Global Partnership Initiative for Plant Breeding
Capacity Building (GIPB) brings you:
PLANT BREEDING NEWS
EDITION 193
30 August 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
-To subscribe, see instructions here
-Archived issues available at: FAO Plant Breeding
Newsletter
1. NEWS, ANNOUNCEMENTS AND RESEARCH NOTES
1.01 Highlights from the GIPB
Knowledge Resource Center
1.02 AGRA’s Program for Africa’s Seed
Systems
1.03 Conference report:
Africa's farmers can ease food crisis
1.04 Molecular plant breeding as the foundation
for 21st century crop improvement
1.05 International Centre for Plant Breeding Education
and Research established at UWA
1.06 New DuPont laser technology speeds
development of higher yielding corn and soybeans
1.07 Pigeonpea varieties developed by ICRISAT becoming
popular in the hill of Uttarakhand, North India
1.08 Conservation Agriculture: overview
of a course at CIMMYT
1.09 Biotechnology is not the only solution
1.10 Director of U.S. Department of Energy
Joint Genome Institute highlights the genomics of plant-based biofuels in the journal Nature
1.11 ICRISAT and India's Department of Biotechnology to
establish new facility for agribiotechnology research
1.12 GMO field trials
in Australia: Promising results for drought-tolerant wheat
1.13 Diamond to open international symposium
on agricultural biodiversity at the University of California,
Davis
1.14 USDA germplasm
center celebrates 50th anniversary
1.15 Tahitian vanilla originated in Maya
forests, says UC Riverside botanist
1.16 International seed treaty’s goals of biodiversity and food security are tough to implement
1.17 AgriLife Research breeder develops
drought-tolerant corn
1.18 Corn genetics may lead to next
generation of plant-based biofuels
1.19 Herbicide tolerance
sought for southern peas
1.20 New method discovered to make potatoes resistant to
Phytophthora
1.21 New virus threatens
High Plains wheat crop
1.22 African scientists reveal origins
of maize streak virus
1.23 Scientists discover new plant hormone
1.24 Wheat genotyping:
an invaluable service
1.25 Introducing a new high throughput
and high content plant phenotyping platform
2. PUBLICATIONS
2.01 Seed wars: controversies and cases on plant genetic resources
and intellectual property
2.02 Some wild growing fruits, nuts and
edible plants of the western Himalayas
3. WEB RESOURCES
3.01 GIPB Knowledge Resource Center launches the Plant Breeding
Electronic Journal Club
3.02 USDA/ARS produces online
databases for maize, blueberries
3.03 Seed Info: an electronic
newsletter of the Regional Seed Network
4 GRANTS AVAILABLE
4.01 GIPB - Call for proposals: promoting
the use of crop diversity to help address environmental and climate challenges
(EXTENDED DEADLINE)
4.02 GCP Genotyping Support Service: 2nd
call for proposals now open
4.03 The Academy of Sciences for the
Developing World (TWAS) announces two new fellowship programmes
5 POSITION ANNOUNCEMENTS
5.01 Research Geneticist (Plants), U.S. Department of Agriculture,
Agricultural Research Service
6 MEETINGS, COURSES AND WORKSHOPS
7 EDITOR'S NOTES
=========================
1. NEWS, ANNOUNCEMENTS AND RESEARCH NOTES
1.01 Highlights from the GIPB Knowledge
Resource Center
1. GIPB Strategic Planning 2009-2013
We just released the Report of a stakeholder consultation process that identified
the challenges and opportunities for building and sustaining efficient plant breeding
capacity in support to global food security and development. Visit the GIPB
website or click here
to access the document that describes the strategic priorities for operating GIPB
in the next five years.
2. Extension of Deadlines - Calls for Proposals and Expressions
of Interest
The deadline for submission of letters of intention to the call for expanded
up-to-date information on selected potential bioenergy crops has been extended
to 15 September, 2008. Click here
for detailed information on this call. (See also item 4.01, this issue)
The deadline for submission of proposals to the call on "Promoting the Use of
Crop Diversity to Help Address Environmental and Climate Challenges" has been
extended to 30 September, 2008. Click here
for detailed information on this call.
3. Plant Breeding Electronic Journal Club
The GIPB Knowledge Resource Center has launched the Plant Breeding Electronic
Journal Club, a virtual place that allows communities to meet and critically evaluate
plant breeding and related fields' articles in the scientific literature. In order
to participate you just need to follow instructions available here.
Your comments and suggestions will be valuable to help us improve our services.
Best wishes,
The GIPB team.
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1.02 AGRA’s Program for Africa’s Seed Systems
Nairobi, Kenya
AGRA’s Program for Africa’s Seed Systems is a new venture in African agriculture
whose mission is to increase income, improve food security, and reduce poverty
by promoting the development of a seed system that delivers new crop technology
to farmers in an efficient, equitable, and sustainable manner.
PASS prioritizes getting funds to key individuals and agencies working directly
with Africa’s farmers on developing new crop varieties, producing new seeds, and
developing new delivery systems for getting critical inputs to smallholder farmers.
PASS is funding the development of new varieties of beans, cassava, cowpea, maize,
rice, sweet potato and sorghum in 12 countries. Our crop development uses conventional
breeding, and relies upon close collaboration between plant breeders and farmers.
It pays special attention to conserving the great diversity of Africa’s crop varieties
and cropping systems, and in many cases makes use of this biodiversity in developing
new, higher-yielding varieties.
Circulating widely and working with front-line practitioners across a 13-country
program area, in 2007, PASS Program Officers developed 43 grants totaling US$36,801,778,
all aimed at improving crop yields under Africa’s
challenging farming conditions. Grants made by PASS in 2007 will train 80 new
African plant breeders to the PhD level and increase yields of eight important
food crops in six African countries.
Already, PASS-funded activities have produced over 400 MT of improved seed and
trained over 400 village-level
distributors of seed in professional business practices. Equally important, PASS
activities have communicated an exciting message to a generation of agriculturalists
working in both the public and private sectors in Africa that now is the time
to bring forward new ideas for increasing food productionwhich until now
have remained only dreams.
In its first year of operation, PASS has breathed new life into Africa’s hopes
for a green revolution based on increased harvests among its millions of hard-working
small-scale farmers. PASS works along a value chain that begins with newly-trained
African crop scientists, continues with funds for breeding new crop varieties,
and achieves impact in the lives of farmers through a vigorous campaign of seed
production and supply of agricultural inputs at village level.
PASS makes carefully targeted grants along a “value chain” of interdependent activities
which includes:
“Education for African Crop Improvement” (EACI), which targets funds for
education and training, especially MSc and PhD fellowships for plant breeders
and other crop scientists;
“Fund for Improvement and Adoption of African Crops” (FIAAC), which makes
targeted grants to individual breeders and their support teams to develop and
popularize improved crop varieties of Africa’s major food crops;
“Seed Production for Africa” (SEPA), which provides grant support and equity
investments for the emergence of private, African seed companies and other seed
dissemination activities;
“Agro-dealer Development Program” (ADP), which provides training and credit
to establish and support the growth of private, village-based agrodealers who
are a primary conduit of seeds, and other agricultural inputs plus knowledge directly
to smallholder farmers to increase their productivity and incomes. It builds and
develops networks of certified agro-dealers to enhance the quality, volume and
range of seeds sold. This will result in a significant increase in adoption of
improved crop varieties.
Complete newsletter: http://www.seedquest.com/News/releases/2008/pdf/23442.pdf
Source: AGRA Update via SeedQuest.com
20 August 2008
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1.03 Conference report: Africa's farmers can ease food
crisis
OSLO, Norway - A world food crisis may transform once altruistic efforts to help
African feed itself into acts of self preservation, as the planet runs low on
key agricultural projects, delegates to the Third African Green Revolution Conference
said Thursday.
"Agriculture is key to getting Africa out of poverty," former U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan told about 250 delegates in Oslo. "Because of the food crisis, everybody
now realizes we have ignored agriculture. ... We need to work to increase global
food production."
The researchers, donors, and officials were meeting in Oslo on Thursday and Friday
for the third in a series of gatherings that follow up a 2004 challenge from Annan
to revolutionize African farming. The conferences are organized by Yara International
ASA, a Norwegian fertilizer company.
In addition to focusing on how to help African farmers climb out of poverty, this
conference also draws attention to the role increased African food production
could play in countering soaring world food prices.
Annan, board chairman of the Alliance of a Green Revolution in Africa, said that
requires a joint effort by Africa's subsistence farmers, government, private business,
and scientists.
He said there are 200 million Africans who go hungry each day, while simple measures,
such as fertilizers, better seeds and improved water management, could quadruple
their agricultural output from existing farmland.
"Africa does not want to live on handouts," Annan said. "Africa wants to empower
its farmers to produce."
Monty Patrick Jones, who leads the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa,
told The Associated Press that, "With proper planning, Africa can produce food
for itself and for the world. Africa has more agricultural land than most places."
Florence Wambugu, founder and head of Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International,
said "Africa has the greatest opportunity in the current (food) crisis because
we are a farming continent. An African green revolution is very important to stabilizing
the whole food supply system."
On Friday, the Kenyan woman will share the $100,000 Yara Prize with Tanzanian
Victor Mfinanga for efforts in their home countries to help small farmers increase
productivity and profits.
Yara and Annan's alliance are expected to announce a partnership to help Africa's
farmers at the end of the conference Friday.
- Associated Press via Forbes, Aug. 28, 2008
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/08/28/ap5367935.html
Source: AgBioView from AgBioWorld
29 August 2008
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1.04 Molecular plant breeding as the foundation for
21st century crop improvement
Abstract
The fundamental discoveries of Darwin and Mendel established the scientific basis
for plant breeding and genetics at the turn of the 20th century. Similarly, the
recent integration of advances in biotechnology, genomic research, and molecular
marker applications with conventional plant breeding practices has created the
foundation for molecular plant breeding, an interdisciplinary science that is
revolutionizing 21st century crop improvement. Though the methods of molecular
plant breeding continue to evolve and are a topic of intense interest among plant
breeders and crop scientists (for review, see Cooper et al., 2004; Nelson et al.,
2004; Lörz and Wenzel, 2005; Varshney et al., 2006; Eathington et al., 2007; Mumm,
2007), they have received relatively little attention from the majority of plant
biologists engaged in basic scientific research. The objective of this article
for an Editor's Choice series on future advances in crop biotechnology is to briefly
review important historical developments in molecular plant breeding, key principles
influencing the current practice of molecular plant breeding, and factors that
influence the adoption of molecular plant breeding in crop improvement programs.
Furthermore, we emphasize how the application of molecular plant breeding is now
contributing to discoveries of genes and their functions that open new avenues
for basic plant biology research.
Full article: http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/content/full/147/3/969
Stephen P. Moose and Rita H. Mumm
Department of Crop Sciences (S.P.M., R.H.M.) and Energy Biosciences Institute
(S.P.M.), University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois 61801; and GeneMax
Services, Savoy, Illinois 61874 (R.H.M.)
Plant Physiology 147:969-977 (2008)
© 2008 American Society of Plant
Biologists
Source: SeedQuest.com
August 2008
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1.05 International Centre for Plant Breeding Education
and Research established at UWA
The University of Western Australia (UWA) established an International Centre
for Plant Breeding Education and Research. The centre was launched Friday 29 August.
UWA Vice-Chancellor Professor Alan Robson said the centre would play a vital role
in addressing the looming global shortage in plant breeding expertise.
“There is growing recognition that there is a need to develop rapid crop breeding
skills to help us adapt to climate change and to secure the world’s food supplies,”
he said.
“The new centre will provide much needed integrated expertise in genetics, biotechnology
and plant breeding. In effect, it will help provide the next generation
of professional plant breeders for Australia, the Asia-Pacific region, and the
Indian Ocean rim.
“The new centre will form part of the University’s Institute of Agriculture and
will significantly strengthen UWA’s contributions to Australian and international
agriculture.”
The International Centre for Plant Breeding Education and Research will offer
a four-year undergraduate science degree in genetics and breeding – the only one
of its kind at an Australian university – and an undergraduate degree in agricultural
science, with a component of genetics and breeding. Both degrees include
training in crop agronomy, plant physiology, biometrics and related disciplines.
It will also offer post-graduate study in genetics and plant breeding, as well
as in-service training for practising plant breeders or seeds industry personnel.
Contributed by Elcio Guimaraes
AGCP/FAO
Elcio.Guimaraes@fao.org
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1.06 New DuPont laser technology speeds development of
higher yielding corn and soybeans
Boone, Iowa
Technology a big step in increasing corn and soybean yields 40 percent in 10
years
DuPont today unveiled an advanced technology
that will transform seed research and considerably speed up the development of
higher yielding corn and soybean varieties.
