to be degraded in plant cells.
“We were using a deep-sequencing approach to identify new microRNAs when we found
these novel examples,” said Green. “These tiny RNA molecules are a special type
of microRNA that have an antisense configuration relative to their targets. It's
an exciting finding. We believe they could be present in many organisms,” she
noted.
Some 240 microRNAs previously had been annotated in rice. Using a high-throughput
gene-sequencing technique known as Massively Parallel Signature Sequencing (MPSS),
the UD research team analyzed over 4 million small RNAs from 6 rice samples, which
yielded 24 new microRNAs, including the unique new group of molecules called natural
antisense microRNAs.
When a gene is ready to produce a protein, its two strands of DNA unravel. The
first strand, called the “sense” transcript, produces messenger RNA, which carries
the recipe for making a specific protein. However, the other strand of DNA may
produce a complementary antisense RNA molecule, which sometimes can block production
of the protein, thus turning off, or “silencing,” the gene.
Blake Meyers, associate professor of plant and soil sciences at UD, a collaborator
on the research, is working to determine when the newly discovered microRNA in
rice first evolved.
In the newly discovered case, the sense messenger RNA and antisense RNA operate
differently, and different pieces are spliced out of each. These splicing differences
limit the pairing ability between the sense and the antisense to a small region
that includes the microRNA. In addition, splicing of the precursor of natural
antisense microRNAs allows a hairpin to form, and hairpins are a requirement for
any microRNA to be made. Green noted that such microRNAs are not present
in the common research plant Arabidopsis, which is a dicotyledon, a plant
group that has two seed leaves (cotyledons) when it first sprouts. However, the
UD team has identified the novel microRNAs in monocotyledons--plants that have
solitary seed leaves--such as rice, corn and other grains.
“The novel microRNAs, target sites, and sense-antisense transcript arrangement
that we discovered are conserved among monocots, indicating that this pathway
is at least 50 million years old,” Meyers noted.
The next step in the research, Green said, will be to try to understand how microRNAs
help rice plants respond to adverse environmental conditions, such as drought
or limited nutrient availability.
In addition, the UD group currently is analyzing small RNAs in a diverse set of
plant species to determine if this new class of microRNA may be present in a broader
set of monocots or other plants.
“Comparative genomics is an important method for understanding microRNA evolution
and diversity and has the potential to tell us when this type of natural antisense-microRNA
might have first evolved,” Meyers said.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department
of Agriculture. Additionally, UD postdoctoral researcher Dong-Hoon Jeong was partially
supported by a Korean Research Foundation Fellowship funded by the Korean government,
and doctoral student Shawn Thatcher was supported by a training grant awarded
to UD's multidisciplinary Chemistry/Biology Interface Program
from the National Institutes of Health. Article by Tracey Bryant
Source: EurekAlert.org
April 2008
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1.32 Automating the search for new genes in the wheat genome
Providing vital food for billions of people, wheat cannot afford a sick-day
off. It must resist new diseases, adapt to environmental change and flourish in
the face of viruses, bacteria, insects and fungi.
Cultivated since the dawn of civilization, wheat must now enter the 21st century.
The race for survival
The keys to flourishing wheat fields are diverse and effective genes, found in
wheat’s gargantuan genetic toolbox: a DNA collection containing an astounding
17 billion base pairs.
“If you can