Jan 022015
 

Friendship and trust at the heart of sorghum research

…benefits to humanity are the real driver of the work.”

Andy1_wAndrew Borrell (pictured) is a man who loves his work – a search for a holy grail of sorts for the grain of his choice  sorghum.

Based at the University of Queensland, Australia, Andrew is co-Principal Investigator with David Jordan for a GCP-funded project developing drought-adapted sorghum for Africa and Australia. And Andrew is passionate not just about the potential of sorghum, but also about the cross-continental relationships that underpin his research team. These friendships, says Andrew, are the glue that hold his team together and make it work better.

The year 2013 was particularly exciting. After almost five years working with African plant breeders to improve genetic material, field trials were up and running at 12 sites across East and West Africa.  Fastforward to 2015 and  glad tidings for the New Year! Andrew and his team now have preliminary evidence that the drought-tolerant ‘stay-green’ trait enhances grain size and yield  in some of the target countries in  Africa for which data have already been analysed.

What Andrew hopes to see is more genetic diversity, not just for diversity’s sake but put to use in farmers’ fields  to enhance yield during drought. This means more food, fodder and other sorghum by-products such as stems for construction. These benefits to humanity are, he says, the real driver of the work his team does.

So what are the wonders of ‘stay-green’? Waxing lyrical…

The sought-after  ‘stay-green’ trait that Andrew and his team are so interested in describes the phenotype – what the plant looks like. It simply means that when drought strikes, sorghum plants with this trait remain leafy and green during the grain-filling period – a critical time when the plant’s water is channelled to developing healthy panicles of grain.

So, what makes these plants remain healthy when others are losing their leaves? Why do they wax while others wane? The answer, says Andrew, is twofold, and is all to do with water supply and demand, and more and less. Firstly, there is some evidence that the roots of the stay-green plants penetrate deeper into the soil, tapping into more water supply. Secondly, plants with the stay-green trait have a smaller leaf canopy which means less water demand by the plant before flowering, leaving more water for grain-filling after flowering.

Staying power and stover are also part of the story. According to Andrew, “Plants with the stay-green trait produce more grain in dry conditions, have stronger stems so they don’t fall over, and often have larger grains. And it’s not just about grain alone: stay-green also improves the quality of the stover left in the field after harvest, which serves as animal feed.”

Another key feature of the stay-green trait in sorghum is that it is not just a fair-weather friend: it works well in wet as well as dry conditions. “All the evidence we’ve got suggests that you get a benefit under tough conditions but very little penalty under good conditions,” says Andrew.

…the process is synergistic and we do something that’s better than any of us could do alone.”

Safari from Down Under to Africa: East and West, and home are all best

For Andrew and his co-Principal Investigator, David Jordan, the GCP project is the first time they have been involved in improving sorghum in Africa. The two scientists work with sorghum improvement teams in six African countries: Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in the west, and, Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan in the east. By crossing African and Australian sorghum, the teams have developed the lines now being field-tested  in all the six countries.

A sampling of some of stay-green sorghum partnerships in Africa. (1)  Asfaw Adugna assessing the genetic diversity of  sorghum panicles produced from the GCP collaboration at Melkassa, Ethiopia. (2)  Clarisse Barro-Kondombo (Burkina Faso) and Andrew Borrell (Australia) visiting a lysimeter facility in Hyderabad, India, as part of GCP training. (3) Clement Kamau (Kenya, left) and  Andrew Borrell (Australia, right) visiting the seed store at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) in Katumani, Kenya.

A sampling of some of stay-green sorghum partnerships in Africa. (1) Asfaw Adugna (Ethiopian Agricultural Research Institute) assessing the genetic diversity of sorghum panicles produced from the GCP collaboration at Melkassa, Ethiopia. (2) Clarisse Barro-Kondombo (Institut de l’environnement et de recherches agricoles, Burkina Faso) and Andrew Borrell (Australia) visiting a lysimeter facility at ICRISAT in Hyderabad, India, as part of GCP training. (3) Clement Kamau (Kenya, left) and Andrew Borrell (Australia, right) visiting the seed store at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) in Katumani, Kenya.

According to Andrew, the collaboration with African scientists is “a bit like a group of friends using science to combat hunger. That’s probably been the biggest advantage of GCP,” adds Andrew. “Bringing people together for something we are all passionate about.”

There’s another collaborative element to the project too. As well as improving and testing plant material, the Australian contingent hosts African scientists on three-week training sessions. “We span a whole range of research topics and techniques,” explains Andrew. “We learn a lot from them too – their local expertise on soil, crops and climate. Hopefully the process is synergistic and we do something that’s better than any of us could do alone.”

Andrew says that working personally with plant breeders from Africa has made all the difference to the project. “Once colleagues from overseas come into your country, you develop real friendships. They know your families, they know what you do, and that’s very important in building relationships and trust that make the whole thing work.”

It wasn't all work and there was clearly also time to play, as we can see her., Sidi Coulibaly and Niaba Teme visiting with the Borrell family in Queensland, Australia.