DuPont business Pioneer Hi-Bred introduced
Laser-Assisted Seed Selection to farmers attending the Farm Progress Show
here as the newest tool in its Accelerated Yield Technology (AYT) toolbox.
The technology promises to increase the size and scope of the Pioneer breeding
program five fold in the next three years.
Laser-Assisted Seed Selection uses a 120-watt carbon dioxide laser to score a
small slice from a seed to capture its genetic information while maintaining the
seed's viability for planting. Molecular breeding techniques are used to identify
desirable genetic combinations within each individual scored seed slice. Seeds
identified to have superior genetics are selected for planting and advancement
through the Pioneer research program.
"Laser-Assisted Seed Selection transforms our research program because it intensifies
the impact of other AYT technologies such as molecular breeding by enabling the
rapid selection of the best genetics for advancement before they ever leave the
lab," said William S. Niebur, vice resident - DuPont Crop Genetics Research and
Development. "Our engineers and scientists have come up with a truly unique technology
that will have a significant impact on the rate we bring higher yielding products
to Pioneer customers."
Laser-Assisted Seed Selection is a key component in the Pioneer effort to increase
the yields of its corn hybrids and soybean varieties by 40 percent within 10 years.
Pioneer has numerous patents pending for the technology and will be using it on
millions of corn and soybean seeds by the end of 2009. Laser-Assisted Seed Selection
is a collection of proprietary processes that includes precise magnetic-based
orientation of the seed, laser scoring, seed and slice collection, advanced seed
selection and planting.
Transforming Pioneer Seed Research
Prior to molecular breeding and Laser-Assisted Seed Selection, research scientists
had to evaluate plants in the field and select genetics based solely upon their
physical characteristics or phenotype. Physical analysis of plants took years
of field trials, thousands of hours and acre upon acre of land prior to development
of a commercial hybrid.
"The millions of phenotypic points of data Pioneer researchers have collected
over the years have made AYT a reality," Niebur said. "These data points are living
within a supercomputer that has decoded much of the genetic code of our industry-leading
germplasm. With this broad molecular insight and AYT tools like Laser-Assisted
Seed Selection, we are able to breed higher yielding products much faster than
ever before."
Improving Genetic Understanding
The development of molecular breeding techniques allowed scientists to evaluate
plants based on their genes as well as phenotypic characteristics, but genetic
samples had to be captured from green plant tissue in the field. Scientists recently
discovered they could gather genetic samples from seeds prior to planting, but
the methods of collection with a blade or clipper were rudimentary. Laser-Assisted
Seed Selection perfects the technique because it eliminates contamination, ensures
seed viability and has much higher throughput than other kernel chipping or clipping
methods. Laser-Assisted Seed Selection equipment is also compact and mobile, allowing
Pioneer to deploy the technology at research stations around the world.
"It's difficult to compare the two methods because it's like comparing a Model
T car to a Lear Jet," Niebur said. "They can both get you to where you are going;
one just does it more quickly and efficiently."
Source: SeedQuest.com
26 August 2008
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1.07 Pigeonpea varieties developed by ICRISAT becoming
popular in the hill of Uttarakhand, North India
Pigeonpea (red gram, tuvar dal, arhar dal) varieties developed by the International
Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) are becoming
popular over the hill slopes of Uttarakhand in North India, and providing an opportunity
to the farmers to improve pulse production in the state.
The program is being implemented by ICRISAT in collaboration with Vivekananda
Parvathiya Krishi Anusandhan Sansthan (VPKAS), Almora, and the Uttarakhand Department
of Agriculture, Dehradun.
The annual demand for pulses in Uttarakhand is 0.3 million tons, but the present
production is only 0.06 million tons, leading to a huge protein deficit among
the poor of this state.
According to Dr William Dar, Director General of ICRISAT, the successful effort
of promoting the cultivation of pigeonpea in new niches such as Uttarakhand has
once again highlighted the importance of the Institute's research in improving
the agricultural productivity and farmers' incomes in tough terrains, where a
large proportion of rich top soil has been washed away with heavy annual rains.
Dr KB Saxena, ICRISAT's Principal Pigeonpea
Breeder and leader of the project, explained that the inspiration for promoting
pigeonpea in Uttarakhand came from ICRISAT's success in spreading the cultivation
of pigeonpea in the sloping hills of southern China. In Uttarakhand, the first
success was registered when the experiments conducted by the VPKAS rigorously
tested ICRISAT's short-duration pigeonpea ICPL 88039 in the hills, after which
ICPL 88039 was released in 2007 under the popular name "VL Arhar 1". Dr Vinay
Mahajan, Principal Scientist at VPKAS, believes that VL Arhar 1 will suit cropping
systems of the hills and farmers will have a good choice for protein-rich food.
To undertake the promotion of this pigeonpea a special project was initiated in
2006. The first testing program was launched in the 2007 rainy season. A total
of 375 on-farm demonstrations were conducted in 13 districts and 67,400 kg of
seed was harvested from 112 ha. with mean productivity of 600 kg per hectare.
In 2007-08 a total of 1183 farmers of 408 villages cultivated VL Arhar 1. Most
farmers felt happy because they harvested encouraging yields and made good profits
in the very first trial.
The most interesting observation was that elevations up to and above 2200 m also
recorded high yields. Amazingly, most pigeonpea areas in Uttarakhand are waste
and rocky lands where no food crop could be grown earlier. It can also be grown
as an intercrop with mango and litchi. The crop sown between 15 May to 10 June
produced good yields and also allowed farmers to plant a second crop in the same
land.
With the farmers being satisfied with pigeonpea cultivation the total area in
2008 has increased 15-fold, from 112 ha to more than 2000 ha. Pigeonpea is a profitable
crop with high yields and little inputs. However, the production constraints at
different altitudes and important issues like seed availability, value addition
and marketing need to be studied and addressed. Also elaborate programs have been
made for large-scale quality seed production, training, and monitoring.
Source: SeedQuest.com
29 August 2008
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1.08 Conservation Agriculture: overview of a course
at CIMMYT
From May 26th to July 27th, the Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT)
successfully hosted a five-week course in conservation agriculture (CA) for visiting
scientists titled “Laying the ground for sustainable and productive cropping systems.”
Participants from China, Ethiopia and Romania learned about resource conserving
technologies in irrigated and rainfed wheat and maize production systems, including
reduced tillage and crop residue management strategies.
Tesfay Araya, who is expected to be the first conservation agriculture specialist
in northern Ethiopia, commented on the interdisciplinary theme of the program:“It
was a very holistic approach, with diverse content from a number of disciplinesfrom
breeders, soil specialists, agronomists, crop protection people and so on.”
With the chance to work directly with the Cropping Systems Management team at
CIMMYT’s research stations and in nearby farmers’ fields, the visitors developed
skills in trial planning, management and monitoring. There was also first-hand
opportunity to initiate individual research, as each participant had to define
a clear research objective and draft a paper for future publication. “We learned
skills in publishing, writing, reviewing data…we didn’t miss anything,” said Mr.
Araya.
Participants took away with them lessons learned for application in their home
countries. “I saw people here working together with good communication,” said
Mr. Araya. “That’s the most important thing, and it’s very unique.” For
Zhang Bin, from China, implementation of CA was a consideration. “When I go back
I will do research on conservation agriculture, and if I have good results I will
demonstrate it to farmers and try to transfer the technology to them.”
Since 1996 CIMMYT has hosted over 86 course participants and 30 visiting scientists
from 26 countries in its Conservation Agriculture research area. Long-term
courses and research are conducted at CIMMYT’s headquarters in El Batán and at
its research station in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico.
The next course is scheduled for May 25th to June 26th in 2009. For more information,
please contact Petr Kosina (pkosina@cgiar.org) or visit http://www.cimmyt.org/english/wps/events/courses/pdf/announcement_CA_course_2009.pdf
Contributed by Petr Kosina
Coordinator - Knowledge Sharing and Capacity Building, CIMMYT
p.kosina@CGIAR.ORG
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1.09 Biotechnology is not the only solution
Biotechnology has a role to play in alleviating hunger and disease and mitigating
climate change, but it's not the only solution, says an editorial in Nature
Biotechnology.
Claiming that biotechnology can "heal, fuel, feed the world" is unrealistic, the
editorial says.
Genetically modified crops have yet to address the main problems facing farmers
in developing countries; biotechnology is only one of the approaches needed to
improve biofuels; and gene therapy has not yet delivered promised cures for diseases.
Biotechnology must be used in the context of all other technical and nontechnological
solutions, and proponents must be careful about overhyping the discipline's current
and potential applications.
Further still, pushing the idea of biotechnology as the 'solution' is unlikely
to convince sceptics, and could even be counterproductive.
Biotechnology communications must be less one-dimensional and outline the problems
accurately to allow people to come to their own conclusions about how best to
solve the world's problems.
Link to
full article in Nature Biotechnology
Source: Nature Biotechnology
19 August 2008
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1.10 Director of U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome
Institute highlights the genomics of plant-based biofuels in the journal Nature
Walnut Creek, California
Genomics is accelerating improvements for converting plant biomass into biofuelas
an alternative to fossil fuel for the nation's transportation needs, reports Eddy
Rubin, Director of the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute
(DOE JGI), in the August 14 edition of the journal Nature. In "Genomics of cellulosic
biofuels," Rubin lays out a path forward for how emerging genomic technologies
will contribute to a substantially different biofuels future as compared to the
present corn-based ethanol industryand in part mitigate the food-versus-fuel
debate. The Nature Review is available for download (by subscription) at http://www.nature.com/.
"The Apollo moon shot and the Human Genome Project rallied support for massive
R&D efforts that created the capabilities to overcome obstacles that were
not contemplated at the outset of these initiatives," says Rubin. "Similarly,
today's barriers to improving biofuels are significant, but genetics and genomics
can catalyze progress towards delivering, in the not-too-distant future, economically-viable
and more socially acceptable biofuels based on lignocellulose."
While Rubin acknowledges that this strategy is in its infancy, rapid progress
is being made.
"Over the past 10,000 years, wild plant species were selected for their desirable
traits resulting in today's highly productive food crops. We simply don't have
thousands of years in the face of the energy and climate challenges, so by applying
the power of genomics to these problems, we are seeking to speed up the domestication
of energy crops and the technologies for converting them to suitable biofuels
as a more carbon-neutral approach to meeting part of our transportation needs."
In the Nature Review, Rubin describes the processes entailed in biofuel production
from lignocellulose: the harvesting of biomass, pretreatment and saccharification,
which results in the deconstruction of cell wall polymers into component sugars,
and then the conversion of those sugars into biofuels through fermentation. Each
step, he says, offers an opportunity for genomics to play a significant role.
"With the data that we are generating from plant genomes we can home in on relevant
agronomic traits such as rapid growth, drought resistance, and pest tolerance,
as well as those that define the basic building blocks of the plants cell wallcellulose,
hemicellulose and lignin. Biofuels researchers are able to take this information
and design strategies to optimize the plants themselves as biofuels feedstocksaltering,
for example, branching habit, stem thickness, and cell wall chemistry resulting
in plants that are less rigid and more easily broken down."
For microbial biomass breakdown, Rubin says that many candidates have already
been identified. These include Clostridia species for their ability to degrade
cellulose, and fungi that express genes associated with the decomposition of the
most recalcitrant features of the plant cell wall, lignin, the phenolic "glue"
that imbues the plant with structural integrity and pest resistance. The white
rot fungus Phanerochaete chrysosporium produces unique extracellular oxidative
enzymes that effectively degrade lignin by gaining access through the protective
matrix surrounding the cellulose microfibrils of plant cell walls.
Another fungus, the yeast Pichia stipitis, ferments the five-carbon "wood sugar"
xylose abundant in hardwoods and agricultural harvest residue. Rubin says that
Pichia's recently sequenced genome has revealed insights into the metabolic pathways
responsible for this process, guiding efforts to optimize this capability in commercial
production strains. Pathway engineering promises to produce a wider variety of
organisms able to ferment the full repertoire of sugars derived from cellulose
and hemicellulose and tolerate higher ethanol concentrations to optimize fuel
yields.
Rubin also touches on the emerging technology of metagenomicscharacterizing,
without the need for laboratory culture, the metabolic profile of organisms residing
in an environmental samplefor the identification of enzymes suitable for
industrial-scale biofuel production.
"Using this prospecting technique, we can survey the vast microbial biodiversity
to gain a better picture of the metabolic potential of genes and how they can
be enlisted for the enzymatic deconstruction of biomass and subsequent conversion
to high energy value fuels."
