Jan 082015
 

Welcome to Brazil! Journey by road six hours northwest from Rio de Janeiro and you’ll arrive to Sete Lagoas,  a city whose name means ‘Seven Lagoons’ in Portuguese. Although cloistered in farmlands, the city is largely a commercial centre, but also the seat of Embrapa Milho e Sorgo, the nerve centre of EMBRAPA’s maize and sorghum research, and so could pass for the ‘sede’ (Portuguese for headquarters) of the these two cereals. EMBRAPA is the Portuguese acronym for Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária; the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation. EMBRAPA is a GCP Consortium member, and contributed to the proposal that founded GCP.

Photo provided by J MagalhãesJurandir Magalhães (pictured), or Jura, as he likes to be referred to in informal settings such as our story today, is a cereal molecular geneticist who has been working at the Embrapa Milho e Sorgo centre since 2002. “The centre develops projects and research to produce, adapt and diffuse knowledge and technologies in maize and sorghum production by the efficient and rational use of natural resources,” Jura explains.

Such qualities are exactly what appeal to GCP, which has supported Jura as a Principal Investigator since 2004. Beyond science and on to governance and advisory issues, Jura is also EMBRAPA’s representative on the GCP Consortium Committee.

Home and away, on a journey of discovery in sorghum
Hailing from Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais State, where he was born, Jura attended the Federal University of Viçosa in his home state. Upon completing his Master’s degree at the university in 1995, he proceeded to USA’s Cornell University in 1998 for his PhD, under the watchful eye of Leon Kochian, another GCP Principal Investigator.

Sorghum rainbow_A Borrell

No, it’s not photo-shopped. This Australian sorghum-and-double-rainbows shot is from Supa Snappa, Andy Borrell, also a GCP sorghum Principal Investigator. See http://bit.ly/1tBAOMW

At Cornell, Jura worked with Leon on identifying the genes associated with aluminium tolerance in sorghum. “At the time, genes associated with aluminium tolerance were known for cereals in the Triticeae family (wheat, barley and rye). But the same genes were not found in the Poaceae family (sorghum, rice and maize). This suggested that there were different aluminium-tolerance genes at play, so it was a really pioneering project.” Continuing with the Cornell team after his PhD, Jura worked with Leon to  map the location of a major aluminium-tolerance genetic ‘hotspot’ in sorghum, which the project team contracted to  AltSB  for short (aluminium-tolerance gene or locus in Sorghum bicolor). The mapping also marked the next chapter  of what was to be a long-term professional relationship for the pair.

Brazil beckons, joining GCP, leadership and enduring partnerships
But in between, Brazil broke in and beckoned her native son home. And so it was that in 2002, Jura packed his bags and accepted a position with EMBRAPA’s maize and sorghum research centre. And despite the geographical distance, it wasn’t long before he and Leon teamed up again. “When I left Cornell, Leon and I had finished mapping AltSB and we were keen to clone it so we could then develop aluminium-tolerant sorghum varieties more efficiently,” says Jura.

Two years after his return to Brazil,  Leon and Jura – in 2004 – submitted a joint proposal for a competitive grant for their first GCP project on aluminium tolerance in cereals, premised on AltSB. This project contributed to GCP’s foundation work on sorghum in this and other projects, the common goal being a bid to provide farmers in the developing world with sorghum crops that would be able to tolerate harsh soils. But the project contributed much more with a deep taproot in pre-history, as that which we today call ‘sorghum’, ‘maize’ and ‘rice’ were once one millions of ‘Jurassic’ years ago. More on that interesting side-story.

And since this first project, EMBRAPA and Cornell University have collaborated with several other research institutes around the world, particularly in Africa.

Left to right (foreground): Leon Kochian, Jurandir Magalhães (both EMBRAPA) and Sam Gudu (Moi University) examine crosses between Kenyan and Brazilian maize, at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), Kitale, in May 2010.

Left to right (foreground): Leon, Jura and Sam Gudu (Moi University) examine crosses between Kenyan and Brazilian maize, at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), Kitale, in May 2010.

Jura leads several EMBRAPA and GCP collaborative projects across three continents (Africa, Asia and the Americas). The partnerships forged by and through these projects go well beyond project life and frame, and will therefore continue after GCP’s sunset. Jura is both team leader and team player. And a couple of GCP projects in which Jura is part of the project team will run on in 2015 (see page 10), after GCP’s closure in December 2014.

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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

 

 

 

Oct 242014
 

OAweek2014By Eloise Phipps

Imagine the scene: it is the dead of night, and you are engaged on a dangerous mission. You are tense, alert for any noise. You must complete your task without being seen, or risk the shame and humiliation of failure… but it is not a pleasant undertaking!

Your mission? A critical matter of honour. To dispose of your family’s cassava peelings – not with the rest of your household waste, but smuggled into the murky depths of the pit latrine. Why?

“The stigma about cassava is mostly among the Kikuyu people of central Kenya,” explains Henry Ngugi, Kenyan scientist and former Maize Pathologist for Latin America at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). “Traditionally, the Kikuyu are very proud, and self-sufficiency in basic needs such as food is an important factor in this. That is, you cannot be proud if you cannot feed yourself and your family. Now, the other part of the equation regarding cassava is that, traditionally, cassava was eaten during seasons of severe food shortages. It is a hardy and drought-tolerant crop so it would be available when the ‘good food’ was not. This also meant that it was associated with hunger and poverty – inability to feed oneself.”