It wasn’t all work and there was clearly also time to play, as we can see here, Sidi Coulibaly and Niaba Teme from Mali visit the Borrell family in Queensland, Australia.

Golden sunsets, iridescent rainbows and perpetual evergreen partnerships

As Andrew and his team wait to see how their field experiments in Africa turn out, they know that this is not the end of the story. In fact, it is only the beginning. Once tested, the germplasm will provide genetic diversity for future breeding programmes in Africa.

And the research collaboration between Australia and Africa won’t end when GCP funding runs out and GCP sunsets. For example, in addition to the GCP project, David Jordan has secured significant funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for another four years’ sorghum research in Ethiopia. Plus, Andrew and Kassahun Banttea, a colleague from Jimma University, have also just been awarded a PEARL grant from the Foundation to assess the sorghum germplasm collection in Ethiopia for drought-adaptation traits.

We wish this ‘stay-evergreen’ team well in their current and future ventures. More sorghum ‘stickability’ and staying power to them! May they find the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

This enchanted rainbow-rings-and-sorghum photo is from Andy Borrell, and, contrary to the magical song, please continue under the rainbow for links to more information.

Sorghum rainbow_A Borrello

Links

 

 

 

Aug 292014
 
One of the greatest challenges of our time is growing more crops to feed more people, but using less water

Sorghum is one of the most ‘efficient’ crops in terms of needing less water and nutrients to grow. And although it is naturally well-adapted to sun-scorched drylands, there is still a need to improve its yield and broad adaptability in these harsh environments. In West Africa, for example, while sorghum production has doubled in the last 20 years, its yield has remained stagnant – and low.

The GCP Sorghum Research Initiative comprises several projects, which are exploring ways to use molecular-breeding techniques to improve sorghum yields, particularly in drylands. All projects are interdisciplinary international collaborations with an original focus on Mali, where sorghum-growing areas are large and rainfall is getting more erratic and variable. Through the stay-green project, the research has since broadened to also cover Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Niger and Sudan.

Using molecular markers is new and exciting for us as it will speed up the breeding process. With molecular markers, you can easily see if the plant you’ve bred has the desired characteristics without having to grow the plant and or risk missing the trait through visual inspection.”

What’s MARS got to do with it?

Niaba Témé is a local plant breeder and researcher at Mali’s L’Institut d’économie rurale (IER). He grew up in a farming community on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert, where crops would constantly fail during drier-than-normal seasons.

Niaba Teme

Niaba Témé

Niaba says these crop failures were in part his inspiration for a career where he could help farmers like his parents and siblings protect themselves from the risks of drought and extreme temperatures.

For the past four years, Niaba and his team at IER have been collaborating with Jean-François Rami and his team at France’s Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD), to improve sorghum grain yield and quality for West African farmers. The work is funded by the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture.

“With the help of CIRAD and Syngenta, we have been learning how to use molecular markers to improve breeding efficiency of sorghum varieties more adapted to the variable environment of Mali and surrounding areas which receive less than 600 millimetres of rainfall per year,” he says.

Jean-François Rami

Jean-François Rami

“Using molecular markers is new and exciting for us as it will speed up the breeding process. With molecular markers, you can easily see if the plant you’ve bred has the desired characteristics without having to grow the plant and or risk missing the trait through visual inspection.”

Jean-François Rami, who is the project’s Principal Investigator, has been impressed by the progress made so far. Jean-François is also GCP’s Product Delivery Coordinator for sorghum.

“Since its inception, the project has progressed very well,” says Jean-François. “With the help of the IER team, we’ve been able to develop two bi-parental populations from elite local varieties, targeting two different environments of sorghum cropping areas in Mali. We’ve then been able to use molecular markers through a process called marker-assisted recurrent selection [MARS] to identify and monitor key regions of the genome in consecutive breeding generations.”

The collaboration with Syngenta came from a common perspective and understanding of what approach could be effectively deployed to rapidly deliver varieties with the desired characteristics.

“Syngenta came with their long experience in implementing MARS in maize. They advised on how to execute the programme and avoid critical pitfalls. They offered to us the software they have developed for the analysis of data which allowed the project team to start the programme immediately,” says Jean-François.

Like all GCP projects, capacity building is a large part of the MARS project. Jean-François says GCP has invested a lot to strengthen IER’s infrastructure and train field technicians, researchers and young scientists. But GCP is not the only player in this: “CIRAD has had a long collaboration in sorghum research in Mali and training young scientists has always been part of our mission. We’ve hosted several IER students here in France and we are interacting with our colleagues in Mali either over the phone or travelling to Mali to give technical workshops in molecular breeding. The Integrated Breeding Platform [IBP] has also been a breakthrough for the project, providing to the project team breeding services, data management tools, and a training programme – the Integrated Breeding Multiyear Course [IB–MYC].”

We don’t have these types of molecular-breeding resources available in Mali, so it’s really exciting to be a part of this project… the approach has the potential to halve the time it takes to develop local sorghum varieties with improved yield and adaptability to drought… one of the great successes of the project has been to bring together sorghum research groups in Mali in a common effort to develop new genetic resources for sorghum breeding.”