As an example, Rubin cites an analysis of the hindgut contents of nature's own
bioreactor, the termite, (published in Nature (450, 560-565 [22 November 2007]),
which has yielded more than 500 genes related to the enzymatic deconstruction
of cellulose and hemicellulose.
The Nature Review goes on to list the feedstock genomes, microbial "biomass degraders,"
and "fuel producers" completed or in progress. These include the first tree genome
completedthat of the poplar Populus trichocarpa and other plants in the sequencing
queue, such as soybean, switchgrass, sorghum, eucalyptus, cassava, and foxtail
millet. In addition, Rubin points to oil-producing algae as an alternative source
for biodiesel productionwith the alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, as just
one of several algal species that has been characterized for their ability to
efficiently capture and convert sunlight into energy.
"Given the daunting magnitude of fossil fuel used for transportation, we will
likely have to draw from several different sources to make an appreciable impact
with cellulosic biofuels, all of which will in some significant way will be informed
by genomics," says Rubin.
"Toward this end, rapid new sequencing methods and the large-scale genomics previously
applied to sequencing the human genome are being exploited by bioenergy researchers
to design next-generation biofuels, higher-chain alcohols and alkanes, with higher
energy content than petroleum and more adaptable to existing infrastructure."
Source: SeedQuest.com
13 August 2008
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1.11 ICRISAT and India's Department of Biotechnology
to establish new facility for agribiotechnology research
Patancheru, India
The International Crops Research Institute for the
Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) is collaborating with the Department of Biotechnology
(DBT), Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, to establish a
DBT-ICRISAT Platform for Translational Research on Transgenic Crops (PTTC) at
ICRISAT's global headquarters at Patancheru, near Hyderabad in India.
The proposed project was recently approved by the DBT. The approval comes with
a funding commitment of Rs 248.79 million (US$ 6.25 million) for five years (2008-2013).
According to the Director General of ICRISAT, Dr William Dar, the PTTC will strengthen
transgenic research for crop improvement by providing a platform, building synergies
among institutions. ICRISAT will continue to harness transgenic research to solve
problems that cannot be solved through conventional breeding.
The mission of PTTC will be to "translate transgenic technology and harness its
products to meet the needs of agricultural growth". Transgenic technology, also
known as genetic modification or engineering, involves the import of genes from
another organism to improve the resistance to disease or pest, or to improve productivity
in agricultural crops.
The aim of establishing PTTC is to facilitate a coordinated approach for the translation
of existing genetic engineering technologies in developing transgenic crop varieties
for product development and commercialization. Under this, priority crops and
constraints will be identified and a well-coordinated approach set in place.
PTTC will evaluate and advance the potential of new genetic engineering options
to enhance agricultural productivity. PTTC will also provide expertise and facilities
for the production and assessment of transgenic crop plants developed through
collaborative projects.
This platform will serve as a facility of reference to strengthen national, regional
and international linkages and collaboration in transgenic research and development,
exchange of materials and information, as well as support training, consultation
and technology commercialization. This platform is expected to generate research
products that are national and international public goods.
Source: SeedQuest.com
14 August 2008
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1.12 GMO field trials in Australia: "Promising results"
for drought-tolerant wheat
Release trials with drought-tolerant wheat are being conducted again in Australia.
The German scientist Prof. Dr. Spangenberg examines genetically modified wheat
lines. The project is testing various candidate genes for drought resistance.
First results show that these plants have an increased yield of about 20 per cent.
GMO Safety spoke to the research director about the impacts of climate change
on global cereal production and the need for innovative agricultural research.
Read the whole interview:
Drought-tolerant wheat: "Promising results"
http://www.gmo-safety.eu/en/news/654.docu.html
Contributed by Gabriele Völcker
GMO-Safety.eu Team
press@gmo-safety.eu
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1.13 Diamond to open international symposium on agricultural
biodiversity at the University of California, Davis
Davis, California
Evolutionary biologist and author Jared Diamond will present the opening keynote
address for an international symposium on agricultural biodiversity, to be held
Sept. 14-18 at the University of California,
Davis.
The Harlan II International Symposium,
the successor to a program held 11 years ago in Syria, is dedicated to the late
crop evolutionist Jack R. Harlan. It will focus on the importance of using and
conserving not just a diversity of species, but also genetic diversity within
species.
In opening the symposium, Diamond will discuss whether environmental factors,
rather than pure chance, led to the uneven distribution around the world of plant
and animal species suitable for domestication and agricultural use. His public
presentation on Sunday, Sept. 14, will begin at 6:15 p.m. in 123 Science Lecture
Hall at UC Davis. Admission to the talk and the preceding reception will cost
$50 per person.
Diamond maintains that the adoption of agriculture was "the most important event
in the last 50,000 years of human history." As people developed the ability to
cultivate crops and raise animals, they were able to produce a surplus of food,
which fueled population growth and led to settled living, technology, social stratification
and political centralization, he notes.
He points out that the societies with the greatest variety of plant species suitable
for farming expanded earlier and farther than did societies in areas with the
fewest farmable plant species -- and no animal species -- that were easily domesticated.
For example, cultures in the Fertile Crescent, China, the Andes, and Meso-America
-- the land between central Mexico and Nicaragua -- flourished, while cultures
in areas such as Eastern North America and Highland New Guinea did not.
Diamond will question whether environmental factors in different regions predisposed
wild animal and plant species in those areas to develop traits conducive to domestication.
A complete program for the Harlan II symposium is available online
at: < http://harlanii.ucdavis.edu/main/speakers_topics.htm>.
For fee information and a list of talks and tours, click on "registration" at
the left of this page.
Among the speakers during the three-day symposium will be:
Monday, Sept. 15, 9 a.m. -- Robert Wayne, a UCLA biology professor and
expert on canine genetics, will discuss what the analysis of the dog genome --
the entire collection of genes for the animal family that includes domestic dogs,
wolves, foxes and coyotes -- tells about the evolutionary history of these animals
and how the various species are related.
Monday, Sept. 15, 1:30 p.m. -- Doyle McKey, Universite de Montpellier II and the
Center of Evolutionary and Functional Ecology, Montpellier, France, will discuss
ecological approaches to crop domestication, using manioc, or cassava, as an example
of how ecology can be integrated with genetics and ethnobiology -- the study of
how people interact with the living environment -- to test plant-domestication
scenarios.
Tuesday, Sept. 16, 9:30 a.m. -- Anthropologist Melinda Zeder, director
of the archaeobiology program for the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History,
will discuss her latest research on when and where in the world animals were first
domesticated.
Tuesday, Sept. 16, 6 p.m. -- Keynote speaker Gary Nabhan, an ecologist and pioneer
in the local-food movement from the Southwest Center of the University of Arizona,
will compare the crop diversity found by plant explorer N.I. Vavilov between 1916
and 1936, with the remaining diversity that Nabhan found in the same areas in
nine countries on five continents three quarters of a century later.
Nabhan says that an understanding of how biodiversity in local agricultural systems
has changed may help predict how well farmers may be able to adapt to rapid climate
change, globalization, water scarcity, and weed or pest invasions.
Wednesday, Sept. 17, 8 a.m. -- M. Kat Andersen, a plant ecologist in UC
Davis' Department of Plant Sciences and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural
Resources Conservation Service, will discuss how Native Californians cultivated
naturally occurring plants as sources of food even before the first Europeans
arrived and how some of those practices are being applied in certain sectors of
modern agriculture today.
Wednesday, Sept. 17, 9 a.m. -- Dennis Hedgecock, a fisheries ecologist at the
University of Southern California, will discuss the importance of conserving genetic
resources in aquaculture, which he says is now the fastest-growing sector of global
food production. He will discuss the challenges in both conserving and utilizing
the planet's imperiled aquatic biodiversity, when faced with the threat of overfishing,
species introductions, interactions of wild and farmed stocks, ocean warming and
ocean acidification.
Wednesday, Sept. 17, 11 a.m. -- Charles Bamforth, the Anheuser-Busch Endowed Professor
of Brewing Science at UC Davis, will discuss genetic resources of brewing yeast,
which he says is the best example of the major advances that have been made in
just a few decades in understanding the physiology, biochemistry and genetics
of yeasts and other microorganisms.
Wednesday, Sept. 17, 11:30 a.m., -- James Lapsley, adjunct associate professor
in the Department of Viticulture and Enology and chair of the Department of Science,
Agriculture, and Natural Resources in UC Davis Extension, will talk about the
introduction to California of Vitis vinifera, the grape species that includes
most traditional European wine grapes. Lapsley is author of the book "Bottled
Poetry," a history of California winemaking.
Source: SeedQuest.com
27 August 2008
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1.14 USDA germplasm center celebrates 50th anniversary
Fort Collins, Colorado
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's
premier genebank is celebrating its 50th anniversary here today. The National
Center for Genetic Resources Preservation (NCGRP), part of USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS), maintains
the genetic diversity of the world's crops and livestock as living germplasm that
is distributed nationally and internationally to improve agricultural productivity,
fight hunger, improve nutrition, reduce pesticide use and restore ecosystems.
"In 50 years, the NCGRP has made invaluable contributions to the preservation
of precious genetic resources," said ARS Administrator Edward B.
Knipling. "These efforts continue to benefit the United States and the world
by ensuring that diverse animal and crop germplasm is available to breeders and
researchers."
More than 1 million samples of plants, animals, insects and microbes are housed
at NCGRP.
The germplasm that is preserved at NCGRP is an irreplaceable natural resource
that underpins U.S. food security and the global supply of food, fiber and biofuels.
These samples carry genes vital for combating emerging pest and disease problems
and environmental threats. Variation within the collection is used to develop
new products and specialty crops. Rapidly advancing research in genomics and gene
discovery make daily use of the huge collections at NCGRP.
During the 50 years of the center's existence, NCGRP research has made major strides
in the technology that keeps germplasm alive for decades or centuries. NCGRP scientists
introduced freezer and cryogenic storage of plant germplasm to the world, and
found new ways to capture and preserve genetic diversity of crops and livestock.
Managing large collections requires advanced data systems and tools to identify
and efficiently collect essential genetic variation. NCGRP scientists are world
leaders in developing and implementing these state-of-art tools.
Like its germplasm, the technology developed at NCGRP is freely shared with genebanks
everywhere. NCGRP facilities, operations and research are the model used to develop
genebanks globally. NCGRP partners with other ARS facilities, governmental agencies,
industry and international collaborators to support global efforts to improve
human health and guide sustainable use and management of the Earth's biodiversity.
Formerly known as the National Seed Storage Laboratory (NSSL), the Center changed
its name in 2001 to reflect the diverse array of plant materials it stores, and
to acknowledge the addition of the National
Animal Germplasm Program (NAGP) and initiatives to preserve genetic diversity
of agronomically important insects and microbes.
In recognition of the NCGRP's 50th anniversary, the Colorado Senate passed a joint resolution
earlier this year, recognizing the center for "globally renowned scientific research,
preservation efforts and service."
ARS News Service
By Laura McGinnis
Source: SeedQuest.com
19 August 2008
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1.15 Tahitian vanilla originated in Maya forests, says
UC Riverside botanist
Team led by Pesach Lubinsky identifies enigmatic orchid’s origins; traces
its Pacific voyage via Spanish and French trading ships
RIVERSIDE, Calif. – The origin of the Tahitian vanilla orchid, whose cured
fruit is the source of the rare and highly esteemed gourmet French Polynesian
spice, has long eluded botanists. Known by the scientific name Vanilla tahitensis,
Tahitian vanilla is found to exist only in cultivation; natural, wild populations
of the orchid have never been encountered.
Now, a team of investigators led by Pesach Lubinsky, a postdoctoral researcher
with Norman
Ellstrand, a professor of genetics in UC Riverside's Department of Botany and Plant Sciences,
claims to have traced Tahitian vanilla back to its true origins.
In the August issue of the American Journal
of Botany, Lubinsky and colleagues use genetic and ethnohistoric analysis
to argue that Tahitian vanilla began its evolutionary journey as a pre-Columbian
Maya cultivar inside the tropical forests of Guatemala.
"All the evidence points in the same direction," Lubinsky said. "Our DNA analysis
corroborates what the historical sources say, namely, that vanilla was a trade
item brought to Tahiti by French sailors in the mid-19th century. The French Admiral
responsible for introducing vanilla to Tahiti, Alphonse Hamelin, used vanilla
cuttings from the Philippines. The historical record tells us that vanilla – which
isn't native to the Philippines – was previously introduced to the region via
the Manila Galleon trade from the New World, and specifically from Guatemala."