“Another factor that may have played a role in the way the Kikuyu view cassava is that some of the traditional cultivars produced high levels of cyanide and were toxic [if not properly cooked], so as a crop it was not very highly regarded to start with. Improved cultivars have been bred to remove this problem. But because of these issues, many people would not want their neighbours to know they were so hungry they had to rely on cassava, and would go to great lengths to conceal any evidence!”

The story is not the same everywhere: graceful and strong, this farmer tends her field of cassava, in the village of Tiniu, near Mwanza, northern Tanzania.

Opening up for Open Access Week

This year, 20–26 October is Open Access Week, a global event celebrating, promoting and sharing ideas on open access – that is, making research results, including both publications and data, freely and publicly available for anyone to read, use and build upon. Even more exciting for us, this year’s theme is ‘Generation Open’, reflecting the importance of students and researchers as advocates for open access – a call that falls on fertile ground at the Generation Challenge Programme  (video below courtesy of UCMerced on YouTube).

We at GCP have been reflecting this week on different virtues of openness and transparency, and the perils of shame and secrecy. But before we go on, we’re sticking with cassava (carrying over from World Food Week!) but crossing the globe to China to celebrate the latest open-access publication to join the GCP parade. ‘Cassava genome from a wild ancestor to cultivated varieties’ by Wang et al is still practically a newborn, published on the 10th of October 2014.

The article presents draft genome sequences of a wild ancestor and a domesticated variety of cassava, with additional comparative analyses with other lines. It shows, for example, that genes involved in starch accumulation have been positively selected in cultivated cassava, and those involved in cyanogenic (ie, cyanide-producing) glucoside formation have been negatively selected. The authors hope that their results will contribute to better understanding of cassava biology, and provide a platform for marker-assisted breeding of better cassava varieties for farmers.

The research was carried out by a truly international team, led by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agriculture Sciences (CATAS) and Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Authors Wenquan Wang of CATAS and Bin Liu of CAS are delighted that their publication will be freely available, particularly in a journal with the prestige and high impact of the Nature family. As they observe, the open access to the paper will spread their experience and knowledge quickly to every corner of China and of the world where people have internet connections.

The work incorporated and partially built upon previous work mapping the cassava genome, which was funded by GCP in our project on Development of genomic resources for molecular breeding of drought tolerance in cassava (G3007.03), led by Pablo Rabinowicz, then with the University of Maryland, USA. This provides a perfect example of the kind of constructive collaboration and continuation that open access and sharing of research results can facilitate: by building on what has already been done, rather than re-inventing the wheel or working in isolation, we share, disseminate and amplify knowledge more rapidly and efficiently, with win–win outcomes for all involved.

Cassava farmers in Vietnam.

One thing that makes the latest research even more special is that it was published in Nature Communications, which marked Open Access Week by going 100 percent open access from the 20th of October, making it an open-access flagship within the Nature Publishing Group – a clear indicator of the ever-increasing demand for and credibility of open-access publishing. We congratulate all of our open-access authors for making their work publicly available, and Nature Communications for its bold decision!

A matter of perspective: turning shame to pride and fears to opportunities

No shame here: a little girl clutches a cassava root in Kenya.

Of course, human beings worrying about their social status is old as humanity itself and nothing new. Food has never been an exception as an indicator. Back in mediaeval Europe, food was a hugely important status symbol: the poor ate barley, oats and rye, while only the rich enjoyed expensive and prestigious wheat. Although our ideas about what is luxurious have changed – for example, sugar was considered a spice thanks to its high cost – rare imported foods were something to boast about just as they might be today.

But why are we ashamed of eating the ‘wrong foods’ – like cassava – when we could take pride in successfully feeding our families? Many of the things we tend to try to hide are really nothing to be ashamed of, and a simple change in perspective can turn what at first seem like weaknesses into sources of pride (and there are two sides to the cassava saga, as we shall see later).

Throughout its existence, GCP has been characterised by its openness and transparency. We have worked hard to be honest about our mistakes as well as our successes, so that both we and others can learn from them. The rewards of this clear-eyed approach are clearly noted in our Final External Review: “GCP has taken an open and pro-active attitude towards external reviews – commissioning their own independent reviews (the case of the current one) as well as welcoming a number of donor reviews. There have been clear benefits, such as the major governance and research reforms that followed the EPMR [External Programme and Management Review] and EC [European Commission] Reviews of 2008. These changes sharply increased the efficiency of GCP in delivering benefits to the poor.”

Transparent decision-making processes for determining choices of methods have also improved the quality of our science, while open, mutually respectful relationships – including open data-sharing – have underpinned our rich network of partnerships.

One aspect of this open approach is, of course, our commitment to open access. All of our own publications are released under Creative Commons licences, and we encourage all GCP grant recipients to do the same, or to pursue other open-access options. When exploring our research publications you will note that many are directly available to download. Our website will act as an archive for the future, ensuring that GCP publications remain online in one place after GCP’s closure in December this year. See our Global Access Policy and our policy on data-sharing.