Back-to-back: more for Mali’s national breeding programme

On the back of the MARS project, Niaba successfully obtained GCP funding in 2010 to carry out similar research with CIRAD and collaborators in Africa at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

“In this project, we are trying to enhance sorghum grain yield and quality for the Sudano-Sahelian zone of West Africa using the backcross nested association mapping (BCNAM) approach,” explains Niaba, who is the Principal Investigator of the BCNAM project. “This involves using an elite recurrent parent that is already adapted to local drought conditions. The benefit of this approach is that it can lead to detecting elite varieties much faster.”

Kirsten Vom Brocke (CIRAD) Michel Vaksmann (CIRAD) Mamoutou Kouressy (IER) Eva Weltzien (ICRISAT) Jean-Francois Rami (CIRAD) Denis Lespinasse (Syngenta) Niaba Teme (IER) Ndeye Ndack Diop (GCP) Ibrahima Sissoko (Icrisat) Fred Rattunde (Icrisat)

A ‘sample’ of the rich mix of international partners in sorghum research: Left to right – Kirsten Vom Brocke (CIRAD), Michel Vaksmann (CIRAD), Mamoutou Kouressy (IER), Eva Weltzien (ICRISAT), Jean-François Rami (CIRAD), Denis Lespinasse (Syngenta), Niaba Teme (IER), Ndeye Ndack Diop (GCP Capacity Building Leader), Ibrahima Sissoko and Fred Rattunde (both from ICRISAT).

Eva Weltzien has been the Principal Scientist for ICRISAT’s sorghum breeding programme in Mali since 1998. She says the project aligned with much of the work her team had been doing, so it made sense to collaborate considering the new range of sorghum genetic diversity that this approach aims to use.

“We’ve been working with Niaba’s team to develop 100 lines for 50 populations from backcrosses carried out with 30 recurrent parents,” explains Eva. “These lines are being genotyped by CIRAD. We will then be able to use molecular markers to determine if any of these lines have the traits we want. We don’t have these types of molecular-breeding resources available in Mali, so it’s really exciting to be a part of this project.”

Eva Weltzien (holding sheet of paper) presenting to Mali's Minister of Agriculture (in white cap) a graph on the superiority of new guinea race hybrids. Also on display are panicles and seed of the huybrids and released varieties of sorghum in Mali. The occasion was an annual field day at ICRISAT's research station at Samanko, Mali.

An annual field day at ICRISAT’s research station at Samanko, Mali. Eva Weltzien (holding sheet of paper) showing Mali’s Minister of Agriculture, Tiemoko Sangare, (in white cap) a graph on the superiority of new guinea race hybrids. Also on display are panicles and seed of the hybrids and released varieties of sorghum in Mali.

Eva says that the approach has the potential to halve the time it takes to develop local sorghum varieties with improved yield and adaptability to drought.

For Jean-François, one of the great successes of the project has been to bring together sorghum research groups in Mali in a common effort to develop new genetic resources for sorghum breeding.

“This project has strengthened the IER and ICRISAT partnerships around a common resource. The large multiparent population that has been developed is analysed collectively to decipher the genetic control of important traits for sorghum breeding in Mali,” says Jean-François.

 Plants with this ‘stay-green’ trait keep their leaves and stems green during the grain-filling period. Typically, these plants have stronger stems, higher grain yield and larger grain.”

Sorghum staying green and strong, with less water

In February 2012, Niaba and his colleague, Sidi B Coulibaly, were invited to Australia as part of another Sorghum Research Initiative project they had been collaborating on with CIRAD, Australia’s University of Queensland and the Queensland Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (QDAFF).

“We were invited to Australia for training by Andrew Borrell and David Jordan, who are co-Principal Investigators of the GCP stay-green sorghum project,” says Niaba.

Left to right: Niaba Teme (Mali), David Jordan (Australia), Sidi Coulibaly (Mali) and Andrew Borrell (Australia) visiting an experiment at Hermitage Research Facility in Queensland, Australia.

Left to right: Niaba Témé (Mali), David Jordan (Australia), Sidi Coulibaly (Mali) and Andrew Borrell (Australia) visiting an experiment at Hermitage Research Facility in Queensland, Australia.

“We learnt about association mapping, population genetics and diversity, molecular breeding, crop modelling using climate forecasts, and sorghum physiology, plus a lot more. It was intense but rewarding – more so the fact that we understood the mechanics of these new stay-green crops we were evaluating back in Mali.”

It wasn't all work and there was clearly also time to play, as we can see her., Sidi Coulibaly and Niaba Teme visiting with the Borrell family in Queensland, Australia.

It wasn’t all work and there was clearly also time to play, as we can see here., where Sidi Coulibaly and Niaba Témé are visiting the Borrell family in Queensland, Australia.

Stay-green is a post-flowering drought adaptation trait that has contributed significantly to sorghum yield stability in northeastern Australia and southern USA over the last two decades.