The Manila galleons (1565-1815) were Spanish trading ships that sailed once or
twice each year across the Pacific Ocean between Manila in the Philippines and
Acapulco, Mexico. The ships brought Chinese porcelain, silk, ivory, spices, and
other exotic goods to Mexico in exchange for New World silver.
The genetic data Lubinsky and his colleagues obtained confirmed that the closest
relatives to Tahitian vanilla, from among 40 different Vanilla species they analyzed
from across the world, were two species that grow naturally only in the tropical
forests of Central America: Vanilla planifolia and Vanilla odorata.
V. planifolia is also the primary species cultivated for commercial vanilla,
and is grown principally in Madagascar and Indonesia. V. odorata has never
been cultivated.
Yet, even with this initial genetic data, the researchers faced a conundrum. They
could find no Tahitian vanilla growing wild in Guatemala, which is where its closest
relatives grew. The researchers decided to give their genetic data a second look.
This time, by comparing patterns of relatedness in DNA sequences from both the
nucleus and the chloroplast (a plant cell's photosynthetic factory), they discovered
that Tahitian vanilla fit the pattern of being a hybrid offspring between V.
planifolia and V. odorata.
"And that's where the Maya cultivators come in," Lubinsky explained. "The pre-Columbian
Maya had been managing their forests for millennia to cultivate cacao and to make
chocolate, and we know they were also cultivating vanilla to use it as a chocolate
spice. The Maya created these forest gardens by introducing different types of
species of wild cacao and vanilla from the surrounding forests, which meant that
species that had previously been geographically separated were then able to hybridize
because they were in the same place. That's the scenario we present in our research
paper for how Tahitian vanilla got started. It is an evolutionary product, but
also a Maya artifact."
Seung-Chul
Kim, an assistant professor of systematics in the Department of Botany and
Plant Sciences and a coauthor on the research paper, served as an advisor to Lubinsky
on the project.
"Pesach has demonstrated that Vanilla species can exchange genes quite
frequently across species barriers," Kim said. "This provides an opportunity to
breed new commercial varieties of vanilla through hybridization in the future."
Lubinsky, Kim and their colleagues plan to do further research on vanilla. In
January 2009, they will begin mapping cacao-vanilla forest gardens in Belize,
southern Mexico and Guatemala. They also are actively advising on sustainable
agricultural development projects using vanilla in Mexico and Belize, and have
plans to assemble a vanilla germplasm collection.
###
Lubinsky and Kim were joined in the research by Kenneth M. Cameron of the University
of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.; María Carmen Molina of Escuela Superior de Ciencias
Experimentales y Tecnología, Móstoles, Spain; Maurice Wong and Sandra Lepers-Andrzejewski
of the Etablissement Vanille de Tahiti, French Polynesia; and Arturo
Gómez-Pompa of the Universidad Veracruzana, Veracruz, Mexico. A UCR professor
emeritus of botany who was named a University Professor, Gómez-Pompa is now the
director of the Universidad Veracruzana's Centro de Investigaciones Tropicales
(Center of Tropical Research or CITRO). He also served as Lubinsky's advisor on
the research project.
The research was funded by the Graduate Research Fellowship Program of the National
Science Foundation; the University of California Institute for Mexico and the
United States (UC MEXUS); a University of California Office
of the President Pacific Rim mini-grant; and UCR's Department of Botany and Plant
Sciences.
Contact: Iqbal Pittalwala
iqbal@ucr.edu
University of California - Riverside
Source: EurekAlert.org
21 August 2008
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1.16 International seed treaty’s goals of biodiversity
and food security are tough to implement
As the world struggles with a global food crisis, the Food and Agriculture
Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) is working to support biodiversity as
a way to contribute to food security.
To that end, the FAO has launched an initiative to ensure that this global genetic
diversity is accessible, in the hopes that this will promote sustainable agriculture
and increased food security.
The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture,
which addresses the need for diversity by promoting conservation and sustainable
use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) and equitable
sharing of benefits derived from their use, was adopted by the FAO Conference
in November 2001 and it came into force in June 2004. As of mid-July, 118 countries,
or contracting parties, had signed the accord, according to the website.
The treaty aims at collecting and sharing global plant genetic resources to sponsor
genetic diversity and ensure food security. Its main components are: farmers’
rights, the multilateral system of access and benefit sharing, and a funding strategy.
Farmers’ Rights and Benefit Sharing
The treaty recognises the contribution of farmers to the diversity of crops.
In Article 9, it describes a global system to provide farmers, plant breeders
and scientists with access to plant genetic material and ensures that recipients
share benefits they derive from the use of these genetic materials.
This also ensures that diverse genetic resources are not merely conserved, but
also used to “improve yields and quality… to face plant diseases and climate change
and meet evolving human needs.”
The treaty encourages contracting party governments to “as appropriate… take measures
to protect and promote farmers’ rights,” including the right to participate in
decision-making on plant genetic resources at the national level, the right to
the protection of traditional knowledge, and the right to participate equitably
in benefit-sharing. It also recognises that farmers may have the right to save,
use, exchange and sell farm-saved seed, although this depends on action by national
legislations, according to Shakeel Bhatti, executive secretary of the treaty.
The Multilateral System and Transfer of Genetic Resources
Under the treaty, contracting parties agree to make their genetic diversity
and related information about the crops stored in their gene banks available to
all. The tool for this is a multilateral system of access and benefit-sharing,
which was implemented in 2007. During the first eight months of its existence,
it was used to make 89,000 transfers of material, said Bhatti.
The system creates an online, searchable database of genetic resources contained
in signatory countries’ gene banks. It applies to 64 major crops and forages (food
crops for grazing animals, such as cattle), including rice, wheat, lentils, apples,
sorghum and yams.
Materials included in the multilateral system are under the management and control
of the contracting parties and mostly are in the public domain. However, some
IP rights could remain on material voluntarily included in the system by their
holders at the invitation of contracting parties.
According to the treaty, recipients of genetic materials shall not claim IP rights
on plant genetic resources or their genetic parts, in the form they received them
from the multilateral system. The treaty also makes allowances for access to genetic
material still protected by IP laws, saying international IP regulations must
be followed but that developing and least developed countries should be given
favourable terms for access to sustainable technologies.
Should a recipient create another plant with some of the genetic materials obtained
through the multilateral system, the contracting parties agree that benefits arising
from its use must be shared fairly and equitably, especially those arising from
commercialisation.
“The funds will go exclusively to the benefit of farmers in developing countries,”
said Bhatti. Benefit sharing also is achieved through facilitated access to genetic
material for all users, technology transfer for conservation, characterisation,
evaluation and use of genetic resources, and capacity-building through scientific
and technical education, and training in conservation and sustainable use.
Transfers of genetic materials are done through standard material transfer agreements
(SMTAs) between providers and recipients. Access to genetic materials is only
allowed for utilisation and conservation for research, breeding and training for
food and agriculture. Neither chemical nor pharmaceutical uses are possible.
Breeders Reluctant to Use Multilateral System
The conditions under which materials are obtained through the multilateral
system do not seem to meet breeders’ expectations, according to the International
Seed Federation (ISF). With members in over 70 developed and developing countries,
ISF says they represent a large majority of the world seed trade and plant breeders’
community.
Although the ISF said it “strongly supports the multilateral system and the principle
of the standard material transfer” in a 2007 position paper, Bernard Le Buanec,
senior advisor and secretary general of the organisation until December 2007,
expressed concerned at the absence of a threshold of the level of incorporation
of accessed material in the final product.
“When we integrate a genetic material in a research programme, we would like to
pay royalties only from a certain percentage of the material used. If we fall
below this percentage, we should be exempt of royalties,” Le Buanec said.
Another major problem, according to Le Buanec, is that there is no time limit
on SMTAs. “Very few corporations are willing to commit for an infinite period
of time,” he said, adding that there needs to be a clause in the SMTA allowing
for termination of the contract. “The governing body will have to review it in
future years,” he said, as private companies will not likely use the system as
it is. To his knowledge, most SMTAs have been signed by universities or public
corporations.
Breeders can share benefits arising from use of the multilateral system in two
ways. If they choose not to patent a new seed variety they have created, then
it is accessible to all, said Le Buanec, and represents a benefit in kind. “For
us, this is benefit-sharing,” said Pierre Roger, senior IP attorney for Groupe
Limagrain. If they patent their creation, then there will be a sharing of the
commercial benefits.
NGOs Question Treaty Efficacy For Farmers’ Rights
For Philippe Cullet from the International Environmental Law Research Centre,
the treaty does not fulfil the goal of strengthening farmers’ rights. The right
to save, use and exchange stated in the treaty is “basically restating things
which are so obvious that they should make policy makers blush,” he said. “It
is a bit like saying that farmers have a right over the crops they have grown
over their own land.”
According to Cullet, the problem is that the treaty does not preclude the introduction
of “technology-use” agreements that would prevent, as a condition of sale, farmers
from replanting second-generation seeds from a purchase.
GRAIN, an NGO promoting the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity
reported in November 2007 that some 30 farmers’ and other civil society organisations
formally asked that the exchange of crop genetic materials be halted at a United
Nations meeting on the treaty because they felt that governments were not meeting
their obligations. Some farmers said that the treaty favoured multinational seed
companies in giving them access to farmers’ seeds without reciprocal benefits,
according to GRAIN.
Many unresolved tensions surround the treaty, according to Hope Shand from the
nongovernmental ETC Group, which was involved in the seven-year negotiations leading
to the treaty.
“ETC Group believes that the treaty’s interpretation of farmers’ rights must be
strengthened within the context of food sovereignty. Governments must commit money
and energy into a long-term strategy for on-farm conservation and breeding,” she
said.
The right to save, use and exchange seeds is a complex ground. In a declaration
of civil society organisations present at the second meeting of the governing
body of the treaty in November 2007, farmers tied their rights on reusing, conserving,
protecting, exchanging and selling their seeds to their rights to freely access
genetic resources to their contribution to the conservation and renewal of biodiversity,
reported GRAIN. However, seed saving, conserving, and selling are forbidden in
a number of countries that are signatories to the treaty. The civil society organisations
said that it was the treaty’s responsibility to assist states to implement legislation
that upholds these rights.
Noting in 2007 that “there is uncertainty in many countries as to how farmers’
rights can be implemented,” the governing body has adopted a resolution on farmers’
rights and initiated an information gathering exercise said Bhatti. A request
has been issued to provide information on how farmers’ rights are implemented
in individual countries and how those countries plan to proceed, he said.
Funding Strategy: the Norwegian Initiative
The funding of the treaty appears to be a trying operation, with monetary
benefits from commercialisation of new varieties not expected for years, due to
lengthy research processes and the apparent lack of government funding.
In March 2008, Norway announced that it intends to make an annual contribution
to the benefit-sharing fund of the treaty. The contribution will amount to 0.1
percent of the value of all seeds that are sold through Norwegian agribusiness
and bought by Norwegian farmers. Norway says that it is challenging other countries
to make similar contributions.
Steve Suppan, from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, said that judging
from listserv reports, the implementation of the treaty has been difficult partly
due to lack of funding by the contracting parties.
By Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch
Source: SeedQuest.com
August 13, 2008
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1.17 AgriLife Research breeder develops
drought-tolerant corn
ETTER – At the end of the day, drought tolerance in corn has to equate to
good yields and good quality, not just good looks, said a Texas AgriLife Research
scientist.
Dr. Wenwei Xu, AgriLife Research corn breeder from Lubbock, is working with crosses
between temperate and tropically adapted varieties of corn to find a drought-tolerant
plant that performs well under reduced irrigation.
"With the continuing decline of the Ogallala Aquifer water level and increasing
cost of pumping water, the use of drought-tolerant and high-yield corn hybrids
is a key for sustainable corn production under limited irrigation," Xu said.
A field day was held recently at the North Plains AgriLife Research Station near
Etter to demonstrate the differences between the parent plants and the offspring,
or crosses.
"We hope to reduce the amount of water required for corn by at least 10 percent,"
Xu said.
Already the AgriLife Research program out of Lubbock has released four inbred
lines of corn and numerous others are in the process for release, he said.
"The new multiple-stress-tolerant corn lines can be used to produce corn hybrids
adapted to Texas and other southern states," Xu said. "They can be a powerful
tool to save water and produce crops with yield and grain quality under stressful
environments."
The research station at Etter is one of three test sites in Xu's program. The
others are located at Halfway and Lubbock.
About 500 hybrids are being evaluated this year for either grain yield or silage
yield and quality, he said.
Xu said there has been an increasing demand for silage corn in the Texas High
Plains, and producers need new hybrids adapted to the local environment. Corn
produced in the U.S. is primarily based on two races of maize, but there are more
than 250 races identified around the world, Xu said.
