PLANT BREEDING NEWS
EDITION 236
June 2012
An Electronic Newsletter of Applied Plant Breeding
Clair H. Hershey, Editor
Sponsored by GIPB, FAO/AGP and Cornell University’s Department of
Plant Breeding and Genetics
-To subscribe,
see instructions here
-Archived issues
available at: FAO Plant Breeding Newsletter
Reviews of
broad issues in research and development
1.01 Leading researchers call for
$100 billion investment in Agriculture research
1.02 World Food Prize honors land-grant universities with Borlaug
Medallion during 150th anniversary of Morrill Act
1.03 Next-generation education in crop genetics
Reviews of
breeding programs
1.04 Improvement of
varieties for small farmers in China calls for a new approach to breeding as well as social and legal changes
1.05 Rwanda releases
iron-rich beans to improve public health for millions
1.06 Investments aim
to crack wheat’s ‘tough nuts’
1.07 Fifteen new plant breeders
complete the UC Davis Plant Breeding Academy
1.08 Vita launches
Potato Centre of Excellence in Africa
1.09 International
Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and West Africa Center for Crop Improvement (WACCI)
in a strategic alliance to increase plant breeders
in Africa
1.10 Breeding
strategies for adaptation of pearl millet and sorghum to climate variability and change in West Africa
1.11 IITA Project saves Africa from striga infestation
1.12 Improved
potato varieties ensure food security in Peruvian communities
Policy and IP
issues
1.13 Plant research funding crucial for the future
1.14 Communicating
the global threat of herbicide resistance
1.15 Herbicide-resistant weeds: current challenges, new tools
GM issues
1.16 Trouble on the
horizon for GM crops?
Genetic
resources
1.17 Rising CO2 levels affects gene flow in wild
and domesticated rice
1.18 New research
finds unique crop diversity, struggle to save it - Some farmers in Mexico found to hold the key to conserving
special bean
1.19 Support under
plant genetics treaty fund announced during Rio+20
1.20 Large-scale development of cost-effective SNP marker assays
for diversity assessment and genetic
mapping in chickpea and comparative mapping
in legumes
Trait
selection and applied breeding
1.21 Cornell engineers working on new peppers
1.22 Integrated
genomics, physiology and breeding approaches for improving drought tolerance in crops
1.23 Adoption of advanced techniques could propel crop improvement
1.24 FAO paper calls for re-orientation of crop improvement in the
21st century
1.25 Discovery may
lead to new tomato varieties with vintage flavor and quality
1.26 Chinese
researchers identify rice gene that could enhance quality and productivity
1.27 Introgression of
Brassica Rapa Subsp Sylvestris blackleg resistance into B Napus
1.28 Cold-tolerant
faba beans a new option for Northwestern wheat growers for fixing N
Molecular and
basic genetics research
1.29 WSU develops
center to manage gene data
1.30 Scientists
complete most comprehensive genetic analysis yet of corn
1.31 Latest genomic
studies shed new light on maize diversity and evolution
1.32 Taming genetic
recombination
1.33 Discovery of a
nitrogen "satiety" gene in plants
1.34 Next-generation
sequencing technology opens doors to discoveries
1.35 New insight
gained into how plants may fight diseases
1.36 Genome of model legume Medicago truncatula sequenced
1.37 A new source of maize hybrid vigor
1.38 Link between vitamin C and twins can increase seed production
in crops
1.39 DNA Discovery key to drought
resistant crops
1.40 Study shows parasitic flower share more genes from its host
1.41 Defense mechanism of Lectin in plat uncovered
1.42 Scientists trace footprint of photoperiod pathway genes in
Oryza
2. PUBLICATIONS
2.01 New FiBL-Dossier: Techniques in
Plant Breeding
2.02 First
Textbook on Breeding for Organic Agriculture Available
2.03 Participatory Plant
Breeding Toolkit Now Available
2.04 Genética Agrícola (in
Spanish)
2.05 Plant
Breeding for Abiotic Stress Tolerance
2.06 Beyond
Vavilov: new resource for collecting diversity
3. WEB AND NETWORKING RESOURCES
3.01 New website to support wheat
research
3.02 A blog site for “Plant Breeders without Borders”
(There are no grants and awards announcements in this
issue)
5.01 Monsanto plant breeding positions
6. MEETINGS, COURSES
7. EDITOR
1 NEWS, ANNOUNCEMENTS
1.01 Leading
researchers call for $100 billion investment in Agriculture research
St. Louis, Missouri, USA
June 11, 2012
Science holds the key to meeting
global demands for food and fuel. The
scientific community must make a 10-year, $100 billion investment in food and
energy security by funding plant research, says Dr. Tom Brutnell of the
Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels at the Donald Danforth
Plant Science Center in St. Louis, MO and Dr. Wolf Frommer of the Carnegie
Institute for Science in Stanford, CA in an opinion piece,Food for Thought,
that appeared in the June issue of The Scientist.
In their opinion piece, Brutnell
and Frommer espouse that if we are to be successful in addressing critical
challenges facing a rapidly growing global population we must make an
investment that is on par with President John F. Kennedy’s promise to put man
on the moon—a project that took a decade and cost 24 billion, ($150 billion in
today’s dollars).
In 2012 the United Nation’s Food
and Agriculture Organization estimated that nearly one billion people lack
sufficient food to meet suggested daily caloric intake goals. Furthermore, the
FAO estimates that food production will have to rise by 70 percent by 2050 as
the world population continues to expand.
Given the importance of the food
and energy supply to economic, social and political stability, the rational for
strong investments in agricultural science are clear. “With food supply failing
to keep up with the booming population, we need to find innovative ways to
boost production.
The next generation of innovations
in agriculture can only be achieved by using the best science and tools
available, be it conventional breeding, advanced breeding, or biotechnology,”
say Brutnell and Frommer. “Yet, plant science research has been underfunded for
decades and dwarfs in comparison to medical research.”
Brutnell and Frommer specifically
advocate for a substantial increase in scientific research to boost crop yield
and fight plant pathogens as well as for research targeted at developing plants
that require less water and fertilizer, and can serve as sustainable sources
for biofuels, reducing our dependence on petroleum, a rapidly depleting
resource.
“In an overpopulated food-limited
world, we will inevitably witness more social unrest and potentially food and
climate wars. The U.S. must seize the opportunity now to build on its
tremendous strength in agriculture and reverse our current path of reduced
spending and investment. If we doing nothing, we may return to our pre-1776
role as colonists who simply provide food to more strategically minded
nations,” said Brutnell and Frommer.
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=27562&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop=
Source: SeedQuest.com
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1.02 World Food Prize
honors land-grant universities with Borlaug Medallion during 150th anniversary
of Morrill Act
Washington, D.C., USA
June 26, 2012
The World Food Prize Foundation
awarded its Borlaug Medallion to the Association of Public and Land-grant
Universities today. The award was presented during a ceremony in Washington
D.C. celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Morrill Land-grant Act of 1862.
Written by Senator Justin Smith
Morrill of Vermont and signed into law on July 2, 1862, by President Abraham
Lincoln, the legislation provided grants of federal lands to the states for the
establishment of public universities and agricultural education programs
nationwide, and led to the democratization of higher education.
“Land-grant institutions have
played a critical role in inspiring multiple generations to attain the highest
levels of education and scientific research; fostering the most prolific era of
agricultural production ever recorded in human history; and providing a model
for emulation around the world as we endeavor to eliminate the scourge of
hunger from the face of the earth,” said Amb.
Kenneth M. Quinn, president of the
World Food Prize, presented the award to Scott Angle, chairman of the APLU
Board on Agriculture Assembly and Dean of the University of Georgia College of
Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
The World Food Prize is the
foremost international award recognizing the achievements of individuals who
have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity or
availability of food in the world.
The Borlaug Medallion honors those
organizations and Heads of State who would not ordinarily be eligible for the World
Food Prize, but who have made an especially noteworthy contribution to
improving the world’s food supply and ensuring adequate nutrition. In the past
it has only been presented to King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand; the Sasakawa
Family and its Nippon Foundation of Japan; and Kofi Annan for his leadership of
the United Nations.Quinn noted that Dr. Norman Borlaug - Nobel Peace Prize
Laureate, founder of the World Food Prize, and known as the “Father of the
Green Revolution” – was a graduate of a land-grant university.
“APLU should be extremely proud of
its stewardship of the universities across our country, and of the critical
work and research that continues to occur at institutions across America,”
Quinn said. “We continue to make great strides in science and agriculture, and
we are committed to working with you to inspire future generations to take on
the complex issues that we face around the globe.”
The sesquicentennial celebration
featured a keynote speech by Bill Gates; U.S. Secretary of Education Arne
Duncan and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack also participated in
dynamic panels about the future of education. There are currently 106
land-grant universities, including at least one in every state.
More details about the day’s event
can be found at this link. Details about the World Food Prize Borlaug Medallion
and a downloadable image of it are available online at
www.worldfoodprize.org/borlaugmedallion.
The World Food Prize was founded in
1986 by Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, recipient of the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize. Since
then, The World Food Prize has honored outstanding individuals who have made
vital contributions to improving the quality, quantity or availability of food
throughout the world. Laureates have been recognized from Bangladesh, Brazil,
China, Denmark, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Mexico, Sierra Leone, Switzerland, the
United Kingdom, the United Nations and the United States.
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=27920&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop=
Source: SeedQuest.com
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1.03 Next-generation
education in crop genetics
Eyal Fridman and Dani Zamir
Current Opinion in Plant Biology 2012, 15:218–223
DOI 10.1016/j.pbi.2012.03.013
Today, plant breeders are being met with new opportunities to
develop superior varieties. Fruitful genetic research into populations with
novel diversity using genotyping by sequencing combined with
genotype-to-phenotype bioinformatics has generated much knowledge that is
directly relevant to crop improvement. These advances can assist the breeders
in associating genetic makeup with traits of commercial value.
The greatest challenge now is to find ways to attract the
best young people to work in plant breeding for its innovation, open field
experience and ability to support food security. We discuss the need,
opportunities and conflicts associated with revamping plant breeding teaching
programs to bridge the art and science of this profession with a rapidly
expanding job market.
Contributed by Rodomiro Ortiz
Dept. Plant Breeding and BiotechnologySwedish
University of Agricultural Sciences
rodomiro.ortiz@slu.se
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1.04 Improvement of varieties for small
farmers in China calls for a new approach to breeding as well as social and
legal changes
Wageningen, The Netherlands
June 6, 2012
Participatory plant breeding can allow small farmers in China
to acquire varieties that are adapted to local conditions. To ensure the
success of this approach, however, farmers must be rewarded for their
contribution to the conservation of biodiversity. This is the position taken by
Chinese researcher Jingsong Li in her thesis, which she defended on May 29 at
Wageningen University. Li also points out a number of legal complications
concerning the acceptance and ownership of varieties developed with a
participatory method.
China's formerly state-owned seed sector is rapidly becoming
commercial. This creates a risk that small farmers are neglected as a target
group and that genetic diversity is forgotten.
The intensive involvement of small farmers in breeding can
facilitate the development of varieties that are particularly suitable to poor
growing conditions. In this way, participatory breeding can be seen as a
counterpart to the development of varieties for larger acreages, where farmers
have better access to fertilisers and pesticides. Researcher Jingsong Li was
the first to investigate the conditions in which participatory plant breeding
can be beneficial for both farmers and biodiversity.
Li studied this subject in southwest China, one of the
country’s poorest regions, where 25 million small-scale farmers live and where
maize varieties have been developed via participatory plant breeding for the
past ten years. While Li’s conclusions are mostly relevant for China, they are
likely to be at least partly valid elsewhere.
Li argues that participatory plant breeding can only work if
the value of genetic diversity is recognised by all parties. It is important
that the improved landraces are not only used locally in traditional feasts and
dishes. The project managed to take an important step toward a broadening of
the market by selling products to a restaurant in the nearest major city. This
is particularly useful since demand for locally grown and environmentally
friendly food is increasing among Chinese urbanites.
In the framework of Li’s research, for the first time a
contract was made between breeders and farmers for the mutual recognition of
each other's effort. This means that farmers no longer have to buy from a
breeder the seed of a variety to which they themselves contributed. The
breeders teach the farmers how to grow good quality seed that they can sell on
the local farmers' markets, resulting in additional income for the farmers and
a possibility for the breeders to market the same variety in commercial markets
in other regions.
The commercialisation of the Chinese seed industry is
increasingly involving China in international negotiations on trade and
property rights regarding plants. This means that commercial varieties developed
through participatory breeding must also meet the strict requirements of the
UPOV and TRIPS guidelines. This can cause problems such as, for instance, the
varieties not being sufficiently homogeneous for the rules, which are new in
China. Li and her team made progress in various workshops with local, regional
and national governments, however, and the Chinese government is open to
various proposed measures that can ensure that the varieties developed together
with farmers can be marketed.