Andrew has been researching how the drought-resistant trait functions for almost 20 years, including gene discovery. In 2010, he and his colleague, David Jordan, successfully obtained funding from GCP to collaborate with IER and CIRAD to develop and evaluate drought-adapted stay-green sorghum germplasm for Africa and Australia.

“Stay-green sorghum grows a canopy that is about 10 per cent smaller than other lines. So it uses less water before flowering,” explains Andrew. “More water is then available during the grain-filling period. Plants with this ‘stay-green’ trait keep their leaves and stems green during the grain-filling period. Typically, these plants have stronger stems, higher grain yield and larger grain.”

Andrew says the project is not about introducing stay-green into African germplasm, but rather, enriching the pre-breeding material in Mali for this drought-adaptive trait.

The project has three objectives:

  1. To evaluate the stay-green drought-resistance mechanism in plant architecture and genetic backgrounds appropriate to Mali.
  2. To develop sorghum germplasm populations enriched for stay-green genes that also carry genes for adaptation to cropping environments in Mali.
  3. To improve the capacity of Malian researchers by carrying out training activities for African sorghum researchers in drought physiology and selection for drought adaptation in sorghum.

…we have found that the stay-green trait can improve yields by up to 30 percent in drought conditions with very little downside during a good year, so we are hoping that these new lines will display similar characteristics”

Expansion and extension:  beyond Mali to the world

Andrew explains that there are two phases to the stay-green project. The project team first focused on Mali. During this phase, the Australian team enriched Malian germplasm with stay-green, developing introgression lines, recombinant inbred lines and hybrids. Some of this material was field-tested by Sidi and his team in Mali.

“In the past, we have found that the stay-green trait can improve yields by up to 30 percent in drought conditions with very little downside during a good year, so we are hoping that these new lines will display similar characteristics,” says Andrew. “During the second phase we are also collaborating with ICRISAT in India and now expanding to five other African countries – Niger and Burkina Faso in West Africa; and Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia in East Africa. During 2013, we grew our stay-green enriched germplasm at two sites in all these countries. We also hosted scientists from Burkina Faso, Sudan and Kenya to undertake training in Queensland in February 2014.”

 

A sampling of some of stay-green sorghum partnerships in Africa. (1)  Asfaw Adugna assessing the genetic diversity of  sorghum panicles produced from the GCP collaboration at Melkassa, Ethiopia. (2)  Clarisse Barro-Kondombo (Burkina Faso) and Andrew Borrell (Australia) visiting a lysimeter facility in Hyderabad, India, as part of GCP training. (3) Clement Kamau (Kenya, left) and  Andrew Borrell (Australia, right) visiting the seed store at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) in Katumani, Kenya.

A sampling of some of stay-green sorghum partnerships in Africa. (1) Asfaw Adugna of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR)  assessing the genetic diversity of sorghum panicles produced from the GCP collaboration at Melkassa, Ethiopia. (2) Clarisse Barro-Kondombo (left, INERA – Institut de l’environnement et de recherches agricoles , Burkina Faso) and Andrew Borrell (right) visiting a lysimetre facility at ICRISAT’s headquarters in Hyderabad, India, as part of GCP training, in February 2013. (3) Clement Kamau (left, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute [KARI] ) and Andrew Borrell (right) visiting the seed store at KARI, Katumani, Kenya.

Andrew says that the collaboration with international researchers has given them a better understanding of how stay-green works in different genetic backgrounds and in different environments, and the applicability is broad. Using these trial data will help provide farmers with better information on growing sorghum, not just in Africa and Australia, but also all over the world.

“Both David and I consider it a privilege to work in this area with these international institutes. We love our science and we are really passionate to make a difference in the world with the science we are doing. GCP gives us the opportunity to expand on what we do in Australia and to have much more of a global impact.”

We’ll likely be hearing more from Andrew on the future of this work at GCP’s General Research Meeting (GRM) in October this year, so watch this space! Meantime, see slides below from GRM 2013 by the Sorghum Research Initiative team. We also invite you to visit the links below the slides for more information.

Links

Apr 042014
 

 

Phil Roberts

Phil Roberts

Like its legume relatives, cowpeas belong to a cluster of crops that are still referred to in some spheres of the crop-breeding world as ‘orphan crops’. This, because they have largely been bypassed by the unprecedented advances that have propelled ‘bigger’ crops into the world of molecular breeding, endowed as they are with the genomic resources necessary. But as we shall hear from Phil Roberts (pictured), of the University of California–Riverside, USA, and also the cowpea research leader for the Tropical Legumes I Project (TLI), despite the prefix in the  name, this ‘little kid’ in the ‘breeding block’ called cowpeas is uncowed and unbowed, confidently striding into the world of modern crop breeding, right alongside the ‘big boys’! What more on this new kid on the block of modern molecular breeding? Phil’s at hand to fill us in…