"Most of our breeding efforts start by crossing tropical corn with temperate elite
lines," he said. "Then we select for desirable traits to broaden genetic diversity
and introduce useful genes from exotic corn to improve stress tolerance, agronomic
productivity, disease resistance, insect resistance and value-added grain characteristics."
Xu said some of the experimental hybrids they are working with have produced the
same silage yield under irrigation equaling 75 percent evapotranspiration as with
100 percent evapotranspiration irrigation.
Evapotranspiration is the loss of water from the soil both by evaporation and
by transpiration from the plants, and is reported on a daily basis through the
Texas High Plains Evapotranspiration Network ( http://txhighplainset.tamu.edu/ ).
Bruce Spinhirne, AgriLife Research associate based in Lubbock, said they reduced
the irrigation on a few hybrids by 50 percent and had a severe yield and quality
limitation, so they followed that by the 75 percent water application.
Those results are due in part to the use of stored moisture in the soil profile,
Spinhirne said.
"At 75 percent (evapotranspiration), you have 3 to 4 inches of available moisture
that is used, where if you are watering at 100 percent, it is wasted," he said.
The average silage yield of 20 corn hybrids at two locations (Etter and Halfway)
was 26.84 tons per acre under 75 percent evapotranspiration irrigation, just slightly
lower than the 27.49 tons per acre under 100 percent evapotranpiration irrigation,
Spinhirne said.
However, he said, there were significant differences among hybrids in each environment.
"One of our experimental hybrids produced the same amount of silage in both locations
when irrigation was reduced from 100 percent to 75 percent," Spinhirne said.
"Developing and using new corn hybrids with improved tolerance to drought and
other stresses is important and a viable water-saving approach," he said.
###
More information on the corn and silage trials can be found at http://lubbock.tamu.edu/corn .
Contact: Dr. Wenwei Xu
wxu@ag.tamu.edu
Texas A&M University - Agricultural Communications
Source: EurekAlert.org
25 August 2008
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1.18 Corn genetics may lead to next generation of plant-based
biofuels
West Lafayette, Indiana
Identifying the corn genes involved with plant cell wall generation and learning
their function will help develop new, more productive sources of transportation
biofuel, according to two Purdue University
researchers.
Nick Carpita and Maureen McCann will study genes involved in the formation of
cell walls in the group of plants known as grasses, which includes corn. The goal
is to find ways to produce more biomass containing more sugars that can be efficiently
processed into biofuel.
"The close evolutionary and genomic relationships of maize or corn to other grasses
will take us one step closer to some new, good sources of bioenergy," said Carpita,
a geneticist in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology. "Maize cell walls
and the genes responsible for wall formation are characteristic of all grasses."
The research team will analyze the genes in both maize and switchgrass. Switchgrass
is another plant investigated for biofuel production, but it also needs modification
to increase yields.
Researchers already know that most plants use about 10 percent of their entire
genome for cell wall construction, but very little is known about the specific
functions of those genes.
"Maize has the same genes arranged in the same order and on the same chromosomes
as the other grasses," said McCann, an associate professor of biological science.
"We'll switch genes on and off as we identify them to see what they do. Once we
know the genes and their functions, then we can assess which ones might make good
targets for modification for enhanced biomass and sugars for processing into biofuel."
In the United States, ethanol is mainly made from corn because starch in the kernels
is easily converted to sugar for fermentation to the alternative fuel. Scientists
are studying ways to more easily produce fuel from plant biomass, which is composed
of cell walls.
Identifying and classifying the genes for cell wall building and regulation in
maize also will help determine how grasses grow and develop.
A U.S. Department of Energy/U.S. Department of Agriculture research program to
accelerate development of biofuels from plants funds Carpita and McCann's genomic
plant cell wall construction study with a $1.2 million grant.
Source: SeedQuest.com
27 August 2008
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1.19 Herbicide tolerance sought for southern peas
Alma, Arkansas
Scientists at the University of Arkansas System's Division of Agriculture
are working toward developing southern pea varieties with herbicide tolerance
that could bring a new weapon to the battle to control weeds.
Graduate student Vinod Shivrain told visitors to a field day Aug. 22 at the Division's
Vegetable Research Station near Kibler that weed scientist Nilda Burgos is working
with vegetable breeder Teddy Morelock to select breeding lines for tolerance to
several commercial herbicides.
In test plots, Shivrain said, various breeding lines are sprayed with herbicides.
Then seed is selected from the plants that survive. Those seeds are planted the
following year and the process is repeated. Similar work is being done for spinach
and other vegetable crops, Shivrain said.
Morelock said building herbicide tolerance in southern peas is an exciting move
for the breeding program. Since the program began about 60 years ago, he said,
breeders have developed improved varieties for both commercial processors and
home gardens.
"One of the things we worked to accomplish," Morelock said, "was to get the pods
on top of the plant, where they would be easier to harvest, rather than on runners
on the ground."
Morelock said there are about 7,500 breeding lines in the program, a massive number
to keep track of. The latest varieties to be released, in 2008, are Ebony, a black
pea with a white eye, and Envoy, a red "Holstein" with a reddish brown and tan
mottling.
"These are both good eating peas," Morelock said. "Envoy had the top yields in
trials for three years in a row, so it's a novelty variety with high yields."
In another presentation, division entomologist Paul McLeod told the pea growers,
processors and seed dealers in attendance that entomologists love working with
southern peas.
"Insects love southern peas," McLeod said. "They go after them from planting right
through storage."
The main culprits, he said, are thrips and aphids. But treating pea fields against
insect pests can be expensive for a crop with a narrow profit margin.
"We've been looking at seed treatments as a means of lowering costs," McLeod said.
"Seed treatments are relatively cheap to put on and the good news is that it looks
like it's working."
So far, tests have shown seed treatments can give good control for both thrips
and aphids, McLeod said.
Source: SeedQuest.com
25 August 2008
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1.20 New method discovered to make potatoes resistant to
Phytophthora
Wageningen, The Netherlands
Dutch, British and American scientists have developed a method to more quickly
identify and isolate genes that can be used to make potatoes resistant to Phytophthora
infestans, the dreaded potato blight. With this method, multiple resistance genes
from different species of potatoes can be isolated and possibly used simultaneously.
This offers the prospect of achieving sustainable resistance against the pathogen
because it is less capable of breaking the resistance of the potato when multiple
genes are involved.
According to researchers at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, the Sainsbury
Laboratory at the John Innes Centre in the UK and Ohio State University in the
USA, the best strategy to make potatoes resistant to the stubborn fungal pathogen
Phytophthora is to develop so-called broad spectrum resistance. In their article,
published on 6 August in the journal PLoS One, they explained that the current
methods to discover resistance genes are too slow. Moreover, because they often
concern only a single gene, these methods do not lead to sustainable resistance
because Phytophthora can break single-gene resistance relatively quickly and easily.
Interaction
The newly developed method is based on the interaction of genes of the pathogen
and genes of the potato. The response of the potato involves resistance genes
in the plant, and the response of P. infestans involves so-called avirulence genes.
The avirulence gene produces proteins (effectors) that are recognised by the resistance
gene proteins of the potato; an interaction then takes place. By using effectors
(proteins that are secreted by Phytophthora into the plant after infection takes
place), researchers can relatively quickly identify and isolate the genes that
are crucial to the interaction. Because the pathogen (Phytophthora) cannot switch
off these proteins, but produces them constantly, genes that can recognise these
proteins can potentially serve as resistance genes.
In the study, a set of 54 effectors (of an estimated 500 effectors in total) were
tested on a large set of wild potato species. In many cases, this led to reactions
from the wild potato species (the hypersensitivity response: the location where
the effector protein was applied begins die off) and in one case to the actual
identification of the effector protein – known as IPiO. This effector turned out
to be directly correlated with the resistance of three wild species, S. stoloniferum,
S. papita and S. bulbocastanum. This means that a positive response against the
effector always occurred in plants that had the resistance gene. In additional
studies, the researchers were able to show that the effector in this case was
the avirulence gene of the resistance gene. Because the researchers realised that
the resistance genes from the three species had to be very similar, they were
quickly able to isolate the resistance genes in S. papita and S. stoloniferum
by using their knowledge of the previously isolated resistance gene from S. bulbocastanum.
Permanent threat
Since Phytophthora first ravaged the potato – an event epitomised by the notorious
Irish Potato Famine in the 19th century – this pathogen has been a permanent threat,
and has repeatedly led to disastrous crop damage and high production costs. Until
now, a very labour-intensive process of searching for sustainable resistance has
yielded few or no results, and the use of fungicides has been essentially the
only way to control the disease in modern agriculture.
The methods described in the article make it possible – relatively quickly – to
acquire an impression of the prevalence and nature of resistance genes that would
be very difficult or even impossible for the pathogen to break. By combining several
of these potentially hard-to-break resistance genes, sustainable resistance will
come within reach.
Source: SeedQuest.com
7 August 2008
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1.21 New virus threatens High Plains
wheat crop
Early identification could save producers millions
AMARILLO – Triticum mosaic virus poses a new threat to Texas wheat, according
to Texas AgriLife Research scientists in Amarillo.
The disease was discovered in 2006 by Dr. Dallas Seifers, a Kansas State University
researcher, said Jacob Price, AgriLife Research associate researcher.
Price is working with Dr. Charlie Rush, AgriLife Research plant pathologist, and
Dr. Ron French, Texas AgriLife Extension Service plant pathologist, on a variety
of studies to determine how big of a role it plays in the disease pressure put
on area wheat.
The virus is difficult to detect and contain because it is carried by the same
mite and exhibits many of the same symptoms as several other diseases already
attacking wheat, Price said. It is in the same family of diseases as wheat streak
mosaic.
Triticum mosaic virus is carried by the wheat curl mite, he said, which is the
same vector that spreads/transmits wheat streak mosaic virus and High Plains virus.
Symptoms of each of the diseases are generally yellowing and stunted plants, Price
said. While they all look the same, he said he is studying yield reduction, root
development and water uptake to see if they vary between the diseases.
"Right now, there's not much you can do about the vector, so it is all a matter
of management," he said. That includes both prevention and reduction of inputs
once a field is infected.
Destroying volunteer wheat and reducing natural prairie grasses around wheat fields
are the key control methods at this time, Price said. This is especially important
for dryland producers who plant early, because the grasses act as a "green bridge"
to the wheat.
"The wheat curl mite is found on volunteer wheat and many different grasses, and
is blown in the air by winds," he said.
Also, because the symptoms of all these viruses are indistinguishable in the field,
producers will need to get any sick wheat tested, Price said.
"Bring it to us or mail it to us," he said. If a sample is mailed, it needs to
be packed with a cold pack. Sample submission forms can be found at http://amarillo.tamu.edu/programs/plantpathtce
.
Price said it is hard to know how much yield loss has been caused by the triticum
mosaic virus alone, because no one knew it existed and therefor did not test for
it until last year's crop.
From March 14-June 6, Price received 309 wheat samples. Of the samples, he said,
72 percent tested positive for wheat streak mosaic, 51 percent for triticum mosaic
virus, 34 percent for High Plains virus and 14 percent for barley yellow dwarf
virus.
"Very rarely did you find triticum without wheat streak mosaic," Price said.
Of the samples containing triticum mosaic virus, he said 47 percent also had wheat
streak mosaic and 4 percent also had High Plains virus, but the other 49 percent
had all three viruses.
Price worked to find out how widespread the triticum virus was and found it throughout
the entire west side of the Texas Panhandle.
"I really need to survey everywhere I can this year," he said. He wants to try
to determine where the diseases cross, transmissibility by vectors, host ranges
such as native grasses and conservation reserve program grasses, yield loss due
to single and dual infections and distribution for multiple viruses.
In a previous study, Price has determined wheat streak mosaic virus reduces water
uptake. With early diagnosis of the problem and thus irrigation reduction, a producer
with a 540-acre center pivot can eliminate two irrigations totaling 4 inches,
at $11 per thousand cubic feet, and save approximately $24,000, he said.
"In calculating the counties with wheat acreage infected in the northern Panhandle,
early diagnosis could save as much as $9 million for producers by eliminating
wasted irrigations," he said. "We weren't testing for triticum at that time, so
it is also a factor to be investigated."
Price said they are using satellite imagery early in the season to identify suspect
fields and then will go out and test the field.
"We have the potential to save producers billions of dollars in wasted irrigation
and fertilizer costs," he said.
While some detection of the disease can be made during warm falls and in early
planted wheat, the typical time it will start showing up is during February and
March when things start greening up and coming out of dormancy, Price said.
"The main time people irrigate in this area is in the late spring and summer during
grain fill and heading," he said. "We want to catch it before then, if not in
the fall."