Jingsong Li is optimistic about the future of participatory
plant breeding in China. “The innovations provide opportunities for the country
to balance different interests, respect international legal obligations, and
respond appropriately to the pressures of the competitive market,” she
explains.
Jingsong Li’s research was funded by the International
Development Research Centre in Canada. It was part of a research programme of
the Centre for Chinese Agricultural Policy of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
in Beijing.
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=27428&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop=
Source: SeedQuest.com
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1.05 Rwanda releases iron-rich beans to
improve public health for millions
Kigali, Rwanda and Washington D.C., USA
June 20, 2012
The Rwanda Government today announced the release of five new
iron‐rich bean varieties that could provide more iron in the diets of
millions of Rwandese who eat beans every day.
Iron deficiency is widely prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa.
During childhood and adolescence, it lowers resistance to disease and impairs
learning capacity. It reduces the ability of adults for physical labor. Severe
anemia increases the risk of women dying in childbirth.
In Rwanda, anemia, which is used as an indicator of iron
deficiency, afflicts almost one out of five non-pregnant women and 40% of
children under‐five in Rwanda. Children and women will be the main
beneficiaries of these new bean varieties, which could provide up to 30% of
their daily iron needs.
“Beans are the ‘meat’ and even the ‘bread’ of the Rwandan
countryside. A meal without beans in Rwanda is like a meal without food.”
explains Lister Katsvairo, HarvestPlus Country Manager.
The new iron-rich bean varieties were bred by the Rwanda
Agriculture Board (RAB) and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture
(CIAT) using conventional breeding methods.
Farmers who evaluated these beans during field trials liked
them because they were high yielding and resistant to major diseases and pests.
The beans are also highly marketable due to their large seed size and their preferred
colors, including red and white that are sought for in local and urban markets.
“Demand for these varieties has already started, and we have produced enough
seed quantities to sell to farmers at an affordable price for the next cropping
season.” said Katsvairo.
By September, HarvestPlus and its partners will distribute
more than 200 tons of iron-rich climbing and bush bean varieties via
agrodealers and local markets to about 75,000 farming households. Farmers will
be able to grow these new beans to feed their families. They can also harvest
and share seeds with others in their community amplifying the nutritional
benefits. By the end of 2013, more than half a million household members are
expected to be eating iron-rich beans.
This development and delivery of iron-rich beans is being
funded by HarvestPlus. Partners include RAB, CIAT, other Rwanda Government
agencies and local partners.
HarvestPlus leads a global effort to breed and disseminate
staple food crops that are rich in vitamins and minerals to improve nutrition
and public health. Using a process called biofortification, higher amounts of
vitamins and minerals are directly bred into foods such as bean, cassava, sweet
potato, rice, maize, pearl millet, and wheat. HarvestPlus is part of the CGIAR
Research Program on Agriculture for Improved Nutrition and Health. It is
coordinated by CIAT and the International Food Policy Research Institute
(IFPRI).
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=27764&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop=
Source: SeedQuest.com
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1.06 Investments aim to crack wheat’s
‘tough nuts’
Australia
June 21, 2012
Widespread frosts in Western Australia in 1998 and 2005
caused wheat yield losses of 500,000 and 700,000 tonnes respectively, while
drought, salinity, disease and nutrient issues are ongoing challenges for the
State’s cereal growers.
To help crack these ‘tough nuts’, the Grains Research and
Development Corporation (GRDC) invested about $13.5 million in wheat and barley
‘pre-breeding’ research in 2011-12 and has invested almost $51.5m in this
research program area from 2009-10 to 2012-13.
The GRDC also has equity investments in three of the
commercial wheat breeding companies in Australia.
More details about the GRDC’s ‘pre-breeding’ investments are
contained in the new GRDC Cracking Wheat’s Toughest Nuts Fact Sheet.
‘Pre-breeding’ refers to research which can go all the way
from gene discovery to the delivery to plant breeders of advanced lines and
phenotyping tools (to measure observable characteristics).
GRDC yield and quality traits manager Jorge Mayer said the
GRDC’s investments in this research program area were part of a broader
integrated strategy which included researching more effective farm practices to
ensure farmers maximised the genetic advances being made.
“The lag between investment and delivery of improved varieties
to growers is generally between 10 to 20 years, although many tools developed
as part of pre-breeding research can deliver benefits much earlier to current
breeding programs and therefore new varieties,” Dr Mayer said.
“It is also important to remember that Australian growers are
reaping the benefits of investments made many years ago in genetic
improvement.”
The fact sheet includes sections on frost; drought; salinity;
nutrient use efficiency (nitrogen and phosphorus); diseases; and quality and
functionality.
It also includes a table outlining progress made on these
challenges.
The GRDC Cracking Wheat’s Toughest Nuts Fact Sheet is
available at www.grdc.com.au/GRDC-FS-CrackingWheatsToughestNuts
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=27792&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop=
Source: SeedQuest.com
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1.07 Fifteen new plant breeders
complete the UC Davis Plant Breeding Academy
Davis, California, USA
June 11, 2012
Helping to fill a critical need for additional plant
breeders, the University of California, Davis Plant Breeding Academy (PBA)
graduated its third class of students on Friday. This class is composed of a
group of working professionals who have spent more than 300 hours in classes,
workshops and the field, training to become professional plant breeders. Dr.
Marlin Edwards, Vice President of Research and Development, Monsanto Vegetable
Seeds, gave the keynote speech at the graduation. Congratulations to the
following PBA Class III graduates:
• Miguel
Ahumada, Driscoll Strawberry Associates, USA
• Laura Brown,
K&B Development, LLC, USA
• Jarunee
Buaboocha, Chia Tai Co. Ltd., Thailand
• Kanlayanee
Chaichana, Chia Tai Co. Ltd., Thailand
• Jonathan
Gienapp, HM.Clause, USA
• Francine
Giusti, Monsanto Vegetable Seed Co., USA
• Anna Hall,
Bayer CropScience, USA
• Jim Irvine,
Ball Horticultural Company, USA
• Jennifer
Izzo, Driscoll Strawberry Associates, USA
• Bradley
Martin, HyTech Production Ltd., Canada
• Jonny
McIntier, Monsanto Vegetable Seeds, USA
• Terry Moran,
Driscoll Strawberry Associates, USA
• Elizabeth
Robertson, Abbott and Cobb Inc., USA
• Naoki Yaya,
Sakata Seed America Inc., USA
• Helge Zieler,
Independent, USA
The PBA includes six week-long sessions at UC Davis and
provides each student integrated post-graduate training to prepare them to
advance their careers as plant breeders. Each qualifying graduate receives a UC
Davis certificate and 19 units of academic credit.
“It is hard to believe that already four 2-year classes have
now graduated from the Plant Breeding Academy making a cohort of 67 plant
breeders from this program. The graduates should be very proud and excited to
apply their new skills.” said Allen Van Deynze, co-founder of the PBA.
The PBA was developed by the UC Davis Seed Biotechnology
Center in direct response to industry concerns over the reduced number of plant
breeders being trained in academic programs. The two-year course provides an
opportunity for companies to invest in dedicated personnel who are currently
involved in breeding programs, but would like further formal instruction in
genetics, statistics and plant breeding theory. In addition to coursework, each
student designs a breeding program as a final project. The course schedule
allows students to maintain their working positions while enrolled.
The PBA is taught by internationally recognized plant
breeders Doug Shaw and Larry Teuber, both of UC Davis, and Todd Wehner from
North Carolina State University, with guest lecturers speaking on their
specific areas of expertise. Applications are now being accepted for:
• PBA Class IV
(starts September 2012) and
• the Asian PBA
(starts November 2012).
For more information visit pba.ucdavis.edu or contact Joy
Patterson at jpatterson@ucdavis.edu or at (530) 752-4414.
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=27538&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop=
Source: SeedQuest.com
1.08 Vita launches Potato Centre of
Excellence in Africa
Dublin, Ireland
June 13, 2012
A major €5m Vita Potato Centre of Excellence that will
increase the supply of food in African countries is being launched on June 13th
2012 by Minister of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney, TD.
The Potato Centre of Excellence is a programme for growing
Irish potatoes in Gamo Gofa in Southern Ethiopia to enable the two million
population to feed themselves in the long term.
Local farmers take out a ‘loan’ of a bag of seed potatoes,
which can be returned the next year alongside a donation of another bag,
providing yet more farmers with seed for years to come. This process can enable
millions to feed their families.
Launching the Vita Potato Centre of Excellence, Minister Coveney
commented: “I’m delighted to be launching this very innovative project today.
It represents a wonderful collaboration between Irish agri-food expertise
through Teagasc and the Irish Potato Federation allied to the development
knowledge of Vita along with their international partners in this proposed
Potato Centre of Excellence. The generous support of the Irish Potato
Federation in supporting model farms and developing local industry as well as
Teagasc in developing local research-advisory service linkage shows that the
Irish agri-food sector has much to offer other countries seeking to learn from
our experiences. I wish the project every success”.
Teagasc Director Prof. Gerry Boyle said: “Food security and
climate change are global issues that cannot be solved by any individual
country alone. I am delighted to announce today that Teagasc is expanding on
our current leadership role in international research consortia, and commencing
a new initiative on food security, which will be headed up by Dr Rogier
Schulte.
Today’s launch of the Vita Potato Centre of Excellence in
Africa is the first step and an excellent example of international
collaborative research and development on sustainable food security.”
Vita is an Irish international development agency with
programmes in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Kenya whose vision is to forge long-term
international partnerships which empower rural communities to sustain their
livelihoods. John Weakliam, Vita CEO, said: “This project is about technology
transfer and business partnership and not about aid, to allow farmers to own
their own destiny.
The Potato Centre of Excellence can bring about a key
solution to the African food challenge.” “This links with Ethiopia’s aim of
self-sufficiency and business partnership with Ireland,” Her Excellency
Lela-Alem Gebreyohannes, Ethiopia’s ambassador to Ireland said: “We are keen to
develop through strategic, long term partnerships that benefit all
stakeholders.
The Vita Potato Centre of Excellence is an exciting step for
the people of Ethiopia, and should serve as a template for replication across
Africa.”Vita is delighted to acknowledge the vital contribution of the
Department of Foreign Affairs, through Irish Aid, as well as the European
Union, to Vita’s Sustainable Livelihoods Programme in the Horn of Africa.
More about this
programme:
• The Irish
Potato Federation (IPF) have conducted two sites visits to the potato
development site in Gamo Gofa in Southern Ethiopia and are providing funding
support and agronomic and business support.
• Partners in
the research component of the project include Teagasc, Europe’s leading
agriculture researchers in Wageningen University in The Netherlands, the
International Potato Centre (CIP) and the Ethiopian National Agriculture
Research Agency (EIAR). Teagasc’s potato breeding programme is supported by a
world-renowned potato research facility in Oak Park in Carlow while Wageningen
University is the world’s leading researcher of the potato and has carried out
extensive research of potato projects in Ethiopia.
• The Potato
Centre of Excellence is implementing a four-year research partnership under the
supervision of Wageningen University which will examine seed quality, farm
systems and project delivery and impact in the potato programme in Chencha. The
research will measure outcomes of the Seed and Ware potato development in
improving farm systems, nutrition status and livelihoods of Ethiopian farmers.
• Ten
Ethiopian, Irish and international organisations are supporting the potato
initiative with secured initial funding close to €1 million.
Vita is an Irish development agency whose mission is to
tackle household food insecurity through community led sustainable agriculture
project which are scalable and replicable, with a special focus on women as the
key enablers of sustainable development. The 2012-15 programme goal is to
create a material improvement in nutrition for 250,000 households, and leverage
such impact through partnerships and scaling up.
The European Union has validated Vita’s work with potato
farmers with an award of first prize amongst Ethiopian partners in September
2011. In the past three years, with support from the Irish Government and in
partnership with the Sisters of Mercy Western Province in Galway, Vita and
government partners have championed a community led approach to development in
Chencha based on empowerment and sustainability. This includes programmes that
enable households to build stoves and latrines, with immediate positive and
direct impacts on the long term health of families. Other programmes include
tree–planting schemes for subsistence farmers as well as provision of solar
lighting to create sustainable communities living in “Green Zones”.
In Ireland, local communities are also getting involved –
they are being led by residents from Kill village, County Kildare who have
raised significant funding to support the development of the Vita Potato Centre
of Excellence. Employees from Bank of Ireland, Electric Ireland, Dublin City
Council and other organisations also support Vita’s work in Ethiopia.