“Open access journals are just terrific,” says Jean-Marcel Ribault, Director of GCP. “It’s great to enable access to publications, and it’s important to promote sharing of data and open up analysis too. The next big challenge is data management, and assuring the quality of that data. At the end of the day, the quality of the information that we share with others is fundamental.”

Proud in pink and polka dots: a farmer shows off a healthy cassava leaf in a plantation in Kampong Cham, Cambodia.

That’s a challenge that many other organisations are also grappling with. Richard Fulss, Head of Knowledge Management at our host CIMMYT is currently working on standards and approaches for the quality and structure of data, with the aim of implementing open access to all data within five years, meeting guidelines being put in place across CGIAR. “The issues to resolve are threefold,” he explains. “You have a licence issue, a technology issue – including building the right platform – and a cultural issue, where you need to build a culture of knowledge sharing and make open access publishing the norm rather than the exception.”

Our partners at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) already have a strong open-access policy, and are debunking some cherished open-access myths.

It’s good to talk: saying no to secrecy

Back to cassava, and of course not everyone feels the same way about the same crop, as there are many sides to any story. In China, demand for cassava is soaring – for food, for animal feed and most of all as a raw material for starch and biofuel production – making breeding of resilient, productive cassava varieties even more important. Even within Kenya, there are those who are quicker to see the crop’s virtues. The Luhya people of western Kenya often mix cassava with finger millet or sorghum to make flour for ugali (a stiff porridge or dough eaten as a staple food in vast swathes of Eastern and Southern Africa). As Henry explains “one reason was that such ugali ‘stayed longer in the stomach’ in literal translation from local parlance meaning it kept you full for longer – which is scientifically sound because cassava has a crude starch that takes longer to digest, and lots of fibre!”

Meanwhile, watch the delightful Chiedozie Egesi, Nigerian plant breeder and molecular geneticist, in the video below to hear all about the high potential of cassava, both as a food in itself and as a raw material to make flour and other products – something some farmers have already spotted. “Cassava can really sustain a nation… we’ve seen that it can,” he says. “You have in Nigeria now some of the Zimbabwean farmers who left Zimbabwe, got to Nigeria, and they changed from corn [maize] to cassava, because they see the potential that it has.”

The power of openness is already showing itself in the case of cassava, as well as other root, tuber and banana crops. Check out RTBMaps, an online atlas developed by the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB), using ‘scientific crowdsourcing’ to combine data on a wide range of variables, shared by many researchers, in a single map. Putting all that information together can help people make better decisions, for example on how to target breeding, or where disease threats are likely to be strongest. And for a sweet serving, here’s our humble contribution from Phase I to a world-favourite dessert!

We leave you with one final thought. It is not just cassava that is plagued with pride and prejudice; many foods attract high or low statuses in different regions – or even just variations of the same food. People in Asia and North America, for example, tend to prefer yellow maize, while Africans like their maize white. In fact, yellow maize still carries a powerful stigma in many parts of Africa, as this was the colour of the maize that arrived as external  aid in periods of famine, oftentimes perceived in Africa as animal fodder and not human food in the countries it was sourced from. And thus yellow maize became synonymous with terrible times and the suffering and indignity of being unable to feed oneself and one’s family. Consequently, some of the famine-stricken families would only cook the yellow ‘animal-fodder’  maize in the dead of night, to avoid ‘detection’ and preserve family pride and honour.

This might at first blush appear to be a minor curiosity on colour and coloured thinking, were it not for the fact that when crops – such as sweet potato, cassava, or indeed maize – are bred to be rich in pro-vitamin A, and so provide plenty of the vitamin A that is particularly crucial for young children and pregnant women, they take on a golden yellow-orange hue. When promoting the virtues of this enriched maize in parts of Africa, it’s vital to know that as ‘yellow maize’ it would fall flat on its face, but as ‘orange maize’ or ‘golden maize’ it is a roaring success. A tiny difference in approach and label, perhaps, but one that is a quantum leap in nutritional improvement, and in ‘de-stigmatisation’ and accelerating adoption. Ample proof then that sharing details matters, and that it’s good to talk – even about the things we are a little ashamed of, thereby breathing substance into the spirit of the theme ‘Generation Open’.

Do have some of these uncomfortable but candid conversations this Open Access Week and live its spirit to the fullest every day after that! As for us here at GCP, we shall continue to sow and cultivate the seeds of Generation next for plant breeding into the future, through our Integrated Breeding Platform which will outlive GCP.

A little girl in Zambia gets a valuable dose of vitamin A as she eats her orange maize.

Eyes dancing with past, present or future mischief, two cheeky young chappies from Mozambique enjoy the sweet taste of orange sweet potato enriched with pro-vitamin A.

Links:

Aug 302014
 

In ancient Europe, Timbuktu, in Northern Mali, gained fame as a fabled city of knowledge and learning at a far end of the world – snuggled in the Sahara Desert, and almost impossible to get to. And so, then as in our times, the phrase ‘As far as Timbuktu’ came to mean a place that is unimaginably far away, is completely foreign, or is unreachable – at the other end of the earth. Sitting on the left bank of the River Niger on the southern edge of the Sahara, it was not only a seat of learning in the ancient world, but also an important trade and travel stop for merchants as they sought refuge from the desert.