Contact: Dr. Charlie Rush
crush@ag.tamu.edu
Texas A&M University - Agricultural Communications
Source: EurekAlert.org
21 August 2008
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1.22 African scientists reveal origins of maize streak
virus
August 26, 2008
Carol Campbell, SciDev.Net
African scientists have uncovered how one of the world's most economically
devastating crop diseases emerged, and hope to genetically engineer disease resistant
crops using the information.
Researchers compared the genetic sequence of the virulent maize streak virus (MSV)
with ten less harmful strains of the virus from across the continent, which infect
other grass food crops such as wheat and oats.
"We found that two relatively mild grass viruses had merged through genetic recombination,"
says researcher Arvind Varsani, from the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa.
This merger resulted in an ancestral MSV far more potent than its parents, which
moved into maize before spreading rapidly across the continent.
The researchers think that this occurred about a century ago, just when commercial
agriculture was replacing subsistence farming and maize started to overshadow
indigenous crops in Africa.
The findings, published in the September issue of the Journal
of General Virology, highlight the importance of research into plant diseases.
"Our results mean that DNA viruses are evolving faster than was thought. This
rapid mutation increases the possibility of new plant viruses emerging," Varsani
told SciDev.Net.
"While plant diseases do not feature very highly in the public's consciousness,
their impact on food production causes more suffering in the developing world
than many high profile human diseases," says lead researcher Darren Martin of
South Africa's Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine.
Studying plant diseases can provide information about pathogens that can be used
to develop resistant crops.
Each year, at least two hundred samples of infected maize are analysed by the
UCT team. An analysis of virus-infected maize from Burkina Faso, the Central African
Republic, Ivory Coast, Namibia and Zambia will begin this month and be placed
in a database.
Dionne Shepherd of the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at UCT is leading
efforts to genetically engineer a type of maize resistant to the streak virus.
"We have developed maize that is resistant to the streak virus. Now we need to
prove that it will hold up under different conditions throughout sub-Saharan Africa,"
Shepherd told SciDev.Net.
Source: SeedQuest.com
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1.23 Scientists discover new plant hormone
Wageningen, The Netherlands
Scientists from the Wageningen University Laboratory
of Plant Physiology and an international team of scientists have discovered a
new group of plant hormones, the so-called strigolactones. This group of chemicals
is known to be involved in the interaction between plants and their environment.
The scientists have now proven that strigolactones, as hormones, are also crucial
for the branching of plants. The discovery will soon be published in Nature and
is of great importance for innovations in agriculture. Examples include the development
of cut flowers or tomato plants with more or fewer branches. These crops are of
major economic and social importance worldwide.
The growth and development of plants is largely controlled by plant hormones.
Plants produce these chemicals themselves, thus controlling the growth and development
of roots and stems, for example. A number of plant hormones, such as auxins, giberellins
and cytokinins, were discovered by scientists decades ago. Now a new group of
hormones has been found: The so-called strigolactones.
Previous research by institutes including Wageningen UR has shown that strigolactones
plays a major part in the interaction between plants and their environment. As
plants cannot move, they commonly use their own chemicals to control the environment
as best as they can.
Strigolactones are of major importance to the interaction between plants and symbiotic
fungi, for example. These fungi live in a symbiotic relationship with plants,
lthat is mutually beneficial. They transport minerals from the soil to the plant,
while the plant gives the fungi sugars ‘in return’.
Unfortunately, the strigolactones have also been “hijacked” by harmful organisms:
They help seeds of parasitic plants to germinate when plant roots are in the vicinity.
The seedlings of the parasite attach to the root of the plant and use the plant’s
nutrients for their own growth and reproduction. Unlike the symbiotic fungi, however,
they do not give anything in return. On the contrary, the parasitism often causes
the host plant to die, eventually.
The international research team consisting of French, Australian and Dutch scientists,
coordinated in France, found mutants of pea that were branching without restraint.
It turned out that these pea plants were not capable of producing strigolactones.
When the plants were administered strigolactones, the unrestrained branching stopped.
The same effect occurred in an entirely different plant, thale cress. The mutant
plants also caused a significant lower germination of the parasitic plant seeds
and induced less interaction with symbiotic fungi.
The scientists also showed that a specific ‘receptor reaction’ for the strigolactones
occurs in plants, a phenomenon that is characteristic for plant hormones. Although
some previously discovered plants with unrestrained branching turned out to be
producing strigolactones themselves, their receptor connection was disturbed:
Strigolactones administered from the outside could not stop the uncontrolled branching.
It has also been shown that the plants are capable of transporting strigolactones
internally and that the chemicals work at very low concentrations, two other typical
characteristics of plant hormones.
The importance of this discovery of a new group of plant hormones is emphasised
by the fact that Nature is publishing an article by a Japanese team in the same
issue in which similar results are presented. It is expected that this new knowledge
will be applied in agriculture and horticulture, for example in breeding and the
development of branching regulators.
Cut flower varieties and potted plants with either more or less branching may
have special ornamental value, while crops with more or less branching may be
beneficial in cultivation. Tomato plants in which less branching occurs can benefit
the greenhouse horticulture, for instance.
Plant breeding and greenhouse horticulture are key agricultural industries in
the Netherlands and strongly focussed on innovation.
Source: SeedQuest.com
12 August 2008
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1.24 Wheat genotyping: an invaluable service
Washington, DC
Helping plant breeders develop new wheat varieties with improved disease resistance,
stress tolerance and other desirable traits is the goal of Agricultural
Research Service (ARS) scientists based at four regional small-grains genotyping
centers.
Ranked third behind corn and soybeans in planted acreage and gross receipts, wheat
is a major crop used in everything from flour and baked goods to crackers and
pancakes. Yet insects and diseases pose a constant threat to the crop's productivity.
Fortunately, new advances in the field of genomics are speeding scientists' identification
of new traits to keep wheat healthy and productive in the face of these and other
threats.
For example, at the ARS Western
Regional Small Grains Genotyping Laboratory in Pullman, Wash., geneticist
Deven See
leads a team tasked with furnishing wheat and barley breeders in five states--Washington,
Oregon, California, Idaho and Montana--with genetic profiles of their germplasm
materials. See estimates at least 60 percent of genotyping requests received from
breeders there are for genes conferring resistance to a fungal disease called
stripe rust.
In Pacific Northwest production areas, stripe rust can inflict yield losses of
up to 40 percent. Conventional methods of screening germplasm for resistance genes
can take months to complete. Now, thanks to the genotypic services offered by
See's group, coupled with the use of a technique called marker-assisted selection,
breeders can identify resistant germplasm within a few days.
At the ARS Cereal
Crops Research Unit in Fargo, N.D., molecular geneticist Shiaoman
Chao is building a database to store genotypic information generated at her
location as well as Pullman and two other regional small-grain genotyping centers:
the ARS Plant Science
Research Unit in Raleigh, N.C., and the ARS Plant Science and Entomology Research
Unit in Manhattan, Kan.
Among their accomplishments, Chao and colleagues have genotyped 400 single nucleotide
polymorphism DNA sequence variations in a selection of elite U.S. wheat cultivars
that can be linked to desirable traits in the crop, expediting breeding efforts.
Read more about the research in the August 2008
issue of Agricultural Research magazine.
ARS is a scientific research agency of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture.
By Jan Suzskiw
Source: SeedQuest.com
6 August 2008
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1.25 Introducing a new high throughput and high content
plant phenotyping platform
Würselen, Germany
Following the huge accomplishments in plant genetics, the subsequent challenge
is the mapping of large populations for a better understanding of plant phenomics
and integrated plant performance, thus achieving fast targeted breeding. Introducing
the new high throughput and high content plant phenotyping platform LemnaTec
provides the technology to answer this new challenge
This Scanalyzer platform is based on the advanced technology of highly efficient
production systems used for example in the automotive industry , though specifically
adapted to the rough greenhouse conditions and further developed to meet the particular
needs of advanced science-directed breeding.
Plants are phenotyped continuously with the so-called “moving field concept” enhancing
the statistical power of the greenhouse trials.
The automatic greenhouse logistic management system moves plants in different
greenhouses and from the greenhouses area to the scanning area. The core technology
of the system is the LemnaTec Scanalyzer 3D phenotyping platform.
By using latest RFID Technology each plant can be automatically identified and
tracked throughout its whole lifecycle in the greenhouse.
Based on multiple wavelength imaging plants are imaged under highly defined conditions
in specific chambers. Each single plant can be automatically imaged on a daily
basis. Plant specific imaging protocols lift the plants and define camera magnification
in order to achieve optimized imaging of all growth stages.
Download videos
Scanalyzer 3D
Demo high resolution
Scanalyzer
3D Film low resolution
Download PDF documents
High throughput
screening plants 3D
Morphological
Arabidopsis Phenotyping
Arabidopssis
assessment in time
Phenotyping Corn
e-gfp in Arabidopsis
Bio volume and alignment
of plants
Source: SeedQuest.com
29 August 2008
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2 PUBLICATIONS
2.01 Seed wars: controversies and cases on plant
genetic resources and intellectual property
Davis, California
A new book written by UC Davis law professor Keith Aoki chronicles the expansion
of intellectual property protection for plants throughout the past several decades
and speculates on possible ways to ensure that plant genetic resources remain
freely available across national borders to farmers, plant breeders and researchers.
"Seed Wars" is published by the Carolina Academic
Press
####
Seed Wars is a comprehensive overview of the current domestic and international
legal controversies regarding intellectual property protections for plant genetic
resources (PGRs) over the past three decades. This book examines these controversies
on three fronts:
(1) the rise of intellectual property protections for plant varieties and the
enclosure of the “genetic” commons;
(2) the subsequent move of the agro-chemical industry from manufacturing fertilizers,
pesticides, and herbicides to “manufacturing” seeds in the context of industrial
agriculture; and
(3) the emergence of overlapping regimes of domestic and multilateral treaties
such as the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS, 1994), the
Convention on Biodiversity (CBD, 1992) and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic
Resources (ITPGR, 2004) from the 1990s on.
Finally, this book speculates on possible directions that intellectual property
protection for PGRs may take in the 21st century.
While intellectual property protection for plants has been available in the United
States since 1930, the decade of the 1960s saw the rise of Plant Variety Protections
in Europe and by 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court embraced the idea that living organisms
could be patented, paving the way for new plant varieties to receive utility patent
protection in the U.S.
Source: Carolina Academic Press website
http://www.cap-press.com/books/1431
via SeedQuest.com
11 August 2008
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2.02 Some wild growing fruits, nuts and
edible plants of the western Himalayas
I am pleased inform you that I have brought out a CD, Some Wild Growing
Fruits; Nuts and Edible Plants of the Western Himalayas. This CD has
basic information about 30 wild growing fruits, 11 wild growing nuts and 10
wild growing edible plants. The information has been given in 203
Power Point slides. The CD also has 153 pictures (89 of fruits,
22 of nuts and 36 of wild edible plants).
The CD is in PDF format. The information in CD is in the form of Power Point
presentations.
My book, Wild Fruits of the sub Himalayan Region, was published in 1982.
The had information about 26 wild fruits only. It had only 25 B & W
plates, which were of just ordinary quality. I continued working on these
plants after 1982 too and the CD is the outcome of that work.
The CD has recently been reviewed in Summer 2007 issue of Pomona.
The CD is priced only US$15. Contact the author for order information.
Dr. Chiranjit Parmar
186/3 Jail Road
Mandi HP 175001, INDIA
Phone: 01905-222810, 94181 - 81323
www.fruitipedia.com
parmarch_mnd@dataone.in
Contents
About the author
Wild fruits
1. Wild Pear Shiara – Pyrus serotina
2. Kaphal – Myrica nagi
3. Lassora – Cordia oblique
4. Dheu – Artocarpus lakoocha
5. Wild Date – Phoenix sylvestris
6. Taryambal – Ficus roxburghii
7. Bael – Aegle marmelos
8. Wild sour pomegranate
9. Kashmal – Berberis aristata
10. Ghain – Eleagnus umbellate
11. Aakhe – Rubus ellipticus
12. Wild Apricot – Zardalu
13. Wild pear –Kainth – Pyrus pashia
14. Himalayan wild amla
15. Fegra – Ficus palmate
16. Wild Apricot – Chulli
17. Amlook – Diospyros tomentosa
18. Nalakhe – Rubus niveus
19. Wild Peach – Kateru
20. Karondu – Carissa spinarum
21. Wild Grape – Bhambti
22. Wild Peach – Aran
23. Wild Grape – Bhambay
24. Curry leaf plant – Himalayan strain
25. Prickly pear – Opuntia dillenii
26. Wild strawberry
27. Wild cape gooseberry
28. Hill banana
29. Kangu – Flacourtia sapida
30. Wild Apricot – Sarha
Wild Nuts
1. Pine nut – Pinus gerardiana
2. Thangi – Corylus jaquemonti
3. Horse chestnut – Aesculus indicus
4. Wild Walnut
5. Bahera – Terminalia
6. Bitter almond
7. Behmi – Prunus mira
Wild Growing Edible Plants:
1. Fegri – Ficus palmate
2. Lingad – Pteridium aquililium
3. Taradi – Dioscorea spp.
4. Chhoochh ka saag – Water hyacinth
5. Bathu – Chenopodium spp.
6. Lassora – Cordia oblique
7. Chooda ka saag -
8. Karyale – Bauhinia variegate
9. Chulai – Amaranthus spp.
10. Brawah – Rhododendron arboretum
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3. WEB RESOURCES
3.01 GIPB Knowledge Resource Center
launches the Plant Breeding Electronic Journal Club
Rome, Italy
The GIPB Knowledge Resource Center is launching
the Plant Breeding Electronic Journal Club, a virtual place that allows
communities to meet and critically evaluate plant breeding and related fields'
articles in the scientific literature.