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=27593&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop=
Source: SeedQuest.com
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1.09 International Institute of
Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and West Africa Center for Crop Improvement (WACCI)
in a strategic alliance to increase plant breeders in Africa
April 30, 2012
West Lafayette, Indiana, USA
Today's hybrid corn varieties more efficiently use nitrogen
to create more grain, according to 72 years of public-sector research data
reviewed by Purdue University researchers.
Tony Vyn, a professor of agronomy, and doctoral student
Ignacio Ciampitti looked at nitrogen use studies for corn from two periods –
1940-1990 and 1991-2011. They wanted to see whether increased yields were due
to better nitrogen efficiency or whether new plants were simply given additional
nitrogen to produce more grain.
"Corn production often faces the criticism from society
that yields are only going up because of an increased dependency on
nitrogen," said Vyn, whose findings were published in the early online
version of the journal Field Crops Research. "Although modern hybrids take
up more total nitrogen per acre during the growing season than they did before,
the amount of grain produced per pound of nitrogen accumulated in corn plants
is substantially greater than it was for corn hybrids of earlier decades. So,
in that sense, the efficiency of nitrogen utilization has gradually
improved."
Vyn and Ciampitti's analysis covered about 100 worldwide
studies. Of those, 870 data points were taken from the earlier period through 1990,
and 2,074 points were taken from studies after 1990, when transgenic hybrids
started hitting the market. All studies involved analyses of total nitrogen
uptake and grain yield by corn plants at maturity, usually in response to
multiple nitrogen application rates.
Grain yields in these research studies averaged about 143
bushels of corn per acre over the last 21 years compared with an average of 115
bushels in the previous 50 years. Those studies showed that in the earlier
period, one pound of nitrogen applied to a field produced about 49 kilograms of
grain. In the more recent period, the same amount of nitrogen produced about 56
kilograms of grain.
About 90 percent of the corn data points examined in Vyn's
study evaluated nitrogen rates between zero and 250 pounds per acre. Over both
periods, the average rate of nitrogen fertilizer distributed in experimental
fields was nearly the same – 124 pounds per acre in the earlier period vs. 123
pounds in the later period.
Vyn said genetic improvements have led to corn plants that
require less space around them, allowing growers to squeeze more plants into an
acre. Research fields from the modern era averaged about 28,900 plants per acre
– about the average final plant populations in Indiana cornfields in 2011 -
compared with 22,800 plants per acre from 1940-1990.
"The maximum individual plant nitrogen uptake stayed
exactly the same despite the average gain of 6,000 more plants per acre,"
Vyn said. "The modern plants are just more efficient at taking nitrogen up
and utilizing it than they were before."
Vyn and Ciampitti are working toward methods to increase
grain yields further by investigating the contribution of nitrogen to plant
biomass and yield formation processes in high-yielding hybrids under a wide range
of nitrogen inputs and production stress factors. Knowing that modern hybrids
are sustaining a reasonable quantity of nitrogen uptake even under
progressively higher plant densities is a good start, Ciampitti said.
"We are getting clues on how plants have already
improved nitrogen use efficiency, and we will use that to push for further
increases," Ciampitti said. "We finally feel like we're shedding some
light on what traits plant breeders should select for to increase nitrogen
efficiency even more."
Vyn and Ciampitti plan to further investigate how water use
efficiency and nitrogen use efficiency are tied together, as well as how plants
can achieve more tolerance to environmental stresses.
Dow AgroSciences, PotashCorp and the U.S. Department of Agriculture
National Institute of Food and Agriculture funded their work.
Abstract
Physiological Perspectives of Changes Over Time in Maize
Yield Dependency on Nitrogen Uptake and Associated Nitrogen Efficiencies: A
Review Ignacio A. Ciampitti, Tony J. Vyn.
Over the past three decades, the study of various mechanisms
involved in maize grain yield (GY) formation and its relationship with nitrogen
(N) uptake dynamics has been increasingly acknowledged in the scientific
literature. However, few studies have combined investigations of GY response to
N fertilizer with detailed physiologically based analyses of plant N dynamics
such as N uptake quantities, timing, and (or) partitioning – and the complex
interactions of those with specific genotypes (G), management practices (M),
and (or) production environments (E).
Limited reporting of both N and yield dynamics at
plant-component, individual-plant, and community levels has contributed to a
considerable knowledge gap as to whether the physiological mechanisms that govern
maize plant N dynamics and their relationship with GY formation have changed
with time. We, therefore, undertook a comprehensive review to discern trends in
physiological aspects of maize response to changing plant densities and
fertilizer N rates (M components) under the umbrella of evolving G x E
interactions. We reviewed 100 published and unpublished papers based on field
experiments which consistently reported total plant N uptake at maturity and
maize GY (frequently among other physiological variables).
Our analyses were limited nearly exclusively to experiments
involving hybrid (as distinct from inbred) response to M input levels where
plant density data was available. Dissection of the complex interactions among
years, plant densities and N rates began with division of treatment mean data
(close to ∼3000 individual
points) into two time periods defined by year(s) of the original research: (i)
studies from 1940 to 1990 – "Old Era" and, (ii) studies from 1991 to
2011 – "New Era." For the Old Era, maize GY averaged 7.2 Mg
ha−1 at a mean plant density of 5.6 pl m−2 with a total plant N
uptake of 152 kg N ha−1, a grain harvest index (HI) of 48% and N harvest
index (NHI) of 63%. For the New Era, maize GY averaged 9.0 Mg ha−1 at a
mean plant density of 7.1 pl m−2, total plant N uptake of 170 kg N
ha−1, a grain HI of 50% and a NHI of 64%.
The most striking findings in terms of overall GY and plant N
uptake were: (1) on a per-unit-area basis, both potential GY and NIE (GY/N
uptake) increased from Old to New Era at comparable N uptake levels, and (2) on
a per-plant basis, total plant N uptake at maturity had not changed between
eras despite increased plant density in the New Era genotypes.
Other important findings in terms of plant growth and
component partitioning responses to N were (i) a consistently strong dependency
between dry matter and N allocation to the ear organ in both eras; (ii) higher
total plant biomass (BM) accumulation and N uptake, on an absolute basis,
during the post-silking period with New Era genotypes accompanied by relatively
smaller changes in HI and NHI; (iii) a strong correlation between plant N
uptake at silking time and per-plant GY and its components in both eras; (iv)
New Era (56.0 kg GY grain kg−1 N) was primarily associated with reduced
grain %N, and to a minor degree with NHI gains; and (v) New Era genotypes
showed higher tolerance to N deficiency stress (higher GY when no N fertilizer
was applied), and larger GY response per unit of N applied, relative to Old Era
hybrids.
This improved understanding of the physiological factors
underlying progress in maize yield response to N over time, within the context
of changing G x E x M factors, serves to help guide maize programs focused on
achieving further improvements in N use efficiency.
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=26519&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop=
Source: SeedQuest.com
1.10 Breeding
strategies for adaptation of pearl millet and sorghum to climate variability
and change in West Africa
June 20, 2012
Haussmann, B I G and Rattunde, H F and Weltzien-Rattunde, E
and Traore, P C S and et al, . (2012)Journal of Agronomy and Crop Science. 13
p.. ISSN 1439-037x Download
Abstract
Semi-arid and subhumid West Africa is characterized by high
inter-annual rainfall variability, with variable onset of the rainy season,
somewhat more predictable endings, and drought or excess water occurrence at
any time during the growing season. Climate change is predicted to increase
this variability. This article summarizes options for plant breeders to enhance
the adaptation of pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum [L.] R. Br.) and sorghum
(Sorghum bicolor [L.] Moench) to climate variability in West Africa. Developing
variety types with high degrees of heterozygosity and genetic heterogeneity for
adaptation traits helps achieving better individual and population buffering
capacity. Traits that potentially enhance adaptive phenotypic plasticity or
yield stability in variable climates include photoperiod-sensitive flowering,
plastic tillering, flooding tolerance, seedling heat tolerance and phosphorus
efficiency. Farmer-participatory dynamic gene pool management using broad-based
populations and diverse selection environments is useful to develop new diverse
germplasm adapted to specific production constraints including climate
variability. For sustainable productivity increase, improved cultivars should
respond to farmer-adoptable soil fertility management and water harvesting
techniques. Larger-scale, on-farm participatory testing will enable assessments
of varietal performance under evolving climatic variability, provide
perspective on needs and opportunities and enhance adoption. Strengthening seed
systems will be required to achieve sustainable impacts.
More...
More news from: ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute
for Semi-Arid Tropics)
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=27848&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop=
Source: SeedQuest.com
1.11 IITA Project
saves Africa from striga infestation
A notorious crop parasite, it is one of the major problems of
crop growers in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, the International Institute of
Tropical Agriculture (IITA) embarked on a four-year project in June 2011 to
develop Striga control techniques for smallholder farmers. After one year of
implementation, the project outputs are showing encouraging results.
The project called "Achieving Sustainable Striga Control
for Poor Farmers in Africa" project, or ISMA include using Striga
resistant maize and cowpea varieties, along with "push-pull"
technology. The push-pull technology involves intercropping with specific
Striga-suppressing forage legumes, using Imazapyr herbicide-coated seeds,
encouraging maize-legume intercropping and crop rotation; and adopting Striga
biocontrol technologies.
In Kenya, the project has reached about 6,000 farmers.
Partner seed companies have also released 66 tons of seeds using Imazapyr
herbicide resistant (IR) maize technology. The IR maize technology, together
with the use of Striga resistant maize varieties, could decrease the emergence
of Striga by up to 60%.
According to ISMA project manager Mel Oluoch, their initiative
will lead to 50 percent increase in maize production and more than double the
increase in cowpea yield, especially in areas that were previously infested
with Striga. crops in areas where drought, heat and salinity are major
problems.
Using a molecular biology technique known as EcoTILLING,
scientists were able to identify 23 DNA sequence variations of which 17
occurred in the gene coding region. Two of these DNA sequence variations in the
coding region are predicted to cause malfunctioned proteins.
Understanding the genetic variation in genes that encode the
light harvesting chlorophyll proteins will enable scientists to use DNA markers
to improve the 'stay green' efficiency in plants.
For more details about the project, view http://www.iita.org/news-feature-asset/-/asset_publisher/B3Bm/content/saving-africa-from-the-violet-vampire;jsessionid=EAEA828BF7D00FD582044C4123803BCE?redirect=%2Fnews.
The news from the University of Western Australia is
available at http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201205314685/business-and-industry/dna-discovery-key-drought-resistant-crops
Source: Crop Biotech Update 01 June 2012
Contributed by Margaret Smith
Department of Plant Breeding & Genetics, Cornell
University
Mes25@cornell.edu
1.12 Improved potato
varieties ensure food security in Peruvian communities
Two improved varieties of potatoes were able to increase the
crop's yield eight times higher than any of the 150 native potato varieties
grown in the Cusco region in Peru three years after their formal release. This
was reported by Stef de Haan, International Potato Center's (CIP) breeder.
The two varieties, named Pallay Poncho and Puka Lliclla, are
both resilient to late blight disease, a fungus that is posing an increasing
threat to potato production in the Andes. The two varieties give yields of
about 15-16 tons per hectare, compared to 5 tons per hectare from traditional
native potatoes.
View the original article at http://www.cgiar.org/consortium-news/improved-potato-varieties-ensure-peruvian-communities-have-enough-to-eat/
Source: Crop Biotech Update 15 June 2012
Contributed by Margaret Smith
Department of Plant Breeding & Genetics, Cornell
University
1.13 Plant research
funding crucial for the future
Stanford, California, USA
June 1, 2012
The scientific community needs to make a 10-year, $100
billion investment in food and energy security, says Carnegie’s Wolf Frommer
and Tom Brutnell of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in an opinion
piece published in the June issue of http://the-scientist.com/2012/06/01/food-for-thought/
They say the importance of addressing these concerns in light
of a rapidly growing global population is on par with President John Kennedy’s
promise to put man on the moon—a project that took a decade and cost $24
billion.
“Today, we face growing and economically empowered nations,
energy-intensive global economies, and major shifts in global climate that
together constitute the perfect storm for agriculture.,” Frommer and Brutnell
say. “Yet plant-science research has been underfunded for decades—and funding
is projected to shrink.”
In 2012 the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization
estimated that about 920 million people lack sufficient food to meet suggested
daily caloric intake goals. Furthermore, the FAO estimates that food production
will have to rise 70 percent by 2050 as the world population continues to
expand.
The only way to address this pending problem, Frommer and Brutnell
say, is to use scientific research to boost crop yield and fight plant
pathogens. Plant science can also develop plants with a diminished the need for
fertilizers and water, as well plants that can produce sustainable biofuels.
What’s more, in addition to improving food and energy
security, upping investments in agricultural science can contribute to increase
social and political stability in developing nations.
In order to accomplish this, however, the United States must
commit greater resources to funding plant research.