Niaba Teme

Niaba Témé

Timbuktu ticks on today. And if you strike out south and travel 450km from Timbuktu, you would come to the village of Yendouma-Sogol. This is where Niaba Témé, a plant breeder at Mali’s L’Institut d’économie rurale (IER), was born and grew up on the family farm, and where his saga with sorghum began.

“We grew dryland crops like millet, sorghum, cowpeas, groundnuts, Bambara nuts, sesame and dah,” says Niaba. “I used to love harvesting the millet and helping my mother with her groundnut crops.”

Niaba describes the geography and climate of the region as being very harsh. Sandstone cliffs soar from the dusty sun-scorched lower plains where temperatures are only slightly lower than the plateaus, which bake in the intense heat – the daily temperature rarely falls below 30oC. As there is no major river, every single drop of the 500 millimetres of rainfall received each wet season is used for drinking, cropping and livestock husbandry.

“The rains during July and August make farming possible for our people,” says Niaba.“If we did not receive those rains, our crops would suffer and in some years, we were not able to harvest anything.”

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

With molecular markers, you can easily see if the plant you’ve bred has the gene related to drought tolerance without having to grow the plant and or risk missing the trait through visual inspection.”

Breeding more sorghum with less water
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), with support from Syngenta complemented by other GCP funding on a project to improve sorghum grain yield and quality for West African farmers.

A sorghum farmer in Mali.

A sorghum farmer in Mali.

Sorghum is an important staple crop for Mali. It is used to make to (a thick porridge), couscous, as well as malted and local beer beverages. “Anytime I talk with farmers, they are always asking for higher-yielding lines and lines that can produce sustainable yields during drought, or do so with less water,” says Niaba. “Since 2008, with the help of CIRAD and Syngenta, we have been learning how to use molecular markers to identify parental lines which are more tolerant and better adapted to the arable and volatile environment of Mali and surrounding areas which receive between 600 and 800 millimetres of rainfall per year. 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 gene related to drought tolerance without having to grow the plant and or risk missing the trait through visual inspection.”

In 2010, Niaba obtained GCP funding to carry out similar research with CIRAD and collaborators at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Africa. “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. This involves using an elite recurrent parent that is already adapted to local drought conditions, then crossing it with several different specific or donor parents to build up larger breeding populations. The benefit of this approach is it can lead to detecting elite varieties much faster.”

AB_Mali 2009 (3) 243_w

Niaba (foreground) examining a sorghum panicle at trials in Mali in 2009.

I spent eight months in Hyderabad. It was the first time I had to speak English every day… I spent almost 11 years at the University of Texas Tech, and enjoyed every moment… We have been collaborating with researchers…  in Australia “

Traversing the world seeking knowledge
But to backtrack a bit and find out how Niaba got to where he is today, let’s return to the family farm where he grew up, and where his career inspiration was forged and fired.

With a family background in farming now coupled with a keen interest in science, young Niaba enrolled at L’Institut Polytechnique Rural de Formation et de Recherche Appliquée (IPR/IFRA) at Katiboutou, in Eastern Bamako, Mali to study agronomy. He then went to IER, where, after two years there, he was offered a scholarship to study plant breeding in India.

“I spent eight months in Hyderabad. It was the first time I had to speak English every day so I was enrolled for an intensive English course at the University of Ousmania, Hyderabad, India, for the first two months. I then went on to do six months intensive training in the ICRISAT labs, learning how to set up experiments and collect and analyse data.”

His zest for plant breeding research and knowledge still unquenched, Niaba sought yet another intensive training course, this time in USA. During his time there, he made an impression on local researchers and it wasn’t long before he returned to complete his Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD in Agronomy at the University of Texas Tech, Texas. “I spent almost 11 years at the University of Texas Tech, and enjoyed every moment. I love the opportunities and freedom that USA offers.”

Despite this attraction, Niaba remained true to Timbuktu and Mali. He left Texas and returned to Mali in January 2007 , where he was rapidly recruited by IER to take charge of their new biotechnology lab at Le Centre Regional de Recherche Agromique (CRRA). Shortly after, he became involved with GCP, working on three projects, one of which would take this native from near (or as far away as?) Timbuktu to yet another far-away place at the opposite end of the world known as Down Under – Australia.

“We have been collaborating with researchers at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry in Queensland, and the University of Queensland, Australia, since 2009, to introduce the stay-green drought-resistant gene into our local sorghum varieties.” 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.

Sorghum staying-greener with less water
Stay-green is a post-flowering drought adaptation trait that has contributed significantly to sorghum yield stability in northeastern Australia and southern USA for the last two decades. The project has three objectives:

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

“In 2012 a colleague and myself were invited to Australia to take this training by Andrew Borrell and David Jordan,” says Niaba. “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 have developed these new drought-tolerant crops which will enhance food security for my country.”

Thus ends today’s chapter in Niaba’s saga with sorghum. We expect to hear more on the latest from Niaba at the GCP General Research Meeting  (GRM) in October, so watch this space!

Meantime, see his slides from GRM 2013 below.

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

Aug 292014
 

“…I wanted to contribute in a similar way” – Eva Weltzien

 

Eva Weltzien

Eva Weltzien

Learning about the work of Nobel laureate, Norman Borlaug, in high school inspired Eva Weltzien to become a plant breeder so she too could contribute to improving the living conditions in the developing world. Today, Eva is a Principal Scientist in sorghum breeding and genetic resources at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Mali.