This e-Journal Club is directed to professionals and students interested in discussing
relevant plant breeding themes and issues. Its majors objectives are to help improve
skills of understanding and debating current topics of interest to plant breeding
and to promote intellectually stimulating and professionally rewarding exchange
with colleagues from around the world.
This e-Journal Club will use Fireboard, a forum component fully integrated to
the GIPB website, which allows implementation of many e-Journal Club groups simultaneously.
Dr. Fred Bliss kindly agreed to serve as the convener of this first GIPB e-Journal
Club, which will discuss the article “Quantitative Genetics, Genomics, and the
Future of Plant Breeding” by Dr. Bruce Walsh.
In order to participate you just need to follow the instructions in the front
page of the GIPB website. Registration is
now opened and the e-Journal Club will start on Wednesday, 6 August 2008.
Please, note that discussion in this first e-Journal Club will be held in English,
but proposals of conveners willing to start e-Journal Clubs in other languages
can be sent to gipb@fao.org.
The GIPB Knowledge Resource Center provides a wide array of plant breeding and
related information, tools and resources, such as:
-A worldwide assessment of plant breeding capacity;
-Newly published plant breeding and related literature;
-Opportunities in training and capacity building;
-Links to plant breeding news in the world media;
-Announcements of important events related to plant breeding;
-Links to organizations and networks that have direct connections with plant breeding;
Click HERE
to see these and other features.
We look forward to your participation.
Elcio Guimarães, Maurício Lopes and Michela Paganini, E-Journal Club Facilitators
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3.02 USDA/ARS produces online databases for maize, blueberries
Washington, DC
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists
and colleagues have produced several online bioinformatics resources to support
plant breeders and other scientists who research genetic traits among plant species.
Bioinformatics is a field of science in which biology, computer science and information
technology merge to form a single discipline.
ARS investigators Doreen Ware,
Edward Buckler,
Michael McMullen,
James Holland
and university colleagues produced Panzea, an online bioinformatics resource on
maize diversity with support from the U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA) and the National Science Foundation. Buckler and Ware are
with ARS units in Ithaca, N.Y; McMullen in Columbia, Mo.; and Holland in Raleigh,
N.C. Panzea contains millions of data points, providing access to genotype, phenotype
and polymorphism data.
Maize is a diverse crop species. On average, two different maize lines can be
as genetically different as a human and a chimpanzee. A key aspect of the program
is identifying chromosomal regions at which exotic maize lines possess genes with
agronomic effects superior to those carried in Corn Belt lines.
Panzea is available at: http://www.panzea.org.
Another genomics database supports blueberry breeders who are generating plants
that can adapt to a wide range of soils, climates and harvests. Blueberry is now
a major berry crop and sales are rising quickly, according to industry experts.
ARS plant geneticist Jeannine
Rowland and colleagues produced the online blueberry genomics database, which
is called the BBGD.
The researchers are with the ARS Genetic
Improvement of Fruits and Vegetables Laboratory in Beltsville, Md. They have
identified gene sequences and molecular markers of horticultural significance
in blueberry. That information is available through the BBGD for marker-assisted
breeding and transformation.
The database provides key information on gene expression related to a cultivar's
ability to acclimate and survive during cold winters--a critical step to good
summer yields. The BBGD is available at: http://psi081.ba.ars.usda.gov/bbgd/index.htm.
Read more
about this research in the August 2008 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.
ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
By Rosalie Marion Bliss
ARS is a scientific research agency of the USDA.
Source: SeedQuest.com
7 August 2008
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3.03 Seed Info: an electronic newsletter
of the Regional Seed Network
Seed Info is a newsletter of the Regional Seed Network and aims to facilitate
information exchange and communication among stakeholders in the Central and West
Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region and beyond. The purpose is to contribute
towards the development of stronger national seed programs which supply quality
seed to farmers.
Seed Info covers a broad range of issues including:
1. WANA Seed Network News: It provides updates on the
progress of Network activities and reports on the meetings of the Steering Committee,
WANA Seed Council, etc.
2. News and Views: Presents general news,
views, comments and suggestions on issues related to varieties and seeds. It is
also serves as a forum for discussion among professionals in the seed sector.
3. Contributions from National Seed Programs:
National seed programs, projects, universities, regional or international organizations
provide news about their seed related activities.
4. HOW TO: It provides simple technical/practical
guidelines or instructions that seed sector staff may find useful.
5. Research Notes: Short communications on
adaptive research, methodologies or experiences relevant to agriculture
and/or seed technology are presented for the general audience.
6. Meetings and Courses: Announcements of meetings,
seminars, workshops and training courses appear in this section.
7. LITERATURE: Books and journal articles of interest
to readers are presented here.
You can send your comments, suggestions and contributions (in English, French
and Arabic) to the Editor. Send us national, regional or international announcements
for workshops, seminars and training courses organized in your country or by your
organization for inclusion in the next issue. You can also send us lists of seed
publications on policy, regulation and technology to the Editor for inclusion
in Seed Info.
Anyone wanting to subscribe to the newsletter should contact Zewdie Bishaw at
the Seed Unit, ICARDA, Aleppo, Syria; E-mail: z.bishaw@cgiar.org
General information about the mailing list is at:
http://lists.cgiar.org/mailman/listinfo/seed-info
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========================
4. GRANTS AVAILABLE
4.01 GIPB - Call for proposals: promoting the use of crop diversity to help
address environmental and climate challenges (EXTENDED DEADLINE)
Food and energy prices are soaring, changes in environmental and climatic
conditions are bringing new challenges to food production, and crops for bio-energy
generation are conveying new opportunities as well as challenges to the agricultural
sector. This new scenario being faced by today’s world is calling the attention
to crop diversity management and use, areas of applied science that have been
neglected in the recent decades. Better use of genetic diversity through
pre-breeding and breeding, in association with improved production systems are
being highlighted as the best ways to tackle the huge challenge of widening the
genetic and adaptability base of cropping systems, especially in developing countries.
Recognizing these challenges, the Global Partnership Initiative for Plant Breeding
Capacity Building (GIPB), in coordination with the Global Crop Diversity Trust
(The Trust) and the CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme (GCP), lauches its first
call for proposals on "Promoting the Use of Crop Diversity to Help Address Environmental
and Climate Challenges". All interested parties are invited to submit proposals,
which are going to be considered, based on their synergy and complementarity,
for award in early 2009.
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS TO THE GIPB CALL HAS BEEN POSTPONED
TO 30 SEPTEMBER, 2008.
See below more information on the three calls:
The Global Partnership Initiative for Plant Breeding Capacity Building Call.
GIPB operates a pilot program to support plant breeders dedicated to widening
the genetic and adaptability base of improved cultivars in developing countries.
The call for proposals by GIPB targets pre-breeding programmes in national agricultural
research systems (NARS), academia, and civil society organisations. See
below the announcement for the submission of proposals under this award scheme.
Please, note that applications must be made in English, on an official proposal
template, also available below.
Announcement: English
Español
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Proposal Template: English
The Global Crop Diversity Trust Call. Recognising the bottleneck in
the use of germplasm collections, the Global Crop Diversity Trust initiated in
2007 a competitive grants scheme to support the evaluation of crop genetic resources.
The grants will enable breeders and others to screen germplasm collections for
phenotypic characteristics of particular importance in adaptation to climate change,
and to make the information generated publicly available. Click here for more
information.
The CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme: Genotyping Support Services (GSS)
promotes the use of molecular markers to assess the potential value of germplasm
by linking grantees with genotyping facilities they may not otherwise have access
to. The call for proposals by GSS targets breeding programmes and/or germplasm
collections in national agricultural research systems (NARS), academia, and civil
society organisations in developing countries. Click here for more
information. (see also 4.02, below).
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4.02 GCP Genotyping Support Service:
2nd call for proposals now open
The CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme (GCP), in coordination and collaboration
with the Global Crop Diversity Trust (the Trust) and the the Global Partnership
Initiative for Plant Breeding Capacity Building (GIPB) announces its second call
for proposals for the Genotyping Support Service (GSS).
The call from the Trust focuses on phenotyping, the GCP call on genotyping and
the GIPB call on capacity-building. Together, these coordinated and complementary
calls widen the scope for applicants, by offering an all-round comprehensive programme.
Due dates for submitting proposals are in 2008 and 2009, depending on the call.
For the GCP call, proposal submission is between July 1 2008 and September
30th 2008. Applicants who will have submitted GSS proposals by this date will
have up to Wednesday 8th October 2008 to revise and polish their proposals.
Please note that this proposal editing window (30th Septemeber to 8th October)
will only apply to proposals already registered by 30th September. New proposals
submitted after 30th September will not be accepted. These new deadlines
supersede both the original 31st August deadline announced in GCP News
Issue 32, and the former extended deadline of 10th September 2008. (see also 4.01
above)
Applications are invited from eligible developing country research programmes
working on any of the crops listed within the Call.
Contributed by Antonia N N Okono
Communications Manager
CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme (GCP)
a.okono@cgiar.org
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4.03 The Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS)
announces two new fellowship programmes
TWAS has entered into agreements with national organizations in Malaysia and
Mexico to offer 45 new fellowships each year. Postgraduate fellowships will provide
the opportunity for 30 young scientists from developing countries to undertake
a full 4-year PhD programme in either Malaysia or Mexico, while 15 postdoctoral
fellowships offer the opportunity to study for 6-12 months in the participating
countries. Under the agreements, TWAS will provide the cost of travel while the
partner organizations -- the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and the National
Council on Science and Technology (CONACYT), Mexico -- will cover local expenses.
These new fellowships, added to those already provided through agreements with
organizations in Brazil, China, India and Pakistan, consolidate the TWAS South-South
Fellowships Programme as the largest of its kind in the world.
Issues 1 and 2 of this year's TWAS Newsletter are
now online.
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5. POSITION ANNOUNCEMENTS
5.01 Research Geneticist (Plants), U.S. Department of Agriculture,
Agricultural Research Service
The USDA-ARS Crop Genetics and Breeding Research Unit in Tifton, Georgia is
seeking a permanent full-time scientist to conduct research requiring the application
of molecular and conventional technologies in order to develop germplasm and cultivars
of adapted, warm-season grasses. The primary focus will be on turfgrasses.
Specific objectives include: 1) identification and characterization of traits
important in developing germplasm suitable for turf; 2) development and use of
marker assisted selection to accelerate development of improved warm-season grass
germplasm; 3) development and evaluation of new genetic resources using traditional
and molecular approaches; 4) technology transfer of research results to customers,
including other public and private industry researchers. Team research will
include the development of warm-season grasses for bioenergy and forage purposes.
Candidate will responsible for reporting research results and for providing general
supervision to one technician and students.
For details and application directions, a full text vacancy announcement may be
obtained via the Internet at www.afm.ars.usda.gov/divisions/hrd/index.html.
Announcement number ARS-X8S-0177 or call Debbie Padgett, 229-386-3504. U.S.
Citizenship is required. A Federal benefits package is available.
Applications must be postmarked by October 10, 2008. USDA-ARS is an equal
opportunity employer and provider.
Contributed by Waldene Barnhill
Waldene.Barnhill@ARS.USDA.GOV
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6. MEETINGS, COURSES AND WORKSHOPS
* New listings. May include some program details, while repeat listings will
include only basic information. Visit web sites for additional details.
September 2008.UC Davis Seed Biotechnology Center announces second
session of the Plant Breeding Academy, Davis, California.