“In an overpopulated, food-limited world we will inevitably
witness more social unrest and, potentially, food and climate wars,” Frommer
and Brutnell say. “The U.S. must seize the opportunity now to build on its
tremendous strength in agriculture and reverse the current path of reduced
spending and investment. If we do nothing, we may return to our pre-1776 role
as colonists who simply provide food to more strategically minded nations.”
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=27310&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop=
SeedQuest.com
1.14 Communicating the global threat of
herbicide resistance
Western Australia
June 7, 2012
As penicillin is to human health, so glyphosate is for weed
control in global crops. This is the message from Professor Stephen Powles,
Director of the Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative (AHRI) in the newly
released video, ‘Preserving glyphosate through diversity’.
Global grain and fibre production is substantially
underpinned by herbicides for weed control. With the introduction of glyphosate
resistant crops, and no-tillage farming practices, crop productivity has
increased over the past 20 years. Likewise, over-reliance on herbicides has
increased, with herbicide resistant weeds threatening global crop productivity
and world food security.
The AHRI video showcases the issues leading up to the
evolution of herbicide resistance, and offers workable solutions that growers
can implement in their farming systems.“By increasing our reliance on
herbicides, we’ve increased our risk of herbicide resistant weeds. So while
we’ve adopted no-till, and we must continue to do so, we’ve got to be more
sustainable about our weed control and our herbicide use”, Professor Powles
said.
It is crucial that the threat of herbicide resistance is
addressed at both the research and practice levels. Throughout the last decade,
Professor Powles' UWA-based, GRDC-funded team has been key to developing
research into all aspects of herbicide resistance. As a result, today many
Australian farmers have the tools and know-how to manage the resistance
problem.To aid in addressing the resistance threat, AHRI will host an
international, multidisciplinary research conference to consider the global
herbicide resistance challenge faced by agriculture. World authorities on
herbicide resistance will converge in Fremantle, Perth, Western Australia for
the Global Herbicide Resistance Challenge Conference from February 18-22, 2013.
The first three days (18-21 February) will focus on
state-of-the-art resistance science, addressing resistance from the molecular
and biochemical, through to agro-ecological and socio-economic issues. The
fourth day (22 February) will review herbicide resistance management, with a
field tour on 23 February focusing on farm resistance management.
Early bird registration is available from now until July
31st. There are also one-day registration options available. For further
information, visit the website, follow the Conference on Facebook and Twitter,
or contact Conference Chair Lisa Mayer, T: 08 6488 7870, E: lisa.mayer@uwa.edu.au
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=27453&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop=
Source: SeedQuest.com
1.15 Herbicide-resistant
weeds: current challenges, new tools
Urbana, Illinois, USA
June 12, 2012
The ongoing evolution of herbicide-resistant weeds is a
source of worry in Illinois, said University of Illinois professor of molecular
weed science Patrick Tranel. He and research assistant Nick Hausman will be
making a presentation on this topic during the 56th annual Agronomy Day at the
U of I on August 16.
Recent examples in Illinois include biotypes of waterhemp
(Amaranthus tuberculatus), Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri), and horseweed
(also known as marestail or Conyza canadensis) resistant to glyphosate; a
waterhemp biotype resistant to HPPD inhibitors; and waterhemp
populations/biotypes that display multiple resistance to herbicides spanning
several site-of-action groups. Survey data suggest that the majority of
waterhemp populations now exhibit multiple-herbicide resistance.
When glyphosate-resistant crops were introduced, their
initial success caused many weed-management practitioners to stop worrying
about herbicide-resistant weeds. Now the increasing occurrence of glyphosate
resistance has caused those concerns to be revived and research to find new
weed-management tools to be revitalized.
"Within the next few years, we anticipate that new
herbicide-resistant crops will be available," said Tranel. "These
likely will include crops with genetically engineered resistance to 2,4-D,
dicamba, or HPPD-inhibiting herbicides."
These crops will be stacked with other forms of resistance,
such as resistance to glyphosate and/or glufosinate.
"Dow AgroSciences anticipates introducing its Enlist
Weed Control System in corn in 2013 with soybean to follow later," Tranel
said. "The Enlist system includes metabolic resistance to 2,4-D that will
be stacked with glyphosate resistance. Coupled to the Enlist system is a new
formulation of 2,4-D."
Monsanto is also developing crops with resistance to
synthetic auxin herbicides stacked with glyphosate resistance, but their crops
will be resistant to dicamba rather than 2,4-D. They have recently announced
that they are on track for a 2014 launch of dicamba-resistant soybean.
Both Syngenta and Bayer are evaluating crops resistant to
HPPD inhibitors. Soybean is the most important for the Midwest, but it is not
expected to be available for at least two years.Although these new crops will
increase herbicide options for a given crop, the options will not include novel
site-of-action chemistries -- they will use old chemistry, possibly with new
formulations/variations.
"Most important, weed biotypes already exist that are
resistant to these herbicides," cautioned Tranel. "Thus, it would be
naive to expect any of these new weed-control tools to solve all of our current
weed-resistance problems."Another new weed-management tool recently
announced by Monsanto is BioDirect Technology, which takes a biologically
rather than chemically based approach. It is still in the very early stages of
development, but it will be interesting to follow because it may eventually
yield a novel approach to weed control.
Regardless of how novel the technology is, it will not be
immune to resistance evolution. "One of the things we learned from the
Roundup Ready era is how to overuse something that seemingly is almost too good
to be true," Tranel said. "If and when we begin adopting new
weed-control options, we must not forget this lesson. Any weed-control option
must be used wisely and judiciously, and as just one component of an integrated
weed management strategy, if its effectiveness is to be preserved."
Agronomy Day attracts more than 1,000 people each year to the
Crop Sciences Research and Education Center in Urbana to find out the latest
information on technology and techniques to improve food and fuel production.
For more information on speakers and displays, like University of Illinois
Agronomy Day on Facebook or go to:
http://agronomyday.cropsci.illinois.edu/
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=27579&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop=
Source: SeedQuest.com
1.16 Trouble on the horizon for GM
crops?
Arizona, USA
June 19, 2012
Pests are adapting to genetically modified crops in
unexpected ways, researchers have discovered. The findings underscore the
importance of closely monitoring and countering pest resistance to biotech
crops.
Resistance of cotton bollworm to insect-killing cotton plants
involves more diverse genetic changes than expected, an international research
team reports in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
To decrease sprays of broad-spectrum insecticides, which can
harm animals other than the target pests, cotton and corn have been genetically
engineered to produce toxins derived from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis,
or Bt.
Bt toxins kill certain insect pests but are harmless to most
other creatures including people. These environmentally friendly toxins have
been used for decades in sprays by organic growers and since 1996 in engineered
Bt crops by mainstream farmers.
Over time, scientists have learned, initially rare genetic
mutations that confer resistance to Bt toxins are becoming more common as a
growing number of pest populations adapt to Bt crops.
In the first study to compare how pests evolve resistance to
Bt crops in the laboratory vs. the field, researchers discovered that while
some the of the lab-selected mutations do occur in the wild populations, some
mutations that differ markedly from those seen in the lab are important in the
field.
Caterpillars of the cotton bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera,
can munch on a wide array of plants before emerging as moths. This species is
the major cotton pest in China, where the study was carried out.
Bruce Tabashnik, head of the department of entomology at the
University of Arizona College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, who co-authored
the study, considers the findings an early warning to farmers, regulatory
agencies and the biotech industry.
"Scientists expected the insects to adapt, but we're
just finding out now how they're becoming resistant in the field,"
Tabashnik said.
To avoid surprises, researchers have exposed cotton bollworm
populations to Bt toxins in controlled lab experiments and studied the genetic
mechanisms by which the insects adapt.
"We try to stay ahead of the game," he said.
"We want to anticipate what genes are involved, so we can proactively
develop strategies to sustain the efficacy of Bt crops and reduce reliance on
insecticide sprays. The implicit assumption is what we learn from lab-selected
resistance will apply in the field."
That assumption, according to Tabashnik, had never been
tested before for resistance to Bt crops.
Now for the first time, the international team gathered
genetic evidence from pests in the field, enabling them to directly compare the
genes involved in the resistance of wild and lab-reared populations.
They found some resistance-conferring mutations in the field
were the same as in lab-reared pests, but some others were strikingly
different.
"We found exactly the same mutation in the field that
was detected in the lab," Tabashnik said. "But we also found lots of
other mutations, most of them in the same gene and one in a completely
different gene."
A major surprise came when the team identified two unrelated,
dominant mutations in the field populations. "Dominant" means that
one copy of the genetic variant is enough to confer resistance to Bt toxin. In
contrast, resistance mutations characterized before from lab selection are
recessive – meaning it takes two copies of the mutation, one provided by each
parent, to make an insect resistant to Bt toxin.
"Dominant resistance is more difficult to manage and
cannot be readily slowed with refuges, which are especially useful when
resistance is recessive," Tabashnik said.
Refuges consist of plants that do not have a Bt toxin gene
and thus allow survival of insects that are susceptible to the toxin. Refuges
are planted near Bt crops with the goal of producing enough susceptible insects
to dilute the population of resistant insects, by making it unlikely two
resistant insects will mate and produce resistant offspring.
According to Tabashnik, the refuge strategy worked
brilliantly against the pink bollworm in Arizona, where this pest had plagued
cotton farmers for a century, but is now scarce.
The dominant mutations discovered in China throw a wrench in
the refuge strategy because resistant offspring arise from matings between
susceptible and resistant insects.
He added that the study will enable regulators and growers to
better manage emerging resistance to Bt crops.
"We have been speculating and using indirect methods to
try and predict what would happen in the field. Only now that resistance is
starting to pop up in many places is it possible to actually examine resistance
in the field. I think the techniques from this study will be applied to many
other situations around the world, and we'll begin to develop a general
understanding of the genetic basis of resistance in the field."
The current study is part of a collaboration funded by the
Chinese government, involving a dozen scientists at four institutions in China
and the U.S. Yidong Wu at Nanjing Agricultural University designed the study
and led the Chinese effort. He emphasized the importance of the ongoing
collaboration for addressing resistance to Bt crops, which is a major issue in
China. He also pointed out that the discovery of dominant resistance will
encourage the scientific community to rethink the refuge strategy.
Tabashnik said China is the world's top cotton producer, with
about 16 billion pounds of cotton per year. India is number two, followed by
the U.S., which produces about half as much cotton as China.
In 2011, farmers worldwide planted 160 million acres of Bt
cotton and Bt corn. The percentage of cotton planted with Bt cotton reached 75
per cent in the U.S. in 2011, but has exceeded 90 per cent since 2004 in
northern China, where most of China's cotton is grown.
The researchers report that resistance-conferring mutations
in cotton bollworm were three times more common in northern China than in areas
of northwestern China where less Bt cotton has been grown.
Even in northern China, however, growers haven't noticed the
emerging resistance yet, Tabashnik said, because only about 2 percent of the
cotton bollworms there are resistant.
"As a grower, if you're killing 98 percent of pests with
Bt cotton, you wouldn't notice anything. But this study tells us there is
trouble on the horizon."Original article
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=27798&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop=
Source: SeedQuest.com
1.17 Rising CO2 levels affects gene
flow in wild and domesticated rice
Researchers at the USDA Agricultural Research Service
confirmed that the increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
influences the flow of genes from wild or weedy rice plants to domesticated
rice varieties. This is the first study that demonstrated such occurrence and
explained that the flow of genes is not uniform.
"We know that global climate change will require some
farmers to revise production strategies in response to shifting weather
patterns and crop demands," said ARS Administrator Edward B. Knipling.
"These new findings will help plant breeders design and interpret studies
on how changes in climate may affect crop response."
Read more at http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2012/120523.htm
Source: Crop Biotech Update 01 June 2012
Contributed by Margaret Smith
Department of Plant Breeding & Genetics, Cornell
University
Mes25@cornell.edu
1.18 New research finds unique crop
diversity, struggle to save it - Some farmers in Mexico found to hold the key
to conserving special bean
USA
June 26, 2012
Nestled within the Sierra Juarez Mountains in the Mexican
state Oaxaca is the small village of Santa María Jaltianguis, its 600 residents
relying on farming as their primary occupation. The high-protein Phaseolus bean
is a staple of the local diet, with every household growing the crop for home
consumption and only one in five farmers selling it to local markets. And while
most of the native farmers practice modest subsistence farming to feed their
families, they also hold the key to conserving bean diversity unique to the
Sierra Juarez region that is among the world’s highest. Their in-field
experimentation and management techniques are vital in preserving this genetic
variation.
A group of researchers from the University of
California-Davis set out to learn more about this farmer-led conservation
management of Phaseolus beans occurring in the Santa María village, and how
farmers are adapting to environmental pressures. “We wanted to see how farmers
are reacting to this global climate change,” says Paul Gepts, a professor of
Plant Sciences at UC-Davis who co-authored the study just out in the new
July-August issue of Crop Science. Gepts is also a more than 30-year member of
the Crop Science Society of America and American Society of Agronomy.