“Not only did Norman Borlaug revolutionise agriculture by breeding high-yielding wheat varieties, he then selflessly distributed these to the countries in the world that most needed them, saving hundreds of millions from starvation,” Eva recollects passionately, as she speaks about her scientific hero. “I remember being inspired when he won his Nobel Prize in 1970, mainly for the fact that agricultural research was actually being seen as contributing to world peace,” says Eva. “I knew then that I wanted to contribute in a similar way.”

I…wanted to take a break from… theory and instead gain an appreciation for plant breeding by working in the field”

The path to plant breeding, and pearls along the way
Eva was raised in her native Germany, as well as in Beirut, Lebanon, where she spent six years when her parents were stationed at the local university there. She credits her parents; both plant pathologists, for instilling in her a scientific mind-set from a tender age.

“They taught me to think outside the box and apply my knowledge and understanding to how I made sense of the world,” Eva recalls. “Being plant pathologists, they also encouraged me to observe the environment carefully and treat the earth with respect.”

Upon graduating from high school, Eva deferred going to university and instead worked as a seed technician for a private company in Germany. “I just wanted to take a break from studying theory and instead gain an appreciation for plant breeding by working in the field,” says Eva.

After one year with the company, Eva was ready to start university. During the decade that followed, she completed a Diploma in Agricultural Biology (University of Hohenheim, 1981) and a PhD in Agriculture (Munich University, 1986).

A year after completing her PhD, Eva accepted a postdoc position at Iowa State University, USA, where she met her future husband Fred Rattunde. After a few years, both Eva and Fred moved to India to work with ICRISAT. “I’ve been working for ICRISAT for almost 27 years now,” says Eva. “When I first started, I was working in pearl millet breeding.”

The key challenges have been improving the infrastructure of the national research facilities… as well as increasing the technical training for local researchers…this has slowly improved, particularly in the last four years with the funding and help through the GCP Sorghum Research Initiative.…we can see our work making an impact on people’s lives…”

Off to Africa, and bearing fruit
In 1998, ICRISAT offered Eva and Fred positions in Mali where they would take responsibility for the Institute’s sorghum-breeding programme in West Africa.

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Evaluating Eva: In Dioila district, Mali, evaluating the panicles of a new sorghum line after harvest.

“It was a great challenge that we both wanted to explore,” says Eva. “The key challenges have been improving the infrastructure of the national research facilities to do the research as well as increasing the technical training for local agronomists and researchers. Over the past 15 years, this has slowly improved, particularly in the last four years, with the funding and facilitation through the GCP Sorghum Research Initiative. Now we can see our work making an impact on people’s lives in West Africa.” (see GCP’s work on infrastructure improvement)

…we are closer to delivering more robust sorghum varieties which will help farmers and feed the ever-growing population in West Africa.”

Improving drought tolerance in sorghum for Africa
The second phase of GCP’s Sorghum Research Initiative focuses on Mali, where sorghum-growing areas are large, and distributed over a wide range of rainfall regimes.

Eva and her team are currently collaborating with local researchers at L’Institut d’économie rurale (IER), Mali and France’s Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD) on a project to test a novel molecular-breeding approach – backcross nested association mapping (BCNAM). Eva says the approach has the potential to halve the time it takes to develop local sorghum varieties with improved yield and adaptability to poor soil fertility conditions.

“We don’t have these type of molecular-breeding resources available in Mali, so it’s really exciting to be a part of this project.”  Still, Eva and her colleagues continue to press forwards in this new frontier in plant science, making good advances in another parallel but closely related project that Eva leads in the GCP Comparative Genomics Research Initiative.

Eva continues, “We’ve had good results in terms of field trials, despite the political situation. Overall, we feel the experience is enhancing our capacity here in Mali, and that we are closer to delivering more robust sorghum varieties which will help farmers and feed the ever-growing population in West Africa.”

Slides (with more links after the slides)

Links

Aug 272014
 
Leon Kochian

Leon Kochian

“By being involved with GCP, I’ve had more opportunities to travel to the developing world and witness the problems that local farmers in these countries are facing, as well as to meet with the local researchers who are trying to overcome these problems. It has made me appreciate that these  researchers also need the capacity to sustainably deal with agricultural problems once the project money starts to dry up.” – Leon Kochian (pictured), Professor, Cornell University, USA; and Director of Robert W Holley Center for Agriculture and Health, United States Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service. Also Product Delivery Leader for GCP’s Comparative Genomics Research Initiative.

Bright and early beginnings in biology
For as long as Leon Kochian can remember, he’d always wanted to be a biologist.

“I remember my second-grade teacher reading a story to us about the white cliffs of Dover and thinking to myself ‘They’re white because they’re covered in the prehistoric remains of dead protozoan’,”’ says Leon with a chuckle. “Yes, I was a weird kid and that sort of stuff [biology] has always interested me.”

Having completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Botany at the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in Plant Physiology at the University of California, Davis (both in USA), Leon joined the United States Department of Agriculture based at Cornell University.

For 30 years, he has combined lecturing and supervising duties at Cornell, with his quest to understand the genetic and physiological mechanisms that allow some cereals to tolerate acidic soils.

The GCP model has always attracted me, particularly its focus on making an impact on farmers’ lives… I had already been a successful researcher having published more than 250 papers, but I felt little of that had made any real impact on the world.”