Vigna the VIP that shrinks with the violets
But is no shrinking violet, by any means, as we shall see. Also known  as niébé in francophone Africa, and in USA as black-eyed peas (no relation to the musical group, however, hence no capitals!), this drought-tolerant ancient crop (Vigna unguiculata [L] Walp) originated in West Africa. It is highly efficient in fixing nitrogen in the unforgiving and dry sandy soils of the drier tropics. And that is not all. This modest VIP is not addicted to the limelight and is in fact outright lowly and ultra-social: like their fetching African counterpart in the flower family, the African violet, cowpeas will contentedly thrive under the canopy of others, blooming in the shade and growing alongside various cereal and root crops, without going suicidal for lack of limelight and being in the crowd. With such an easy-going personality, added to their adaptability, cowpeas have sprinted ahead to become the most important grain legume in sub-Saharan Africa for both subsistence and cash. But – as always – there are two sides to every story, and sadly, not all about cowpeas is stellar…

Improved varieties are urgently needed to narrow the gap between actual and potential yields… modern breeding techniques… can play a vital role”

A cowpea experimental plot at IITA.

A cowpea experimental plot at IITA.

What could be, and what molecular breeding has to do with it
Yields are low, only reaching a mere 10 to 30 percent of their potential, primarily because of insect- and disease-attack, sometimes further compounded by chronic drought in the desiccated drylands cowpeas generally call home. “Improved varieties are urgently needed to narrow the gap between actual and potential yields,” says Phil. The cowpea project he leads in TLI is implemented through GCP’s Legume Research Initiative. Phil adds, “Such varieties are particularly valuable on small farms, where costly agricultural inputs are not an option. Modern breeding techniques, resulting from the genomics revolution, can play a vital role in improving cowpea materials.”

He and his research team are therefore developing genomic resources that country-based breeding programmes can use. Target-country partners are Institut de l’Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles (INERA) in Burkina Faso; Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique; and Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles (ISRA) in Senegal. Other partners are the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) headquartered in Nigeria and USA’s Feed the Future Innovation Labs for Collaborative Research on Grain Legumes and for Climate Resilient Cowpeas.

It’s a lot easier and quicker, and certainly less hit-or-miss than traditional methods!… By eliminating some phenotyping steps and identifying plants carrying positive-trait alleles for use in crossing, they will also shorten the time needed to breed better-adapted cowpea varieties preferred by farmers and markets.”

Cowpea seller at Bodija Market, Ibadan, Nigeria.

Cowpea seller at Bodija Market, Ibadan, Nigeria.

 

On target, and multiplying the score
[First, a rapid lesson on plant-genetics jargon so we can continue our story uninterrupted: ‘QTLs’ stands for quantitative trait loci, a technical term in quantitative genetics to describe the locations where genetic variation is associated with variation in a quantitative trait. QTL analysis estimates how many genes control a particular trait. ‘Allele’ means an alternative form of a the same gene. Continuing with the story…]

The curved shape means that these cowpea pods are mature and ready for harvesting.

Culinary curves and curls: the curved shape means that these cowpea pods are mature and ripe for harvesting.

“We first verified 30 cowpea lines as sources of drought tolerance and pest resistance,” Phil recalls. “Using molecular markers, we can identify the genomic regions of the QTLs that are responsible for the desired target phenotype, and stack those QTLs to improve germplasm resistance to drought or pests. It’s a lot easier and quicker, and certainly less hit-or-miss than traditional methods! However, standing alone, QTLs are not the silver bullet in plant breeding. What happens is that QTL information complements visual selection. Moreover, QTL discovery must be based on accurate phenotyping information, which is the starting point, providing pointers on where to look within the cowpea genome. Molecular breeding can improve varieties for several traits in tandem,” suggests Phil. “Hence, farmers can expect a more rapid delivery of cowpea varieties that are not only higher-yielding, but also resistant to several stresses at once.”

And what are Phil and team doing to contribute to making this happen?

The genomic resources from Phase I – especially genotyping platforms and QTL knowledge – are being used in Phase II of the TLI Project to establish breeding paradigms, using molecular breeding approaches,” Phil reveals. He adds that these approaches include marker-assisted recurrent selection (MARS) and marker assisted back-crossing (MABC). “These paradigms were tested in the cowpea target countries in Africa,” Phil continues. “By eliminating some phenotyping steps and identifying plants carrying positive-trait alleles for use in crossing, they will also shorten the time needed to breed better-adapted cowpea varieties preferred by farmers and markets.”

… best-yielding lines will be released as improved varieties… others will be used…as elite parents…”

Future work
What of the future? Phil fills us in: “The advanced breeding lines developed in TLI Phase II are now entering multi-location performance testing in the target African countries. It is expected that best-yielding lines will be released as improved varieties, while others will be used in the breeding programmes as elite parents for generating new breeding lines for cowpeas.”

Clearly then, the job is not yet done, as the ultimate goal is to deliver better cowpeas to farmers. But while this goal is yet to be attained and – realistically – can only be some more years down the road, it is also equally clear that Phil and his team have already chalked up remarkable achievements in the quest to improve cowpeas. They hope to continue pressing onwards and upwards in the proposed Tropical Legumes III Project, the anticipated successor to TLI and its twin project TLII – Tropical Legumes II.