Phaseolus vulgaris, the most economically and nutritionally
important Phaseolus species, is adapted to warmer temperatures at lower
altitudes. Two races, Mesoamerica and Jalisco, have branched from this species.
While Mesoamerica has remained in warmer lowland conditions, Jalisco has
climbed to the cooler highlands. The second species, Phaseolus coccineus,
prefers cooler temperatures at higher altitudes. Phaseolus dumosus, the final
species, acts as a stabilized hybrid marked by intermediate adaptation.
Gepts and his team of researchers collected seeds from 287
bean plants in 10 fields belonging to farmers from the Santa María village,
returning to California to plant their findings and study their samples’
genetics. They were curious to determine if farmers’ seed management techniques
directed bean seed stocks to the fields in which they were best adapted. They
also studied the fields for evidence of gene flow, which can play an important
role in crop diversity by introducing new genes to an otherwise uniform crop.
The physical separation present between fields in the hilly landscape appears
to serve as a barrier to gene flow, confining cultivars to their respective
fields. Nevertheless, results from the study show some seeds are slipping
through the cracks of these spatial barricades and ending up in unfamiliar
territory.
Gepts was particularly impressed with the techniques of one
farmer whose two fields, one low- and the other mid-elevation, were used to
grow two highly differentiated sub-populations of race Jalisco. The P. Vulgaris
born race has ascended the mountains of the region over time, adjusting to the
cooler highlands.
But this local grower disregarded years of adaptation and
introduced the race to a lower field with higher temperatures, relying on
existing variation within the Jalisco field to make the transition. His
experiment resulted in the most genetically diverse Jalisco field in the study,
highlighting the role, the decisions of farmers play, in crop diversity.
“The farmer distinguished and used intraracial variation to
fit those contrasting growing environments, possibly attempting to adapt race
Jalisco to warmer environments,” says Gepts, who believes that global climate
change is one driving force behind much of the experimentation in the region.
Another is socioeconomic pressure. Some farmers told
researchers that they’re focusing on production in warmer, low-elevation fields
due to their proximity to the village. Changes in market demand and reduced
labor availability may also have notable impacts on the structure of
biodiversity of Phaseolus beans in the Sierra Juarez region.
Yet, as society and the environment change and the hilly
landscape of this village remains constant, farmers will continue to experiment
with the natural adaptations of the Phaseolus bean to better adapt themselves
to a changing world. And those decisions in the field may have serious
implications on the future of Phaseolus bean diversity.
The full research paper as newly published in Crop Science is
available, here: https://www.crops.org/publications/cs/articles/52/4/1721
The full article is available for no charge for 30 days
following the date of this summary. View the abstract at https://www.crops.org/publications/cs/articles/52/4/1721
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=27962&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop=
Source: SeedQuest.com
1.19 Support under
plant genetics treaty fund announced during Rio+20
Rio de Janeiro21 June 2012,
The European Commission is contributing €5 million euros (6.5
million dollars) towards the Benefit-sharing Fund of the International Treaty
on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, FAO announced today, at a
high-level ministerial meeting on the plant treaty at the Rio+20 United Nations
Conference on Sustainable Development to manage crop diversity for food security
and climate change. The Benefit-sharing
Fund helps farmers in developing countries adaptation.
This is the single largest contribution made to the
Benefit-sharing Fund since it was established in 2008. It will help to increase
the capacity of smallholder farmers to manage traditional crops like potato,
rice, cassava, wheat and sorghum.
Contributed by Francisco Lopez
FAO-AGPM
Francisco.Lopez@fao.org
1.20 Large-scale
development of cost-effective SNP marker assays for diversity assessment and
genetic mapping in chickpea and comparative mapping in legumes
This article, published online in Plant Biotechnology
Journal, reports compilation of 2486 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and
development of cost-effective and flexible throughput Competitive Allele
Specific PCR (KASPar) assays for 2005 SNPs.
Based on these markers, a second-generation genetic map
comprising 1328 marker loci including novel 625 CKAMs, 314 TOG-SNPs and 389
published marker loci with an average inter-marker distance of 0.59 cM has been
constructed.
Detailed analyses of 1064 mapped loci of this
second-generation chickpea genetic map showed a higher degree of synteny with
genome of Medicago truncatula, followed by Glycine max, Lotus japonicus and least
with Vigna unguiculata.
Development of these cost-effective CKAMs for SNP genotyping
will be useful not only for genetics research and breeding applications in
chickpea, but also for utilizing genome information from other sequenced or
model legumes. This article is available
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-7652.2012.00710.x/abstract
Contributed by Rajeev Varshney
1.21 Cornell
engineers working on new peppers
Ithaca (WSYR-TV)
June 15, 2012
You may have already decided that you do or don’t like
certain kinds of peppers – especially the hot ones. But at Cornell, they are
constantly developing new varieties you might want to eat.
Inside a Cornell greenhouse, plant-breeding engineers are
working on the hottest peppers. The engineers are combining the characteristics
of what’s known as the ghost pepper and the red savina.“We can try to find the
new hottest pepper or at least understand what makes the really hot peppers
really hot,” said plant breeding engineer, Michael Mazourek.
The engineers don’t know exactly how hot the new peppers are
right now. But cracking the peppers requires wearing gloves because the oil
that produces the heat can stay get stuck on the skin for a full day.
The engineers have also designed other peppers that may not
be extremely hot, such as the habanada, which they say is as flavorful as the
habanero without the burning sensation.“There are so many other flavors around
it, this pepper actually we think is one of the keys to being able to have hot
pepper flavor without the heat,” Mazourek said.He says there is a growing
market for new and different vegetables, like peppers, that might appeal more
to consumers.
Source: SeedQuest.com
1.22 Integrated genomics, physiology
and breeding approaches for improving drought tolerance in crops
This article has been published as
an open access article in Theor Appl Genet and may be downloaded from http://www.springerlink.com/content/r25751312l4457jx/
This article discusses the most
recent advances in plant physiology for precision phenotyping of drought
response, a vital step before implementing the genetic and
molecular-physiological strategies to unravel the complex multilayered drought
tolerance mechanism and further exploration using molecular breeding approaches
for crop improvement.
Emphasis has been given to
molecular dissection of drought tolerance by QTL or gene discovery through
linkage and association mapping, QTL cloning, candidate gene identification,
transcriptomics and functional genomics.
Molecular breeding approaches such
as marker-assisted backcrossing, marker-assisted recurrent selection and
genome-wide selection have been suggested to be integrated in crop improvement
strategies to develop drought-tolerant cultivars that will enhance food
security in the context of a changing and more variable climate.
Contributed by Rajeev Varshney
1.23 Adoption of
advanced techniques could propel crop improvement
West Lafayette, Indiana, USA
June 28, 2012
Scientists could take greater strides toward crop improvement
if there were wider adoption of advanced techniques used to understand the
mechanisms that allow plants to adapt to their environments, current and former
Purdue University researchers say.
In a perspective for the journal Science, Brian Dilkes
(photo, right), a Purdue assistant professor of genetics, and Ivan Baxter
(photo, left), a research computational biologist for the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service, argue that today's technology
could allow scientists to match physiological and genetic characteristics of
plants with the soil characteristics that promote or inhibit their growth.
Making those connections could reduce the time necessary to improve plants that
are coping with changing environmental and climatic conditions.
"Evolution has solved the problems that we face in terms
of adapting plants to grow in a multitude of environments," Dilkes said.
"If we understand these processes, we'll be able to apply that knowledge
to maintaining diversity in natural systems and improving and maintaining crop
yield."
The majority of a plant's makeup, besides carbon dioxide,
comes from elements and minerals absorbed from the soil as the plant grows. The
physiological and genetic mechanisms that allow plants to obtain iron from the
soil, for instance, can also cause the plant to accumulate other elements.
Understanding how those changes interact is an important piece of improving
plants, Baxter said.
"This is just a hint of the complexity that's out
there," said Baxter, a former post-doctoral researcher at Purdue who works
for the USDA at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis. "If
we're going to make the necessary improvements in agricultural productivity, we
will have to move forward with these techniques."
Much of the work done to understand how plants have adapted
to their environments focuses on one gene and one element it controls at a
time. Pinpointing one or more genes responsible for a particular trait can take
years, even decades.
Dilkes and Baxter believe a wider adoption of molecular
phenotyping techniques, such as ionomics and genome-wide association mapping,
could allow scientists to work with multiple elements and genes at once.
"By focusing on one gene or one element at a time, you
miss out on the other physiological mechanisms occurring in the plant,"
Dilkes said. "The potential to broaden our understanding of these complex
interactions and have a dramatic effect on agriculture is there."
Genome-wide association mapping allows scientists to find
genetic associations among multiple phenotypes, or physical traits. The process
quickly shows which genes may be responsible for the physical characteristics.
Ionomics studies the elemental composition of plants and how
those compositions change in response to environmental or genetic
changes."Experiments with thousands of samples are now possible,"
Baxter said. "We've just started to put these things together."
Research in Baxter's lab is supported by the National Science
Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service.
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=27997&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop=
Source: SeedQuest.com
1.24 FAO paper calls
for re-orientation of crop improvement in the 21st century
June 29, 2012
Researchers from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
released a publication that highlights some of the scientific and technological
tools that should be the staple of all breeding programs.
A research was conducted to offer a promising solution to the
challenges of global food insecurity and an increasing population. Challenges
are further aggravated by the yield-depressing consequences of climate change
and variations and by the pressures on food supply by other competing
demographic and socio-economic demands.
The research suggests that the re-orientation of plant
breeding should be done to generate and mass produce what is called 'smart'
crop varieties, those which yield more but with fewer inputs. It also suggests
adequate policies for plant breeding, including those that spur innovation and
investments; training of the new generation of plant breeders; establishment of
partnerships and collaborations, including public-private sector synergies; and
adoption of continuum approach to the management of plant genetic resources for
food as means to improved cohesion of the components of its value chain.
Developing countries are urged to overhaul their National
Agricultural Research and Extension System to address specific needs.
View the original publication at http://www.agricultureandfoodsecurity.com/content/pdf/2048-7010-1-7.pdf
Abstract
A 70% increase in food production is required over the next
four decades to feed an ever increasing population. The inherent difficulties
in achieving this unprecedented increase are exacerbated by the
yield-depressing consequences of climate change and variations and by the
pressures on food supply by other competing demographic and socioeconomic
demands. With the dwindling or stagnant agricultural land and water resources,
the sought-after increases will therefore be attained mainly through the
enhancement of crop productivity under eco-efficient crop production systems.
‘Smart’ crop varieties that yield more with fewer inputs will be pivotal to
success. Plant breeding must be re-oriented in order to generate these ‘smart’
crop varieties. This paper highlights some of the scientific and technological tools
that ought to be the staple of all breeding programs. We also make the case
that plant breeding must be enabled by adequate policies, including those that
spur innovation and investments. To arrest and reverse the worrisome trend of
declining capacities for crop improvement, a new generation of plant breeders
must also be trained. Equally important, winning partnerships, including
public-private sector synergies, are needed for 21st century plant breeding to
bear fruits. We also urge the adoption of the continuum approach to the
management of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture as means to
improved cohesion of the components of its value chain. Compellingly also, the
National Agricultural Research and Extension System of developing countries
require comprehensive overhauling and strengthening as crop improvement and
other interventions require a sustained platform to be effective. The
development of a suite of actionable policy interventions to be packaged for
assisting countries in developing result-oriented breeding programs is also
called for.
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=28025&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop=
Source: SeedQuest.com
1.25 Discovery may lead to new tomato
varieties with vintage flavor and quality
Davis, California, USA
July 28, 2012
A new discovery could make more tomatoes taste like
heirlooms, reports an international research team headed by a University of
California, Davis, plant scientist.
The finding, which will be reported in the June 29 issue of
the journal http://www.science.com/ has significant
implications for the U.S. tomato industry, which annually harvests more than 15
million tons of the fruit for processing and fresh-market sales.“This
information about the gene responsible for the trait in wild and traditional
varieties provides a strategy to recapture quality characteristics that had
been unknowingly bred out of modern cultivated tomatoes,” said Ann Powell, a
biochemist in UC Davis’ Department of Plant Sciences and one of the lead
authors of the study.
“Now that we know that some of the qualities that people
value in heirloom tomatoes can be made available in other types of tomatoes,
farmers can have access to more varieties of tomatoes that produce well and
also have desirable color and flavor traits,” she said.
For decades, plant breeders in the tomato industry have
selected varieties that are uniformly light green before they ripen, in order
to produce tomatoes that can be harvested at the same time.