Identifying genes and breeding tolerant crops for African farmers
Leon and Cornell University have been involved with GCP since the Programme’s inception in 2004, playing a lead role in GCP’s Comparative Genomics Research Initiative, of which Leon is the Product Delivery Coordinator. Cornell University is a member of the GCP Consortium, with Leon as Cornell’s representative in the GCP Consortium Committee.

“The GCP model has always attracted me, particularly its focus on making an impact on farmers’ lives,” says Leon, who has been a Principal Investigator for several Comparative Genomics Research Initiative projects. “I had already been a successful researcher having published more than 250 papers, but I felt little of that had made any real impact on the world.”

During the first phase of the project, Leon led a team comprising of researchers from Cornell, EMBRAPA in Brazil and Moi University in Kenya.

In the foreground, left to right, Leon, Jura and Sam in a maize field in Kenya.

Leon (left) with project colleagues, Jurandir Magalhães (EMBRAPA) and Sam Gudu (Moi University) in a maize field in Kenya in May 2010.

“We had been working for many years with both EMBRAPA and Moi University to identify the genes associated with aluminium tolerance in sorghum and maize and saw the potential to apply our research and expand it to explore other cereals such as rice and wheat,” explains Leon.

During GCP Phase I (2004–2008), the team successfully identified and cloned the major sorghum aluminium tolerance gene (AltSB). In Phase II (2009–2014), they are working towards breeding aluminium-tolerant sorghum lines for sub-Saharan Africa as well as applying what they have learnt to discover similar genes in rice and maize.

“Aluminium toxicity is a problem all over the world, but more so in Africa, as most farmers don’t have the money to manage it,” says Leon “These new aluminium-tolerant crops will improve African farmers’ yields, and, in turn, improve their quality of life.”

It’s like match.com for collaborative research and will hopefully foster greater collaboration between the two continents.”

Insights, connections and matchmaking
According to Leon, the funding from GCP has been very beneficial in making significant research progress on the projects he’s been involved with so far, and he is also quick to note the unexpected and very welcome non-monetary benefits from being involved with GCP.

“By being involved with GCP, I’ve had more opportunities to travel to the developing world and witness the problems that local farmers in these countries are facing, as well as to meet with the local researchers who are trying to overcome these problems. It has made me appreciate that these  researchers also need the capacity to sustainably deal with agricultural problems once the project money starts to dry up.”

Working with GCP, Leon has designed and run workshops to train African scientists on molecular breeding techniques and hosted several postgraduate researchers at Cornell. He is now working with GCP collaborators to develop a database that will help African scientists find potential collaborators in USA and the rest of the Americas. “It’s like match.com for collaborative research and will hopefully foster greater collaboration between the two continents,” says Leon.

Research is such a fun and social experience! … I still love getting into the lab and discovering new things. I’ve also learnt to enjoy being the old guy in the lab!”

Growing greyer, growing wiser
Leon says his passion for biology and research is steadfast and has not waned through the years. Although he doesn’t get to do much of the hands-on work these days, it still remains the most enjoyable part of his job. “Research is such a fun and social experience! I still love getting into the lab and discovering new things. I’ve also learnt to enjoy being the old guy in the lab! Just watching and helping young researchers grow and develop their skills is really rewarding. Each of the 13 PhD students I’ve supervised is like one of my kids and I still keep in touch with all of them, as I do with my own PhD supervisor, 30 years on!”

Having recently celebrated his 60th birthday, Leon has no plans on slowing down anytime soon. “I’m currently Director of the Robert W Holley Center for Agriculture and Health, lecturing undergraduate and postgraduate students, supervising two PhD students and sitting on several boards, all the while trying to find time to write papers and do some research. It’s hard work but I enjoy it.”

The three faces of Leon: (1) in the lab in Cornell; (2) in the field courtesy of USDA-ARS; and, (3) delivering opening remarks as Director of the Robert W Holley Center

The three faces of Leon: (1) in the lab in Cornell; (2) in the field, courtesy of USDA–ARS; and, (3) delivering opening remarks as Director of the Robert W Holley Center.

Leon tries to impart this philosophy to his students, believing scientists need to enjoy what they are doing, work hard at it, be flexible and creative, and, most importantly, not have ‘fear of failure’. “I don’t care how smart you are. If you’re not willing to work really hard and learn to improve yourself, then you’re not going to succeed.”

With regard to his GCP projects soon coming to a close when GCP sunsets in December 2014, Leon hopes he and team will succeed in meeting all their goals, but even if they don’t, he’s sure they’ll continue the research and try to discover more about aluminium tolerance. More power to them!

Leon’s slides, with links to more supplementary material after the slides

Links

Aug 152014
 

 

Samuel Gudu

Samuel Gudu

Having funding to support PhD students and provide them with the resources they need to complete their research is very fulfilling and will go a long way to enhance the long-term success of our goal: to provide Kenyan farmers with cereal varieties that will improve their yields and make their livelihood more secure and sustainable.” – Samuel Gudu, Professor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Planning & Development) at Moi University, and now Principal, Rongo University College: a Constituent College of Moi University, Kenya.

Growing up, and getting dirty
Learner, teacher and leader. Sam Gudu has been all these, but this doesn’t mean he doesn’t like to get his hands dirty.