The UC Davis Plant Breeding Academy is
pleased to be accepting applications for its second class, starting in September
2008. Visit the Plant Breeding Academy website
for more information and to apply for the 2008-2010 Academy. (For additional information
on this year’s session, see also article 1.13, this issue.)
8-9 September 2008. Course on cassava genetic resources and their manipulation
for crop improvement, offered by prof. Nagib Nassar at ESALQ, USP, Piracicaba,
Sao Paulo, Brazil
For inscription, kindly contact prof. Paulo Kageyama, email kageyama@esalq.usp.br, Dept. Florestal,
ESALQ.
10-12 September 2008. National Seminar on Recent Trends in Research
on Spices and Aromatic Plants, Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural
University, Hisar – 125 004 (HARYANA)
Correspondence Addresses:
1. For Spice Crops:
S.K. Arora, Department of Vegetable Science, CCS Haryana Agricultural University,
aicrpspices@hau.ernet.in; vegscience@hau.ernet.in
2. For Aromatic Crops:
P. K. Verma, Medicinal, Aromatic & Under-Utilized Plants Section, Department
of Plant Breeding, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar-125 004 (Haryana).
mauup@hau.ernet.in; pkverma@hau.ernet.in
11- 15 September 2008. 5th International Hybrid Rice Symposium.
Changsha, China. www.5thishr.cn.
14 – 18 September 2008. Harlan II: An International Symposium – Biodiversity
in Agriculture: Domestication, Evolution, & Sustainability, University
of California, Davis. http://harlanii.ucdavis.edu/index.htm
(note: see also article 1.13, this issue)
14-18 September 2008. The 12th International Lupin Conference,
Fremantle, Western Australia conference@lupins.org.
http://www.lupins.org/
17-20 September 2008. 19th New Phytologist Symposium -- Physiological
Sculpture of Plants: new visions and capabilities for crop development, Mount
Hood, Oregon, USA.www.newphytologist.org .
22 – 26 September 2008. All Africa Congress on Biotechnology, Nairobi,
Kenya. The theme of the Congress will be ‘Harnessing the Potential of Agricultural
Biotechnology for Food Security and Socio-Economic Development in Africa’.
www.abneta.org/congress and www.absfafrica.org
and www.africa-union.org
29 September 2008 – 5 June 2009. International Master in Plant Breeding
(17th edition), Zaragoza (Spain),
http://www.iamz.ciheam.org/ingles/cursos08-09/mejveg0809-pub-ing.htm
6 – 31 October 2008. Regional training programme on Plant Genetic Resources
and Seeds: Policies, Conservation and Use, Ethiopia.
www.cdic.wur.nl/UK/newsagenda
Application forms can be downloaded from the website of Wageningen International,
and should be submitted by e-mail to: training.wi@wur.nl
20–31 October 2008. International Course on Crop Prebreeding, Maracay,
Venezuela.
(
http://km.fao.org/gipb/index.php?option=com_content&task=section&id=24&Itemid=112
).
26–31 October 2008. 4th International Silicon in Agriculture Conference,
Wild Coast Sun Resort, Port Edward, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
www.siliconconference.org.za.
3-5 November 2008. Workshop: "Mixed Models in Plant Improvement".The
University of Western Australia, International Centre for Plant Breeding Education
and Research.
Register your interest to receive more information with Assoc Prof Wallace Cowling
( wcowling@cyllene.uwa.edu.au)
3–7 November 2008. 7th International Safflower Conference, Wagga
Wagga, New South Wales, Australia. http://www.australianoilseeds.com/registration
4-8 November 2008. 3rd International Conference for Peanut
Genomics and Biotechnology on Advances in Arachis through Genomics and
Biotechnology (AAGB-2008), ICRISAT, Hyderabad, India. For further details,
please visit http://www.icrisat.org/aagb-2008 /
http://www.peanutbioscience.com or contact Rajeev Varshney
(r.k.varshney@cgiar.org) for further
details
3-7 November 2008. 7th International Safflower Conference, Wagga
Wagga, New South Wales. http://www.australianoilseeds.com/registration/conference_information
.
9-14 November 2008. 5th International Symposium of the European
Amaranth Association. Institute of Plant Genetics and Biotechnology of the
Slovak Academy of Sciences, Nitra, Slovak Republic. Organized by the Institute
of Plant Genetics and Biotechnology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Nitra, Slovak
Republic and AMR AMARANTH a.s., Blansko, Czech Republic.
Note from the organizers, 19 August 2008: “I would like to remind you the new
deadlines for Amaranth conference.
New deadlines:
Registration form and abstract submission - August 31, 2008.
Payment (we will confirm before Sept.15) - September 15, 2008
IMPORTANT: The organizing committee decided to include besides of amaranth also
contributions on other neglected and underutilized crops to the conference
programme. Please, inform your colleagues and potential participants about this
fact.”
Alena Gajdosova
17-28 November 2008. Molecular methodologies for assessing and applying
genetic diversity in crop breeding, ICRISAT Campus at Patancheru, Greater
Hyderabad, India.
The course will provide participants a hands-on opportunity to gain expertise
in the use of molecular markers (SSRs, SNPs and DArTs) in diversity analysis,
gene/QTL mapping and marker-assisted breeding. http://www.icrisat.org/CEG/ . For
questions, please contact Rajeev Varshney (r.k.varshney@cgiar.org).
24 – 27 November 2008. Conventional and Molecular Breeding of Field
and Vegetable Crops. Novi Sad, Serbia. For more information contact: tanja@ifvcns.ns.ac.yu.
*(NEW) 25 – 28 Nov. 2008. Simpósio Brasileiro de Recursos Genéticos,
Hotel Nacional, Brasília, DF, Brazil. More information at http://www.cenargen.embrapa.br/sbrg
7-11 December 2008. Vth International Symposium on Horticultural Research,
Teaching and Extension, Chiang Mai, Thailand. http://muresk.curtin.edu.au/conference/ishset/topic.html
7-12 December 2008. International Conference on Legume Genomics and
Genetics IV Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. http://www.ccg.unam.mx/iclgg4/
9-12 December 2008. Global Potato Conference 2008. NASC Complex,
New Delhi, India. http://www.gpc2008.in. For
registration inquiries, contact Dr JS Minhas at minhasjs@excite.com
9-12 December 2008. Second International Symposium on Papaya, Madurai,
Tamil Nadu, India. http://www.ishs-papaya2008.com/About%20the%20symposium.html
8-11 February 2009. International Conference on “Plant Abiotic Stress
Tolerance,” Vienna, Austria http://www.univie.ac.at/stressplants/
*(NEW) 17 – 19 March 2009. Technical workshop of the Borlaug Global
Rust Initiative, Cd. Obregón, Sonora, Mexico
Information about the workshop can be found online at: http://www.globalrust.org/content.cfm?ID=46.
Please circulate this to your colleagues and partners, as we aim to encourage
a broad spectrum of participation across countries, research disciplines, and
sectors.
Dr. Borlaug will be one of the keynote speakers, and the meeting program will
cover numerous topics of pressing importance: tracking wheat rust pathogens, breeding
for rust resistance, impact projections, and many others. Scientists and policymakers
are invited to attend.
To insure adequate accommodation for all interested people, please inform us of
your intention to participate in the 2009 Technical Workshop by 1 October 2008,
by sending an email message to BGRI@cornell.edu.
Online registration will be available on the BGRI website (http://www.globalrust.org) in September
2008. Please note there is a registration fee of $300.
We hope to see you there!
Ronnie Coffman, Vice Chairman, BGRI Executive Committee
Workshop Topics
• International collaboration
• Tracking wheat rust pathogens
• Breeding to produce rust resistant varieties
• Developing and optimizing markers for rust resistance
• Reducing linkage drag associated with rust resistance genes
• New sources of rust resistance in wild wheat and barley
• Exploring rice immunity to rust
• Seed systems
• Impact projections and decision support systems
• Country status reports on stem rust, yellow rust, and leaf rust pathogens
To receive subsequent notices about the meeting, including registration and accommodation
details, please send contact information to BGRI@cornell.edu
The Borlaug Global Rust Initiative is a continuation of the Global Rust Initiative
(GRI) established in 2005. The GRI has been discontinued and its activities have
been incorporated into the BGRI. More information can be found at http://www.globalrust.org. The Durable Rust Resistance in
Wheat Project (DRRW), http://www.wheatrust.cornell.edu,
coordinated by Cornell University with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, serves as the secretariat for the BGRI.
Contributed by Jennifer Nelson
Assistant Coordinator, Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat Project
jmn99@cornell.edu
24 – 26 March 2009. Sixth International Integrated Pest Management Symposium.
Transcending Boundaries, Portland, Oregon. www.ipmcenters.org/ipmsymposium09
26-29 May 2009. 19th EUCARPIA Conference, Genetic Resources
Section, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Early registration and abstract submission:
February 2009. www.eucarpia.kis.si
1-5 June 2009. 6th International Triticeae Symposium. Kyoto University
Conference Hall, Kyoto, Japan
Contact:
Taihachi Kawahara kawatai@mbox.kudpc.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Kazuhiro Sato kazsato@rib.okayama-u.ac.jp
21–25 September 2009. 1st International Jujube Symposium, Agricultural
University of Hebei, Baoding, China. www.ziziphus.net/2008
*(NEW) 28 Sept. – 1 Oct. 2009. 9th African Crop Science Society
Conference, Cape Town, South Africa. Conference theme: Science and technology
supporting food security in Africa.
The registration fee will be $300 (US) for early registration and $320 (US) for
late registration. The registration fee for the conference will include
a conference bag, luncheons, teas, field trips, the gala dinner and transport
(to and from the airport).
The Scientific Committee will be responsible to select and evaluate all
abstracts presented and to maintain the high standard of the ACSS Conferences.
Abstracts must reach the scientific committee by 31 March 2009. More details will
be available in the second announcement.
More information on the programme, accommodation, excursions and guidelines for
abstracts, etc. will be posted on the conference web page as it become available.
Dr. G.D. Joubert, Chairman LOC, South Africajoub
@absamail.co.za
Contributed by Prof. Kasem Zaki Ahmed
President, African Crop Science Society
acss8@yahoo.com, orgcom@acss2007.org
11-16 October 2009. Interdrought-III, The 3rd international conference
on integrated approaches to improve crop production under drought-prone environments;
Shanghai, China. Conference web site: http://www.interdrought.org/. Previous
Interdrought conferences at www.plantstress.com
2-5 August 2010. 10th International Conference on Grapevine Breeding
and Genetics. http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/hp/events/.
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7. EDITOR'S NOTES
Plant Breeding News is an electronic forum for the exchange of information
and ideas about applied plant breeding and related fields. It is a component of
the Global Partnership Initiative for Plant
Breeding Capacity Building (GIPB), and is published monthly throughout
the year.
The newsletter is managed by the editor and an advisory group consisting of Elcio
Guimaraes (elcio.guimaraes@fao.org), Margaret Smith (mes25@cornell.edu), and Ann
Marie Thro (athro@reeusda.gov). The editor will advise subscribers one to two
weeks ahead of each edition, in order to set deadlines for contributions.
Subscribers are encouraged to take an active part in making the newsletter a useful
communications tool. Contributions may be in such areas as: technical communications
on key plant breeding issues; announcements of meetings, courses and electronic
conferences; book announcements and reviews; web sites of special relevance to
plant breeding; announcements of funding opportunities; requests to other readers
for information and collaboration; and feature articles or discussion issues brought
by subscribers. Suggestions on format and content are always welcome by the editor,
at pbn-l@mailserv.fao.org. We would especially like to see a broad participation
from developing country programs and from those working on species outside the
major food crops.
Messages with attached files are not distributed on PBN-L for two important reasons.
The first is that computer viruses and worms can be distributed in this manner.
The second reason is that attached files cause problems for some e-mail systems.
PLEASE NOTE: Every month many newsletters are returned because they are undeliverable,
for any one of a number of reasons. We try to keep the mailing list up to date,
and also to avoid deleting addresses that are only temporarily inaccessible. If
you miss a newsletter, write to me at chh23@cornell.edu and I will re-send it.
REVIEW PAST NEWSLETTERS ON THE WEB: Past issues of the Plant Breeding Newsletter
are now available on the web. The address is: http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/FAOINFO/AGRICULT/AGP/AGPC/doc/services/pbn.html
We will continue to improve the organization of archival issues of the newsletter.
Readers who have suggestions about features they wish to see should contact the
editor at chh23@cornell.edu.
RECEIVE THE NEWSLETTER AS AN MS WORD® ATTACHMENT
If you prefer to receive the newsletter as an MS Word attachment instead of
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Leave the subject line blank and write SUBSCRIBE PBN-L (Important: use ALL CAPS).
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