However, this characteristic is accompanied by an unintended reduction
in sugars that compromises the flavor of the fresh fruit and its desirability
for processing.
Powell’s UC Davis research team began studying the genes
influencing tomato fruit development and ripening after spending two summers
screening tomato plants for transcription factors that might play a role in
both fruit color and quality. Transcription factors are proteins that regulate
genes, or turn them on and off. These factors themselves are manufactured or
expressed by genes.
The UC Davis researchers were particularly interested in
tomatoes they observed in the field that were unusually dark green before they
ripened.Partnering with researchers at Cornell University and in Spain, who
were mapping regions of the tomato genome, the scientists discovered two
transcription factors, called GLK1 and GLK2, that control the development of
chloroplasts. Chloroplasts are the structures in the plant cells that enable
plants to photosynthesize, converting
the energy of sunlight into sugars and other compounds that influence flavor
and color.
The researchers scoured a collection of mutant and wild
species of tomatoes at UC Davis established at UC Davis by the late Professor
Charles Rick beginning in the 1950s. They discovered that dark green tomatoes
that naturally express GLK2 produced ripe fruit with increased levels of sugars
or soluble solids, important for processing tomatoes, as well as higher levels
of the health-promoting compound lycopene.
“Nature presents numerous important genes and their variants,
like uniform ripening, that breeders employ to facilitate the needs of growers,
processors and consumers,” said Jim Giovannoni, a USDA plant molecular
biologist with the Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University.
“Understanding the genes responsible for these characteristics facilitates the
challenging process of breeding crops that meet the needs of all components of
the food-supply chain.”
Cuong Nguyen, a Cornell graduate student in Giovannoni’s
laboratory co-authored the paper with Powell. Other members of the research
team included: Theresa Hill, KaLai Lam Cheng, Rosa Figueroa-Balderas, Hakan
Aktas, Hamid Ashrafi, Ariel Vicente, Javier Lopez-Baltazar, Roger Chetelat,
Allen Van Deynze and Alan Bennett, all of UC Davis; Yongsheng Liu and Cornelius
Barry of Cornell University and the Boyce Thompson Institute of the USDA; Clara
Pons and Antonio Granell, of the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Spain;
Rafael Fernández-Muñoz of the Universidad de Málaga, Spain.
Funding for the study was provided by The University of
California Discovery program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural
Research Service, the National Science Foundation, the Viet Nam Education
Foundation, the Fundación Genoma España, and the Ministerio de Ciencia y
Tecnología and the Instituto Tecnólogico de Costa Rica.
UC Davis is an international leader in agricultural research
and is ranked as the most frequently cited university in the world in the area
of plant and animal sciences, according to ISI Essential Science Indicators.
The university’s Department of Plant Sciences is internationally known for its
Plant Breeding Academy, which provides professional training for plant breeders
around the world.
View article and video "Wild tomatoes hold genetic
treasures"
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=27988&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop=
Source: SeedQuest.com
1.26 Chinese researchers identify rice
gene that could enhance quality and productivity
Beijing, China
June 25, 2012
Chinese researchers have identified a key gene in rice that
could enhance both quality and productivity of rice at the same time, as they
reported in the journal Nature Genetics on Sunday.
While studying the Basmati rice from Pakistan that is world
famous for its high quality, Fu Xiangdong at Chinese Academy of Sciences and
his colleagues found a gene named GW8 could influence the quality of rice.
The gene could improve the shape and color of rice grain,
enhancing its quality of appearance. On the other hand, it could also change
the arrangement of starch inside the grain, enhancing its quality for eating.
Further study shows that the GW8 gene also exists in some
types of high yield rice grown in China. However, it's a different variant of
that gene, whose major effect is not on quality, but on the grain weight, thus
enhancing the productivity of rice.
The team then identified a third variant of the gene.
"We found another variant of GW8, which could combine the advantages of
those two variants that respectively influences quality and productivity,"
Fu told Xinhua in a telephone interview.
"Therefore the new variant could enhance the quality and
productivity of rice at the same time."
The superiority of the new variant of GW8 gene was supported
by field experiments. If it is introduced into the Basmati rice, it could
increase its productivity by 14 percent, while the quality remains the same.
And if it is introduced into the high yield rice in China, it
could significantly enhance the quality of rice grains, while its productivity
remains the same.
Fu said that this discovery could lead to new varieties of
rice that would have outstanding performance in both quality and productivity.
Source: Xinhua
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=27881&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop=
Source: SeedQuest.com
1.27 Introgression of Brassica Rapa
Subsp Sylvestris blackleg resistance into B Napus
Blackleg is one of the predominant diseases of canola
(Brassica napus). It is caused by a fungal pathogen called Leptosphaeria
maculans. To address this problem, Fengqun Yu from Agriculture and Agri-Food
Canada and other researchers transferred two blackleg resistance genes (LepR1
and LepR2) from B. rapa subsp. sylvestris (BRS) into canola through
interspecific hybridizations.
They analyzed the microsatellite markers in two backcross
populations (WT3BC1 and WT4BC1) which showed that segregation fit a 1:1 ratio
for BRS and non-BRS alleles.The team used two L. maculans isolates (WA51 and
pl87-41) to differentiate plants carrying resistance genes LepR1 and LepR2.
They found that only 4.0 and 16.6% of the plants were
resistant to isolates WA51 and pl87-41, respectively, in the WT3BC1 population,
while 17.9 and 33.3% of the plants were resistant to these isolates,
respectively, in the WT4BC1 population. Based on cotyledon resistance and
marker-assisted selection (MAS), BC1 plant WT4-4, which carried a resistance
gene similar to LepR1 (designated as LepR1′) and BC2S1 plant WT3-21-25-9,
which carried LepR2′, were identified.
The resulting plants were successively backcrossed with B.
napus. They used MAS in every generation to decrease non-resistance alleles
related to the BRS genome and to recover the complete complement of C-genome
chromosomes. This led to the formation of highly blackleg resistant B. napus
lines.
The research paper is available at http://www.springerlink.com/content/b37u344048j14716/
Source: Crop Biotech Update 15 June 2012
Contributed by Margaret Smith
Department of Plant Breeding & Genetics, Cornell
University
Mes25@cornell.edu
1.28 Cold-tolerant faba beans a new
option for Northwestern wheat growers for fixing N
ASTA News
8 June 2012
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have
identified more than a dozen faba bean germplasm lines whose ability to shrug
off the chill of winter could offer Northwestern wheat growers an important
alternative winter crop.
According to Jinguo Hu, who leads the ARS Western Regional
Plant Introduction Station (WRPIS) in Pullman, Wash., commercial varieties
developed from the cold-tolerant faba beans will give wheat farmers another
legume to grow in rotation with wheat during the winter, especially in the
Palouse region shared by Washington and Idaho, as well as other parts of the
Northwest.
Peas and lentils are now used for such rotations, but they're
no match for faba beans when it comes to "fixing" (with help from
symbiotic bacteria) nitrogen into a form plants can use for growth and
development.
Hu, together with ARS geneticists Clare Coyne and Rebecca
McGee, Washington State University Professor William Pan, and graduate students
Jolene Mwengi and Erik Landry, identified the winter-hardy faba beans during
three years of field tests in the Palouse, using seed from the ARS WRPIS
worldwide collection. That collection has 700 faba bean accessions from 60
countries, including England, France, Germany, Bulgaria and China.
The team's field trials showed high levels of winter
hardiness in 14 germplasm lines based on their ability to survive sub-freezing
temperatures, down to 4 degrees Fahrenheit in one case.
The survivors also included offspring plants derived from a
cross made between a temperate, vegetable-type faba bean variety and a
winter-hardy accession, demonstrating the heritability of the trait and value
of the 14 lines in breeding new, elite varieties.
In related work, the team also identified from 13 accessions
numerous plants with white- flowered phenotype, which were conditioned by two
independent recessive genes, zt-1 and zt-2. These genes prevent the productions
of tannins that make the legume's seed less digestible. The team also is
investigating DNA markers associated with these and other genes to aid the
identification of plants with desirable traits.
Cultivated since early Neolithic times, faba bean today ranks
sixth among the world's most important legume food crops. The legume is adapted
to a wide range of environments and provides an important source of protein for
people whose diets are low in meat.
ARS is the principal intramural scientific research agency of
the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the research supports the USDA
priority of promoting international food security.
Source: ASTA News, 8 June 2012
1.29 WSU develops center to manage gene
data
'There are millions of data points, we're talking about very
large numbers'
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
PULLMAN, Wash. -- This fall, Washington State University will
open a new center designed to help catalog and coordinate the massive amounts
of genetic data researchers use.
The bioinformatics center will serve faculty members and
manage access to data generated by new instruments that sequence plant or
animal genomes.
The ultimate goal is to reduce by years the breeding process
and get crop varieties with improved traits to farmers faster, said Rich
Koenig, chair of the university's Department of Crop and Soil Sciences.
Six months ago, the chief bottleneck in doing that was the
lack of the ability to rapidly genotype wheat. Now the university has a
cutting-edge Pacific Biosciences SMRT sequencer and USDA Agricultural Research
Service research geneticist Deven See has a sequencer so the bottleneck is
handling the data, Koenig said.
"There are millions of data points, we're talking about
very large numbers the individual researcher has no hope of working with
themselves," Koenig said.
The center's technicians will translate the data into
manageable information and models for breeders and researchers.
Using the information, researchers can screen and make
selections based on DNA and their knowledge of genetic markers.
"We're taking 90 individuals susceptible to a disease
and comparing them against their siblings that are resistant," See said.
"They're basically really, really identical except one gets sick and one
doesn't. We're going to ask, 'What's that one piece of difference?'"
The bioinformatics center will be housed in existing
university facilities, Koenig said.
WSU recently received $77,000 per year for three years from
the Washington Grain Commission to fund a technician dedicated to cereal
grains.
The center will also include technicians focused on animal
genomes and basic plant and biological sciences. Dorrie Main will serve as center director.
Growers can expect a reduced time to release a new wheat or
barley variety, Koenig said. It will also make it easier to collect traits in a
variety, combining characteristics such as disease resistance, bread quality
and yield.
http://www.capitalpress.com/washington/mw-WSU-bioinformatics-052912-art
Source: SeedQuest.com
1.30 Scientists complete most
comprehensive genetic analysis yet of corn
Washington,
DC, USA
June 3,
2012
Genetic
analysis could help meet nutrition needs of growing population. An interdisciplinary team, led by researchers
at Cornell University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural
Research Service (USDA-ARS), today published the most comprehensive analysis to
date of the corn genome.
The team
expects the achievement to speed up development of improved varieties of one of
the world's most important agricultural commodities. The results should boost
international efforts to increase yields, expand areas where corn can be
cultivated and produce varieties better equipped to resist pests and disease.
Credit:
Nicolle Rager Fuller, National Science Foundation
Funded
in the United States by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the USDA, the
work was a collaborative effort by scientists at 17 U.S. and foreign
institutions that include the University of Wisconsin-Madison; University of
Missouri-Columbia; North Carolina State University; Beijing Genome Institute;
University of California, Davis and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement
Center, Mexico City, Mexico.
The
study appears in two corn genome projects published in separate reports in the
June 3 online edition of the journal Nature Genetics. "This work
represents a major step forward and an important tool in the arsenal available
to scientists and breeders for improving a vital source of nutrition,"
said Edward B. Knipling, administrator of USDA's Agricultural Research Service.
The
analysis could also help those who develop corn yields as a source of fuel, who
manage crops in the face of changing climates and who are concerned about the
diminishing supply of arable land and growing populations, he said.
"This
project is a stellar example of how collaborations of scientists, here and
abroad, leverage resources across multiple agencies to enable transformational
research with the potential to address urgent societal needs for a bio-based
economy," said John Wingfield, assistant director for NSF's Biological
Sciences Directorate.
It is
anticipated that the tools and approaches generated in this project will enable
scientists to look at genetic differences in other organisms as they respond to
global climate change, human disturbance and invasive species, Wingfield
explained.
The
studies' collaborators shed light on corn's genetic diversity, detail how it
evolved and outline how corn--known as maize among scientists--continues to
diversify as it adapts to changing climates and habitats.
One
study, published in the journal led by team member, USDA-ARS and Cold Spring
Harbor Laboratory scientist Doreen Ware, examines the genetic structure and the
relationships and sequential ordering of individual genes in more than 100
varieties of wild and domesticated corn.
Another
study led by team member Jeff Ross-Ibarra from the University of California,
Davis gives an extraordinary glimpse into how corn evolved more than 8,700
years ago from a wild grass in the lowland areas of southwestern Mexico into
today's ubiquitous international commodity.