Growing up in a small fishing village on the banks of Lake Victoria, in Western Kenya, Sam was always helping his parents to fish and garden, or his grandparents to muster cattle.

“I remember spending long hours before and after school either on the lake or in the field helping to catch, harvest and produce enough food to eat and support our family,” reminisces Sam.

He attributes this “hard and honest” work to why he still enjoys being in the field.

“Even though I now spend most of my days doing administration work, I’m always trying to get out into the field to get my hands dirty and see how our research is helping to make the lives of Kenyan farmers a lot more profitable and sustainable,” he says.

Sam in a maize field in Kenya.

Doing what he likes to do best: Sam in a maize field in Kenya.

I was… captivated by the study of genetics as it focused on what controlled life.”

Taking control: bonded to genetics, at home and away
Sam says his love for the land transferred to an interest and then passion in the classroom during high school. “I became very interested in Biology as I wanted to know how nature worked,” says Sam. “I was particularly captivated by the study of genetics as it focused on what controlled life.”

This interest grew during his undergraduate years at the University of Nairobi where he completed a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and a Master’s of Science in Agriculture, focusing on genetics and plant breeding.

“I fondly remember a lecturer during my master’s degree studies who would continually give us challenges to test in the field and in the lab. If you had a viable idea he supported you to design an experiment to test your theory. I like to use the same method in teaching my students. I discuss quite a lot with my students and I encourage them to disagree if they use scientific process.”

Driven by an ever-growing passion and enthusiasm, Sam secured a scholarship to travel to Canada to undertake a PhD in Plant Genetics and Biotechnology at the University of Guelph.

[There has been an] influx of young Kenyans who are choosing degrees in science. The Kenyan Government has recently increased its funding for science and research…”

Nurturing the next breed of geneticists
After graduating from Guelph in 1993, Sam returned to Kenya to lecture at Moi University where he initiated and helped expand teaching and research in the disciplines of Genetic Engineering, Biotechnology and Molecular Biology.

In the past two decades, he has recruited young talented graduates in genetics and helped acquire advanced laboratory equipment that has enabled practical teaching and research in molecular biology.

“I wouldn’t be where I am now were it not for all the assistance I received from my teachers, lecturers and supervisors; notably my PhD supervisor – Prof Ken Kasha of the University of Guelph. So I’ve always tried my best to give the same assistance to my students. It’s been hard work but very rewarding, especially when you see your students graduate to become peers and colleagues.” (Meet some of Sam’s students)

Sam (2nd right), with some of his young charges: Thomas Matonyei (far left) , Edward Saina (2nd left) and Evans Ouma (far right)

Sam (2nd right), with some of his young charges: Thomas Matonyei (far left), Edward Saina (2nd left) and Evans Ouma (far right).

Sam is particularly buoyed by the influx of young Kenyans who are choosing degrees in science.

“The Kenyan Government has recently increased its funding for science and research to two percent of GDP,” explains Sam. “This has not only helped us compete in the world of research but has helped raise the profile of science as a career.”

Knowing which genes are responsible for aluminium tolerance will allow us to more precisely select for aluminium tolerance in our breeding programmes, reducing the time it takes for us to breed varieties that will have improved yields in acidic soils without the use of costly inputs such as lime or fertiliser.” (See the work that Sam does in this area with other partners outside Kenya)

So far we have produced 10 inbred lines that are outstanding for phosphorus efficiency, and two that were outstanding for aluminium toxicity. We are now testing unique verities developed for acid soils of Kenya.”

Slashing costs, increasing yields and resilience: genes to the rescue
Currently, Sam and his team of young researchers at Moi University are working with several other research facilities around the world (Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, EMBRAPA; Cornell University, USA; the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI); Japan’s International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences, JIRCAS; and the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, KARI–Kitale) to develop high-yielding maize varieties adapted to acid soils in East Africa, using molecular and conventional breeding approaches.

Can you spot Sam? It’s a dual life. Here, he sheds his field clothes in this 2011 suit-and-tie moment with Moi University and other colleagues involved in the projects he leads. Left to right: P Kisinyo, J Agalo, V Mugalavai, B Were, D Ligeyo, S Gudu, R Okalebo and A Onkware.

Acid soils cover almost 13 per cent of arable land in Kenya, and most of the maize-growing areas in Kenya. In most of these areas, maize yields are reduced by almost 60 per cent. Aluminium toxicity is partly responsible for the low and declining yields.

“We found that most local maize varieties and landraces grown in acid soils are sensitive to aluminium toxicity. The aluminium reduces root growth and as such the plant cannot efficiently tap into native soil phosphorus, or even added phosphorus fertiliser. However, there are some varieties of maize that are suited to the conditions even if you don’t use lime to improve the soil’s pH. So far we have produced 10 inbred lines that are outstanding for phosphorus efficiency, and two that were outstanding for aluminium toxicity. We are now testing unique varieties developed for acid soils of Kenya.”

Sam (left)   a group of farmers and alking to farmers and researchers at Sega, Western Kenya, in June 2009

Sam (left) addressing a mixed group of farmers and researchers at Sega, Western Kenya, in June 2009.

In a related project, Sam is working with the same partners to understand the molecular and genetic basis for aluminium tolerance.