Links

Mar 202014
 

 

Jeff Ehlers

Jeff Ehlers

Our guest today is Jeff Ehlers (pictured), Programme Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Jeff’s an old friend of GCP, most familiar to the GCP community in his immediate past stomping grounds at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), USA, leading our research to improve cowpea production in the tropics, for which sunny California offers a perfect spot for effective phenotyping. Even then, Jeff was not new to CGIAR, as we’ll see from his career crossings. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves in narrating Jeff’s tale. First, what would high-end cowpea research have to do with crusading and catapults? Only Jeff can tell us, so please do read on!

The GCP model was a very important way of doing business for CGIAR and the broader development community, enabling partnerships between international research institutes, country programmes and CGIAR. This is particularly important as the possibilities of genomics-led breeding become even greater…If anything, we need to see more of this collaborative model.”

Growing green, sowing the seed, trading glory for grassroots
Growing up in USA’s Golden State of California, green-fingered Jeff had a passion for cultivating the land rather than laboratory samples, harbouring keen ambitions to become a farmer. This did not change with the years as he transited from childhood to adolescence. The child grew into a youth who was an avid gardener: in his student days, Jeff threw his energy into creating a community garden project ‒ an initiative which promptly caught the eye of his high school counsellor, who suggested Jeff give the Plant Science Department at UCR a go for undergraduate studies.

And thus the seeds of a positively blooming career in crop research were sown. However, remaining true to the mission inspired by his former community-centred stomping grounds, a grassroots focus triumphed over glory-hunting for Jeff, who – no stranger to rolling his sleeves up and getting his fingers into the sod – found himself, when at the University of California, Davis, for his advanced studies, embarking on what was to become a lifelong undertaking, first at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and then at UCR, dedicated to a then under-invested plant species straggler threatening to fall by the research world’s wayside. With a plethora of potential genomic resources and modern breeding tools yet to be tapped into, Jeff’s cowpea crusade had begun in earnest…

GCP’s TLI was essential in opening that door and putting us on the path to increased capability – both for cowpea research enablement and human capacity”

Straggler no more: stardom beckons, and a place at the table for the ‘orphan’
And waiting in the wings to help Jeff along his chosen path was the Generation Challenge Programme (GCP), which, in 2007, commissioned Jeff’s team to tackle the cowpea component of the flagship Tropical Legumes I (TLI) project, implemented by GCP under the Legumes Research Initiative. TLI is mainly funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The significance of this project, Jeff explains, was considerable: “The investment came at a very opportune time, and demonstrated great foresight on the part of both GCP and the Foundation.” Prior to this initiative, he further explains, “there had been no investment by anyone else to allow these orphan crops to participate in the feast of technologies and tools suddenly available and that other major crops were aggressively getting into. Before GCP and Gates funding for TLI came along, it was impossible to think about doing any kind of modern breeding in the orphan grain legume crops. GCP’s TLI was essential in opening that door and putting us on the path to increased capability – both for cowpea research enablement and human capacity.”

Flashback: UCR cowpea team in 2009. Left to right: Wellington Muchero, Ndeye Ndack Diop (familiar, right?!), Raymond Fenton, Jeff Ehlers, Philip Roberts and Timothy Close in a greenhouse on the UCR campus, with cowpeas in the background. Ndeye Ndack and Jeff seem to love upstaging each other. She came to UCR as a postdoc working under Jeff, then she moved to GCP, with oversight over the TLI project, thereby becoming Jeff's boss, then he moved to the Foundation with oversight over TLI. So, what do you think might be our Ndeye Ndack's next stop once GCP winds up in 2014? One can reasonably speculate....!

Flashback: UCR cowpea team in 2009. Left to right: Wellington Muchero, Ndeye Ndack Diop (familiar, right?!), Raymond Fenton, Jeff Ehlers, Philip Roberts and Timothy Close in a greenhouse on the UCR campus, with cowpeas in the background. Ndeye Ndack and Jeff seem to love upstaging each other. She came to UCR as a postdoc working under Jeff, then she moved to GCP, with oversight over the TLI project, thereby becoming Jeff’s boss, then he moved to the Foundation with oversight over TLI. So, what do you think might be our Ndeye Ndack’s next stop once GCP winds up in 2014? One can reasonably speculate….!

Of capacity building, genomics and ‘X-ray’ eyes
This capacity-building cornerstone – which, in the case of the TLI project, is mainly funded by the European Commission – is, says Jeff, a crucial key to unlocking the potential of plant science globally. “The next generation of crop scientists ‒ particularly breeders ‒ need to be educated in the area of genomics and genomics-led breeding.”

While stressing the need for robust conventional breeding efforts, Jeff continues: ”Genomics gives the breeder X-ray eyes into the breeding programme, bringing new insights and precision that were previously unavailable.”