The
researchers compared wild varieties with traditional corn varieties from across
the Americas and with modern improved breeding lines. They identified hundreds
of genes that
played a
role in the transformation of corn from its wild origins to today's cultivated
crop and show how that transition was largely achieved by ancient farmers who
first domesticated it thousands of years ago.
Last
year, the economic value of the U.S. corn crop was $76 billion, with U.S.
growers producing an estimated 12 billion bushels, more than a third of the
world's supply. Corn is the largest production crop worldwide, providing food
for billions of people and livestock and critical feedstock for production of
biofuels.
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=27349&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop=
Source:
SeedQuest.com
1.31 Latest genomic studies shed new
light on maize diversity and evolution
Shenzhen, China
June 4, 2012
BGI, the world’s largest genomics organization, together with
other 17 international institutes, announced that they completed the second
generation of maize HapMap (Maize HapMap2) and genomics studies on maize domestication
and improvement. The two separate studies were published online in the same
issue of Nature Genetics.
The studies mark an important milestone in Maize (Zeamays)
genomics research, providing an unprecedented glimpse into maize’s ‘wonderful
diversity’ and revealing new insights into the evolutionary history of maize
genome. These studies will provide valuable insights for botanists and breeders
worldwide and facilitate the genetic engineering of this vital cereal crop in
the world.
In addition to BGI, the other collaborative organizations
include U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory,
University of California Davis, Cornell University, the International Maize and
Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), and others.
Characterizing Maize’s Impressive
Diversity
Maize’s impressive diversity has been attracting much
attention in the academic community and agricultural sector. However,
characterizing this diversity- in particular at high levels- has been
technically challenging. In this study, researchers developed a novel
population-genetics scoring model for comprehensively characterizing the
genetic variations, including single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), small
insertion-deletions, and structural variations (SVs).
Through the comprehensive analysis, about 55 million SNPs
were identified across 103 inbred lines of wild and domesticated maize. They
also found that SVs were prevalent throughout the maize genome and were
associated with some important agronomic traits, such as those involved in leaf
development and disease resistance.
The researchers also investigated the major factors that
influence the maize genome size. The results showed the genome size variations
between maize and Gama grass (Tripsacum dactyloides), maize’s sister genus, are
mostly driven by the abundance of transposable elements (TE). In contrast with
the fact that the intra-species genome size variation is influenced by the DNA
structure known aschromosomal knobs. In addition to the differences, there is
tremendous unity of gene content between maize relatives, suggesting that the
adaptations, such as frost and drought tolerance, amongst all of maize’s
relatives are likely integratable in maize.
Tracing Maize’s Evolution and
Improvement
Since maize was domesticated approximately 10,000 year ago,
its wild progenitor went through a particular transformation that had radically
altered maize’s wild species to meet human’s needs. To comprehensively trace
maize’s evolution process, researchers sequenced 75 wild, landrace and modern
maize lines. Through the comparative population genomics analysis, they found
the evidence of new genetic diversity that has arisen since domestication,
maybe due to the introgression from wild relatives. They also identified a
number of genes that obviously had played important roles in the transition
from wild to domesticated maize.
More importantly, the results demonstrated that the selection
applied by ancient farmers seemed to play a stronger impact on maize evolution
than the breeding techniques adopted by modern breeders. Hybridization in
agriculture is vitally important to maintain genetic diversity, and sustains
the quality and yield of a crop. In this study, researchers found that many of
the changes in the patterns of gene expression had been concentrated in the
genes selected for heterosis by modern breeding techniques. These findings
suggest that modern breeders should devote more efforts to make effective
improvement on candidates by introducing more diversity at the regions linked
with selection.
Dr. Xun Xu, Deputy Director of BGI, said, “Genetic
improvement of crops is the key output of breeding research. The two studies
provide a new way to comprehensively understand maize’s genetic diversity and
evolutionary history as well as offer an invaluable guidance for botanists and
breeders to improve this vital crop.”
Dr. Gengyun Zhang, Vice President of BGI, said, “Maize is one
of the world’s most important crops. The two studies will provide a valuable
foundation for accelerating the improvement of maize towards meeting the
world's increasing demands for food, livestock feed and biofuel. We look
forward to achieve more breakthrough for solving the food security challenges
and environmental problems in the near future.”
http://www.seedquest.com/news.php?type=news&id_article=27411&id_region=&id_category=&id_crop
Source: SeedQuest.com
1.32 Taming genetic recombination
France
June 22, 2012
Using the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, INRA scientists
in Versailles-Grignon have identified a factor that limits exchanges of DNA
fragments between chromosomes (crossover) during the formation of gametes (sex
cells). Mutation of this gene results in a number of crossovers that is three
times higher than normal, and hence an increase in genetic recombination during
reproduction. These findings give great promise to plant breeding, in that they
may facilitate easier production of novel combinations of traits of interest.
They are published in the online edition of Science of the 22nd of June 2012.
Meiosis is a specific type of cell division that generates
gametes (sexual cells) in all living beings – animals, plants, fungi, etc. –
which reproduce sexually. It consists of two successive cell divisions after
which each of the four daughter cells (future gametes) only contain half of the
chromosomes of the parent that produced them. Just before the first division,
chromosomes from the same pair then pair up and some parts cross over, which is
when fragments of genetic material can be exchanged between the chromosomes.
This natural phenomenon, called crossing over, contributes to
the recombination of genetic information at the level of an individual and a
species and produces chromosomes that are unique from the parental chromosomes.
It also plays a mechanical role, because it is essential for the correct distribution
of chromosomes to daughter cells. In
cultivated plants, it may be interesting to exploit such genetic recombination
in order to group essential traits of agronomic interest in new varieties.
The INRA researchers in Versailles-Grignon, and their Spanish
and American colleagues, focused on the mechanisms that regulate crossovers in
the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. They set out to identify factors of this
regulation in a zmm mutant of Arabidopsis that has a very low number of
crossovers, a poor distribution of chromosomes to its gametes and a marked
reduction in its fertility (which notably results in abnormally small fruit).
Working with these plants, the scientists searched for new mutations that would
be capable of restoring crossovers and fertility, under the hypothesis that
this would enable them to identify the genes whose function is to limit the
number of crossovers.
They thus identified an enzyme in the helicase family, FANCM,
which limits the development of crossovers during meiosis in A. thaliana. A
mutation of the gene coding for FANCM was able to restore the crossovers in zmm
mutants. Furthermore, when a fancm mutant was compared with a wild-type plant,
despite the fact that the number of crossovers is normally strictly regulated, a
single mutation of the FANCM gene led to a tripling in the number of
crossovers, without this having any effect on the fertility or health of the
plant.
This major discovery is the first in the world of its type:
until now, FANCM was known to intervene in DNA repair (notably in humans). Also
in plants, only factors promoting the formation of crossovers had been
discovered, but now a major factor limiting crossovers is known. Overall, this
work opens promising perspectives in cultivated plants where an increase in
genetic recombination during reproduction, via regulation of the number of
crossovers, would provide access to hitherto unknown combinations of traits of
interest.
Finally, it should be noted that these findings also question
the role of genetic recombination in evolutionary terms. Although the frequency
of crossovers was increased markedly by the researchers without this having any
consequence on the mechanisms of meiosis and plant fertility, the reason why
the number of crossovers is very small in practically all species still remains
unknown.
ReferenceCrismani W. et al. 2012. FANCM limits meiotic
crossovers. Science, 22 June 2012.DOI: 10.1126/science.1220381
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1.33 Discovery of a nitrogen
"satiety" gene in plants
France
June 4, 2012
An INRA research team in Montpellier, working in
collaboration with teams from CNRS in Strasbourg and New York University, have
recently achieved a major advance in our understanding of plant nutrition. They
have characterised a gene involved in a molecular mechanism that can adjust the
uptake of soil nitrogen by roots as a function of the nitrogen requirements of
the whole plant. This research may facilitate the selection of varieties
displaying a more efficient use of nitrate fertilisers, so as to ensure more
environmentally-friendly crops.
To ensure their nutrition, plants absorb soil nitrate, or
NO3- (the principal source of nitrogen for herbaceous plants) via their roots.
This phenomenon is rendered possible by highly efficient transporters that
allow the passage of nitrate through the membranes of cells at the periphery of
the root. However, because soil nitrate availability is heterogeneous and can
fluctuate over time and in space, plants must constantly modulate their absorption
capacity so as to maintain a sufficient nitrate intake that will meet their
needs. This is facilitated by a mechanism qualified as "satiety" (by
analogy with animals), that allows the plant to reduce its absorption when its
nitrogen requirements have been fulfilled.
For the first time, researchers in Montpellier have
identified a gene (HNI9/IWS1) that participates in this mechanism in the model
plant Arabidopsis thaliana. This gene codes for a nuclear protein in plant
cells, the function of which had been very poorly understood until now.
The scientists have shown that when the plant is satiated,
this protein causes the deposit of epigenetic markers in the gene of the
principal membrane transporter of root NO3. These markers do not modify the
gene sequence but act as a "modulator" of its expression that
represses synthesis of the transporter. The quantity of the transporter thus
diminishes, and root nitrogen absorption is consequently reduced.
This original research opens perspectives to improve the use
of fertilisers in agriculture. Indeed, nitrate is one of the principal
ingredients in these fertilisers, and that part which is not taken up by crops
can pollute ground and surface water. In this context, the discovery of
mechanisms that are naturally implemented by plants to adjust nitrate uptake to
their nutritional requirements, is of importance. One of the long-term
prospects is to render plants capable of accumulating nitrogen even when their
immediate nutritional requirements are met, so that they can remobilise it at a
later stage. This could improve soil nitrate use efficiency by plants and allow
a reduction in fertiliser inputs in agriculture.
Scientific leader:Marc LEPETITBiochimie et Physiologie
Moléculaire des Plantes (INRA, CNRS, Supagro, Université de Montepellier
2)Département scientifique « Biologie végétale »Centre Inra de Montpellier2
place Viala 34060 Montpellier.
For further information:Widiez T, El Kafafi ES, Girin T, Berr
A, Ruffel S, Krouk G, Vayssières A, Shen WH, Coruzzi GM, Gojon A, Lepetit M
(2011). “HIGH NITROGEN INSENSITIVE 9 (HNI9)-mediated systemic repression of
root NO3? uptake is associated with changes in histone methylation”. 9 août
2011, PNAS, 108: 13329-13334, doi: 10.107
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1.34 Next-generation sequencing
technology opens doors to discoveries
College Station, Texas, USA
June 13, 2012
Discoveries unfathomable only a few years ago are reality
today at the Texas AgriLife Genomics and Bioinformatics Service with the
acquisition of next-generation sequencing technology on the Texas A&M
University campus in College Station, said the director of the service.
Dr. Charlie Johnson, director of the Texas AgriLife Genomics
and Bioinformatics Service, shows off the new the Illumina HiSeq 2500
next-generation sequencing system on the Texas A&M University campus in
College Station. (Texas AgriLIfe Research photo by Kay Ledbetter)
“As we move into the genome-sequencing era, we are entering a
truly amazing period in history,” said Dr. Charles Johnson, director of the
service. “Our mission is to facilitate scientific discoveries by guiding and
empowering scientists across the Texas A&M University System over an
increasingly complex and technologically advanced terrain.”
The genomics and bioinformatics service was established in
the fall of 2010, but it is the recent purchase of the Illumina HiSeq 2500
next-generation sequencing system that will give the team led by Johnson the
capability to make a huge impact on crop breeding.
“Although focused on plant breeding, this machine has the
potential to sequence the equivalent of the human genome in one day for as
little as $1,000,” Johnson said. “It took more than 13 years to do the original
human genome project, and cost $2.7 billion.“We can also mix large numbers of
samples within one lane using sequencing-based bar coding to provide cheaper
per-sample pricing,” he said, “which in turn leads to larger studies and
greater scientific discoveries.”
One of the keys to this technology is bioinformatics
analysis, or analyzing the tidal wave of data and turning it into usable
information, Johnson said. AgriLife has invested significant resources in this
area as well.
He compared it to a giant puzzle, and the team of
bioinformaticians, geneticists, statisticians, mathematicians and computer
scientists are the ones who put the DNA information pieces together to make the
complete picture.Dr. Bill McCutchen, AgriLife Research executive associate
director, said this genomics capability will be of particular importance to the
wheat breeding program.“This provides our scientists with the capability to
quickly advance important traits that we find in our multiple research plots
across Texas, traits such as drought tolerance,” McCutchen said.
“The molecular-marker system provides a genetic road map of
sorts, and we can now advance our breeding and agronomic research programs at a
much faster pace.”Johnson said AgriLife scientists are now able to connect the
genetic information from large numbers of breeding populations to a wealth of
phenotypic information, making the connection between genes and resistance to
drought, disease and insects, as well as other high-value traits leading to
increased yields over a broad range of conditions.