In this regard, Jeff has played a leading role in supporting skill development and organising training for his team members and colleagues across sub-Saharan Africa, meaning that partners from Mozambique, Burkina Faso and Senegal, among others, are now, in Phase II of the TLI project, moving full steam ahead with marker-assisted and backcross legume breeding at national level, thanks to the genotyping platform and genetic fingerprints from Phase I of the project. The genotyping platform, which is now publicly available to anyone looking to undertake marker-assisted breeding for cowpeas, is being widely used by research teams not only in Africa but also in China. Thanks in part then to Jeff and his team, the wheels of the genomics revolution for cowpeas are well and truly in motion.

Undergoing the transition from phenotypic old-school plant breeder to modern breeder with all the skills required was a struggle…it was challenging to teach others the tools when I didn’t know them myself!…without GCP, I would not have been able to grow in this way.”

Talking about a revolution, comrades-in-arms, and a master mastering some more
But as would be expected, the road to revolution has not always been entirely smooth. Reflecting on some of the challenges he encountered in the early TLI days, and highlighting the need to invest not only in new students, but also in upgrading the existing skills of older scientists, Jeff tells of a personal frustration that had him battling it out alongside the best of them: “Undergoing the transition from phenotypic old-school plant breeder to modern breeder with all the skills required was a struggle,” he confides, continuing: “It was challenging to teach others the tools when I didn’t know them myself!”

Thus, in collaboration with his cowpea comrades from the global North and South, Jeff braved the steep learning curve before him, and came out on the other side smiling – an accomplishment he is quick to credit to GCP: “It was a very interesting and fruitful experience, and without GCP, I would not have been able to grow in this way,” he reveals. Holding the collaborative efforts facilitated by the broad GCP network particularly dear, Jeff continues: “The GCP model was a very important way of doing business for CGIAR and the broader development community, enabling partnerships between international research institutes, country programmes and CGIAR. This is particularly important as the possibilities of genomics-led breeding become even greater…If anything, we need to see more of this collaborative model.”

GCP’s Integrated Breeding Platform addresses the lack of modern breeding skills in the breeding community as a whole, globally…The Platform provides extremely valuable and much-needed resources for many public peers around the world, especially in Africa…”

One initiative which has proved especially useful in giving researchers a leg up in the mastery of modern breeding tools, Jeff asserts, is GCP’s Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP): “IBP addresses the lack of modern breeding skills in the breeding community as a whole, globally. By providing training in the use of genomic tools that are becoming available, from electronic capture of data through to genotyping, phenotyping, and all the way to selective decision-making and analysis of results, IBP will play a critical role in helping folks to leverage on the genomics revolution that’s currently unfolding,” Jeff enthuses, expanding: “The Platform provides extremely valuable and much-needed resources for many public peers around the world, especially in Africa where such one-off tools that are available commercially would be otherwise out of reach.”

Conqueror caparisoned to catapult: life on the fast lane and aiming higher
Well-versed in conquering the seemingly unobtainable, Jeff shares some pearls of wisdom for young budding crop scientists:”Be motivated by the mission, and the ideas and the science, and not by what’s easy, or by what brings you the most immediate gratification,” he advises, going on to explain: “Cowpeas have been through some really tough times. Yet, my partners and I stuck it out, remained dedicated and kept working.” And the proof of Jeff’s persistence is very much in the pudding, with his team at UCR having become widely acclaimed for their success in catapulting cowpeas into the fast lane of crop research.

It was a success that led him to the hallways of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where, after two decades at UCR, Jeff is currently broadening his legume love affair to also embrace beans, groundnuts, chickpeas, pigeonpeas and soya beans.

February 2014: Jeff donning his new Gates hat (albeit with a literal ICRISAT cap on). Behind him is a field of early maturing pigeonpea experiment at ICRISAT India.

February 2014: Jeff donning his (now-not-so-)new Gates hat and on the road, visiting ICRISAT in India. Behind him is an ICRISAT experimental field of early-maturing pigeonpeas. Here, our conquering crusader is ‘helmeted’ in an ICRISAT cap, even if not horsed and caparisoned for this ‘peacetime’ pigeonpea mission!

On his future professional aspirations, he says: “The funding cut-backs for agriculture which started before 1990 or so gutted a lot of the capacity in the public sector, both in the national programmes in Africa but also beyond. I hope to play a role in rebuilding some of the capacity to ensure that people take full advantage of the technical resources available, and to enable breeding programmes to function at a higher level than they do now.”

Jeff (foreground) inspecting soya bean trials in Kakamega, Kenya.

Jeff (foreground) inspecting soya bean trials in Kakamega, Kenya, in January 2013. Next to Jeff is Emmanuel Monyo, the coordinator of the Tropical Legumes II (TLII) project – TLI’s twin – whose brief is seed multiplication. TLII is therefore responsible for translating research outputs from TLI into tangible products in the form of improved legume varieties.

Whilst it’s been several years since he donned his wellington boots for the gardening project of his youth, what’s clear in this closing statement is an unremitting and deeply ingrained sense of community spirit – albeit with a global outlook – and a fight for the greater good that remain at the core of Jeff’s professional philosophy today.

No doubt, our cowpea champion and his colleagues have come a long way, with foundations now firmly laid for modern breeding in the crop on a global scale, and – thanks to channels now being established to achieve the same for close relatives of the species – all signs indicate that the best is yet to come!

Links

Feb 212014
 

 

Steaming rice bowl

Steaming rice bowl

What’s the latest from ‘GCP TV’? Plenty! With a world-favourite – rice – featuring high and hot on the menu.

Now serving our latest news, to tease your taste-buds with a tantalising and tingling potpourri of memorable cross-continental rice flavours, all captured on camera for our viewers…

Our brand-new series on YouTube serves up a healthy seven-course video feast inviting our viewers to sink their teeth into rice research at GCP.

First, we settle down for a tête-a-tête in the rice research kitchen with chef extraordinaire, Marie-Noëlle Ndjiondjop, Principal Investigator (PI) of GCP’s Rice Research Initiative in Africa, and Senior Molecular Scientist at Africa Rice Center. Target countries are Burkina Faso, Mali and Nigeria.

Photo: A Okono/GCP

Marie-Noëlle Ndjiondjop

Starters, palate and pocket
Marie-Noëlle opens the feast with a short but succulent starter, as she explains succinctly in 30 seconds just how rice is becoming a staple in Africa. In the second course, Marie-Noëlle chews over the questions concerning combatting constraints and boosting capacity in rice research in Africa.

The third course is pleasing to the eye, the palate and the pocket! Marie-Noëlle truly sells us the benefits of molecular breeding, as she extolls the virtues of the “beauty of the marker”. Why should you use molecular tools? They’ll save you time and money!

Rice as beautiful as the markers Marie-Noëlle uses in molecular breeding

Wherefore art thou, capacity building in rice research in Africa?
The Shakespearean language alludes to the why of capacity building in Africa, as does video episode number four, which also tackles the what of this fourth dish in our banquet. Course number five offers the viewer a light look at how capacity building in Africa is carried out.

In the 6th course, Marie-Noëlle takes us out of this world and into MARS: she teaches us that ‘two are better than three’, as she explains how the novel bi-parental marker-assisted recurrent selection (MARS) method is proving effective when it comes to duelling with drought, the tricky three-headed monster comprising physiological, genetic and environmental components.

Blooming rice in the field

Of stars and scoundrels
The 7th and final course offers us a riveting tale of heroes and villains, that is, many heroes and a single villain! Our rice raconteuse, Marie-Noëlle, praises the power of the team, as a crew from cross-continental countries come together, carefully characterise their combatant (drought), before striking with environment-specific drought-tolerant varieties! AfricaRice’s project partners are Burkina Faso’s Institut de l’environnement et de recherches agricoles (INERA); Mali’s Institut d’économie rurale (IER); and Nigeria’s National Cereals Research Institute (NCRI). Collaborators are France’s Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique (CIRAD); the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT); and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

We hope these tasty teasers are enough to whet your appetite – you can savour each of the courses individually à la carte, or, for those with a daring desire to try the ‘all you can eat’ buffet for true rice gourmets, all seven courses are presented as a single serving on our YouTube channel.

Jonaliza Lanceras-Siangliw

Jonaliza Lanceras-Siangliw

Tastes from Asia
To further please your palate with our rice bowl of delights, our next stop is Asia. We are  pleased to offer you the Asian flavour through a peek into the world of molecular rice breeding in the Mekong region. Our connection to this project is through a GCP-funded capacity-building project entitled A Community of Practice for strengthening rice breeding programmes by using genotyping building strategy and improving phenotyping capacity for biotic and abiotic stresses in the Mekong region led by PI Jonaliza Lanceras-Siangliw, of the National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (BIOTEC), Thailand (see project poster, and slides on a related drought-tolerance project led by Boonrat Jongdee). BIOTEC’s partners in the Mekong rice breeding CoP are the Cambodian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI); LAO PDR’s National Agricultural and Forestry Research Institute (NAFRI);  Myanmar’s Department of Agricultural Research (DAR); and Thailand’s Kasetsart University and Ubon Ratchathani University). The video also features former GCP PI, Theerayut Toojinda (BIOTEC) whose project was similarly entitled The ‘Community of Practices’ concept applied to rice production in the Mekong region: Quick conversion of popular rice varieties with emphasis on drought, salinity and grain quality improvement.

BIOTEC

Boonrat Jongdee

Shifting gears: golden oldie
If all of this talk of eating has been a little overwhelming, we also offer you the perfect digestif: a ‘golden oldie’ in terms of GCP video history showing a 2012 BBC interview with former GCP PI, Sigrid Heuer, then at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), who explains how her project isolated the rice root-enhancing gene PSTOL1. Bon appétit!

 

Might you still have a corner of your mind yearning for more material on rice research? If so, check out the following:

  • Our lip-smacking selection of rice-related blogposts
  • A gorgeous gallery of PowerPoint presentations on rice research (SlideShare)
  • Check out our one-stop Rice InfoCentre for all things rice and nice, that we have online!

 

cheap ghd australia