Instead of looking at one or two markers at a time, “we can
look at hundreds of thousands of markers at one time,” he said.“We now have the
ability with genomics to integrate and develop superior wheat varieties for
yield, drought tolerance, quality and other traits in a much shorter period of
time as compared to conventional means of breeding,” McCutchen said. “By
combining our strong breeding, pest management and agronomic expertise with
genetic knowledge, we, AgriLife, are able to produce significant advancements
across cropping systems.”
Both McCutchen and Johnson said this technology applies to
all crops, livestock, diseases and human health – anything with DNA.“AgriLife
Research, in a visionary effort, has launched this center and made it available
to the entire Texas A&M University System,” Johnson said. “We are not a
for-profit center, but it takes a significant amount of money to keep the doors
open.“Our goal is to provide the best possible sequencing and bioinformatics
service for all our collaborators, and through that effort, provide the
greatest possible return to the citizens of Texas and the world by way of
revolutionary new discoveries.”
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1.35 New insight gained into how plants
may fight diseases
United Kingdom
13 June 2012
A breakthrough discovery that has shown how plants may defend
themselves in the face of pathogen attacks could hold the key to making crops
more disease-resistant and to boosting food production to help global food
security.
As part of a BBSRC-funded project led by Oxford Brookes
University, STFC's Central Laser Facility has developed a unique technique that
has answered a question which has puzzled scientists for many years - why
certain proteins in plant cells don't move around as much as their counterparts
in animal cells.
By enabling the movement of individual molecules in living
plant cells to be observed in real time for the first time, the new technique
has revealed that the cell wall plays a crucial role in limiting the mobility
of proteins produced when a plant comes under attack. Specifically, it has
shown that the cell wall allows these proteins to stabilise in the plasma
membrane (a 'skin' covering the inside of the cell wall). This restricts their
ability to move around and fight invading pathogens and so increases the
plant's vulnerability.
Dr Stan Botchway from the Lasers for Science division within
the Central Laser Facility says: "The technique we've developed and
deployed to solve this mystery has helped provide unprecedented insights into
plants' defence mechanisms. As a result, we've plugged a major gap in
scientists' understanding of how plants function at a microscopic level."
Dr John Runions of Oxford Brookes University, who has led the
project, says: "This vital advance in our knowledge of the fundamental
biological processes that take place in living plant cells will help us to
improve crops' resilience and their ability to meet the challenges posed not
just by diseases and pests but also by drought and a warming climate."
The breakthrough has been achieved using a single-molecule
tracking technique specially developed at the OCTOPUS (Optics Clustered to
OutPut Unique Solutions) imaging facilities, which form part of the
world-leading Central Laser Facility's Lasers for Science division, located in
the Research Complex at Harwell. This was complemented by the use of total
internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy - an established technique
which, by eliminating background fluorescence, delivers extremely
high-resolution images of samples under investigation.
The result was a clear demonstration that a plant's cell wall
interacts with proteins produced in cell membranes and restricts their
diffusion, possibly reducing their ability to ward off diseases.
As the world's population continues to grow, there is an
urgent need to improve crop yields by enhancing the resilience of a range of
crops to disease. This research project therefore represents a crucial stepping
stone in bringing the sustainability of future food supplies within closer
reach.
The research paper outlining this major discovery in plant
biology has just been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences (USA) at http://www.pnas.org/content/early/recent.
Background
BBSRC awarded £295k in funding for this project and also
contributed funding to the original development of capabilities at STFC's
Central Laser Facility.
OCTOPUS, located in the Research Complex at Harwell, at the
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, links multiple light sources to
multiple imaging stations, allowing a combination of techniques to be brought
to bear on the samples under investigation.
About
the STFCThe Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
is keeping the UK at the forefront of international science and tackling some
of the most significant challenges facing society such as meeting our future
energy needs, monitoring and understanding climate change, and global security.
The Council has a broad science portfolio and works with the
academic and industrial communities to share its expertise in materials
science, space and ground-based astronomy technologies, laser science,
microelectronics, wafer scale manufacturing, particle and nuclear physics,
alternative energy production, radio communications and radar.
STFC operates or hosts world class experimental facilities
including:
• in the UK;
ISIS pulsed neutron source, the Central Laser Facility, and LOFAR. STFC is also
the majority shareholder in Diamond Light Source Ltd.
• overseas;
telescopes on La Palma and Hawaii
It enables UK researchers to access leading international
science facilities by funding membership of international bodies including
European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN), the Institut Laue Langevin (ILL),
European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) and the European Southern
Observatory (ESO).
STFC is one of seven publicly-funded research councils. It is
an independent, non-departmental public body of the Department for Business,
Innovation and Skills (BIS).
Follow us on Twitter: @STFC_Matters. For more information
visit: www.stfc.ac.uk
About BBSRCBBSRC invests in world-class bioscience research
and training on behalf of the UK public. Our aim is to further scientific
knowledge, to promote economic growth, wealth and job creation and to improve
quality of life in the UK and beyond.
Funded by Government, and with an annual budget of around
£445M (2011-2012), we support research and training in universities and strategically
funded institutes. BBSRC research and the people we fund are helping society to
meet major challenges, including food security, green energy and healthier,
longer lives. Our investments underpin important UK economic sectors, such as
farming, food, industrial biotechnology and pharmaceuticals.
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1.36 Genome of model
legume Medicago truncatula sequenced
France
June 14, 2012
Scientists from the French National Institute for
Agricultural Research (INRA) in collaboration with teams from Genoscope (CEA)
and CNRS, as part of an international consortium *, have reported the genome
sequence of a legume, Medicago truncatula (Mt) also known as Barrel Medic. This
sequence provides easy access to the location of genes of interest in crop
legumes (pea, field bean, lentil, alfalfa, clover) which will greatly
facilitate breeding.
Legumes have the capacity to fix atmospheric nitrogen; as a
result legume crops do not require nitrogen fertilizers, which represents a
real asset for a sustainable and more environmentally friendly agriculture.
Results are published in Nature on November 16th 2011.
This fodder plant, proposed as a model legume by INRA in the
1980s, belongs to the Fabaceae family (formerly Legumes). Legumes play a major
economic role: they are a substantial source of plant proteins for animals and
humans, and their cultivation does not require nitrogen fertilizers, which is
cost-effective and beneficial to the environment. Because they improve soil
fertility, they play an important role in crop rotations. The world production
is 300 million tonnes per year.
Legumes have the unique characteristic to fix atmospheric
nitrogen which other cultivated plants cannot do. This characteristic is the
result of a symbiosis with soil bacteria called rhizobia which form root
nodules. Rhizobia produce an enzyme missing in plants, nitrogenase, which
allows them to fix atmospheric nitrogen inside the plant. In return, the plant
provides an environment and nutrients that are necessary for the bacteria to
develop and fix nitrogen.
Through their participation in an international
collaboration, scientists from INRA have deciphered the genome sequence of Mt.
The study has revealed that a duplication of the entire genome about 60 million
years ago, when legumes appeared, has played a major role in the formation of
the Mt genome and contributed to the evolution of symbiotic life with rhizobia.
Genes that were involved in the symbiosis with mycorrhizal
fungi have duplicated and one copy has evolved to control the nodulation
process.Mt is phylogenetically close to most of the legumes cultivated in
Europe, such as pea, field bean, alfalfa and clover. There is a strong
conservation of the order in which genes are located on chromosomes of these
species (shared synteny).
Knowledge of the genome sequence of Mt has allowed the order
of the genes on its eight chromosomes to be determined. This knowledge should
greatly ease the identification of important genes in cultivated legumes.
Genetic improvement of legumes is necessary in order to increase their
productivity, their use in crop rotation and to develop sustainable systems
that require less chemical inputs, in particular nitrogen fertilizers whose
production is very energy-consuming.
*Participants in the International Consortium include:
University of Oklahoma, J. Craig Venter Institute, Genoscope (CEA Institut de
Genomique), Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, University of Minnesota, LIPM
INRA/CNRS, John Innes Centre, Noble Foundation, University of Wageningen, MIPS,
Ghent University, National Center for Genome Resources (NCGR), BIA INRA, CNRGV
INRA.
The French participation to the program, including sequencing
of M. truncatula chromosome 5 was funded by the European Union Grain Legumes
program (with equal funding from Genoscope and EU), the French ANR SEQMEDIC
program, INRA, and CNRS.
References:
Nevin D. Young, Frédéric Debellé, Giles E. D. Oldroyd, et al.
The Medicago Genome Provides Insight into the Evolution of Rhizobial Symbioses.
Nature, November 16th 2011, DOI: 10.1038/nature10625
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1.37 A new
source of maize hybrid vigor
Urbana, Illinois, USA
June 28, 2012
Steve Moose, an associate professor of maize functional
genomics at the University of Illinois and his graduate student Wes Barber
think they may have discovered a new source of heterosis, or hybrid vigor, in
maize. They have been looking at small RNAs (sRNAs), a class of double-stranded
RNA molecules that are 20 to 25 nucleotides in length.
"Hybrid vigor" refers to the increased vigor or
general health, resistance to disease, and other superior qualities arising
from the crossbreeding of genetically different plants. "We've always
known that there's a genetic basis for this heterosis," said Moose.
"Charles Darwin noticed it and commented that corn was particularly
dramatic."
Scientists have been debating the sources of hybrid vigor
since the early 1900s when Mendel's laws were rediscovered. Many of them
disagreed with the model that prevailed from the 1920s to the 1950s, which
linked heterosis to a single gene or to the interaction of several genes.
"It seemed that the whole genome was involved," said Moose.
The discovery of DNA in 1953 eventually caused a paradigm
shift in the way people looked at hybrid vigor but, Moose said, there was no
unifying theory. Even as new genetic technologies were developed, the genes did
not seem to explain everything.
"We thought that maybe it's the rest of the genome, the
remaining 85 percent of the corn genome, that's important," said Moose.
RNAs were originally found in 1998 in roundworms. Researchers
studying virus resistance in plants then began to notice them and observed that
the way that they function is very different from the functioning of
protein-coding genes.
"Every time we have a breakthrough in our knowledge of
genetics, people have looked to see if that breakthrough brings any insight
into the mystery of the hybrid vigor," said Moose. "That's what we've
done with the small RNAs."
"When you think about what small RNAs do, they
participate in regulating growth and they tell other genes what to do," he
continued. "So they have the two properties that we know fit what has been
described (about heterosis) even though we do not have an explanation. We would
argue that, while they are part of the explanation, they may not be the whole
explanation."
Moose and Barber sampled small RNAs from the seedling shoot
and the developing ear of maize hybrids, two tissues that grow rapidly and
program growth, to investigate how the small RNA profiles of these hybrids
differed from those of their parents. In collaboration with associate professor
of crop sciences Matt Hudson, they analyzed what they described as a
"deluge" of data.
"There were 50 million data points, but we whittled it
down to the most important ones," said Barber.
They found that differences are due mainly to hybrids
inheriting distinct small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), a subset of sRNAs, from
each parent. The siRNAs interfere with gene expression. They also found that
hybridization does not create new siRNAs, but hybrids have a more complex siRNA
population than their parents because they inherit distinct siRNAs from both parents.
Moreover, the differences in parental siRNAs originated
primarily from repeats, which are the result of retrotransposon activity.
Retrotransposons are elements that move around and amplify themselves within a
genome.
"This is a new source of genetic diversity that people
had overlooked," said Barber.
"We are not saying that genes are not important,"
said Moose. ""But probably the way corn properties are altered in the
hybrid situation is mediated by the small RNAs in addition to the genes."
Moose and Barber hope that their work might provide more
insight into how to decide which inbred maize lines to cross. "We don't
want to alter how the plant grows, but if we can tweak it to do whatever it
already does either faster or more, that could be an advantage," said
Moose.
The article describing this work, "Repeat Associated
Small RNAs Vary Among Parents and Following Hybridization in Maize" by
Wesley T. Barber, WeiZhang, Hlaing Win, Kranthi K. Varala, Jane E. Dorweiler,
Matthew E. Hudson, and Stephen P. Moose was published in the June 26, 2012,
issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
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1.38 Link between
vitamin C and twins can increase seed production in crops
Riverside,
California, USA
June 18,
2012
Biochemists
at the University of California, Riverside report a new role for vitamin C in
plants: promoting the production of twins and even triplets in plant seeds.
Daniel
R. Gallie, a professor of biochemistry, and Zhong Chen, an associate research
biochemist in the Department of Biochemistry, found that increasing the level
of dehydroascorbate reductase (DHAR), a naturally occurring enzyme that
recycles vitamin C in plants and animals, increases the level of the vitamin
and results in the production of twin and triplet seedlings in a single seed.
The
value of the discovery lies in the potential to produce genetically identical
seedlings and increase production of high-value crops.