“Knowing which genes are responsible for aluminium tolerance will allow us to more precisely select for aluminium tolerance in our breeding programmes, reducing the time it takes for us to breed varieties that will have improved yields in acidic soils without the use of costly inputs such as lime or fertiliser.”

 … my greatest achievements thus far have been those which have benefited farmers and my students.”

 Summing up success
For Sam, the greatest two successes in his career have not been personal.

“If I’m honest, I have to say my greatest achievements thus far have been those which have benefited farmers and my students. Having funding to support PhD students and provide them with the resources they need to complete their research is very fulfilling and will go a long way to enhance the long-term success of our goal: to provide Kenyan farmers with cereal varieties that will improve their yields and make their livelihoods more secure and sustainable.”

With a dozen aluminium-tolerant and phosphorus-efficient breeding lines under their belt already, and two lines submitted for National Variety Trials (a pre-requisite step to registration and release to farmers), Sam and his team seem well on their way towards their goal, and we wish them well in their quest and labour.

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Jul 242014
 

Read how this cocktail blends in a comparative genomics crucible, where both family genes and crop genes come into play in Brazil. Nothing whatsoever to do with the World Cup. It’s all about a passionate love affair with plant science – specifically a quest for aluminium-resilient maize – spanning a decade-and-a-half, and still counting…

Claudia

Claudia Guimarães

 

“I love the whole process of science; from identifying a problem, developing a method, conducting the experiments, analysing the data and evaluating the findings.” – Claudia Guimarães (pictured), Researcher at EMBRAPA Milho e Sorgo, Sete Lagoas, Brazil

I always enjoyed looking after the cattle and horses as well as planting and harvesting different crops.”

Forged on family farm, federal institute and foreign land
Claudia Guimarães is a plant molecular geneticist, with a pronounced passion for science. At the Federal University of Viçosa, Claudia studied agronomy because it provided a wide range of possibilities career-wise. She also believes her family’s farming background too had a part to play in her study and career choice. “My father has a farm in a small village 200 km north of Sete Lagoas. My whole family used to go there during our school holidays. I always enjoyed looking after the cattle and horses as well as planting and harvesting different crops.”

During her bachelor’s degrees, Claudia was increasingly drawn to plant genetics. She decided to pursue this field further and completed a Master’s degree in Genetics and Breeding, focusing on maize. She then completed a PhD in Comparative Genomics where she split her time between California and Brazil. “For my PhD, I got a scholarship from the Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development which included international training in San Diego, California. During my PhD, I focused on comparative genomics for sugarcane, maize and sorghum, which involved genetic mapping and markers,” Claudia reveals.

Returning to Brazil after two years in California, Claudia joined the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, commonly referred to as EMBRAPA (Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária), where she has worked for the last 15 years, since 1999.

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Preparing to put her shoulder to the wheel, literally? Claudia in a maize field at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Tlaltizapan, Mexico, in January 2010.

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Maize plantlets cultivated in nutrient solution, the methodology Claudia and her team use to evaluate aluminium tolerance.

Our next challenge is to develop specific markers for a wider marker-assisted selection of aluminium tolerance in maize.”

Long-term allies in aluminium tolerance
EMBRAPA first became involved with GCP through one of its foundation programmes headed by Leon Kochian and his former PhD student Jurandir Magalhães. “Jura has been a really close friend for a long time,” explains Claudia. “We went to university together and have ended up working together here at EMBRAPA. I was involved in Jura’s project, which sought to clone a sorghum aluminium-tolerance gene.”

This gene is called SbMATE. Claudia continues, “EMBRAPA had a long-term aluminium-tolerance programme on maize and sorghum, within which there was a QTL mapping project for aluminium tolerance in maize, in which we started to look for a similar gene as the sorghum team.”

[Editor’s note: QTL stands for quantitative trait locus or loci – gene loci where allelic variation is associated with variation in a quantitative trait. An allele is a variant (different version) of a gene, that leads to variation in a trait, eg different colour for hair and eyes in human beings.]

Working with Leon Kochian at Cornell University, USA, Claudia and her team were able to find an important aluminium-tolerance gene homologue (loosely meaning a relative or counterpart) to the sorghum SbMATE, which they named ZmMATE. This gene is responsible for a major aluminium tolerance QTL that improves yield in acidic soil in maize breeding lines and hybrids. (see why scientists work jointly on closely related cereals)

“Identifying and then validating ZmMATE as the primary aluminium tolerance QTL in maize was a great project,” says Claudia. “Our next challenge is to develop specific markers for a wider marker-assisted selection of aluminium tolerance in maize.”

1: Rhyzobox containing two layers of Cerrado soil – a corrected top-soil and lower soils with 15 percent of aluminium saturation. We can see that near-isogenic lines (NILs) introgressed with the Al tolerance QTL (qALT6) that encompasses ZmMATE1 show deeper roots and longer secondary roots in acid soils, whereas the roots of L53 are mainly confined in the corrected top soil.  2: Maize ears, representing the improved yield stability in acid soils of a NIL per se and crossed with L3. NILs have the genetic background of L53 introgressed with qALT6, the major aluminium-tolerance QTL.

March 2014. Photo 1: Rhyzobox containing two layers of Cerrado soil – a corrected top-soil and lower soils with 15 percent aluminium saturation. We can see that near-isogenic lines (NILs) introgressed with the aluminium-tolerance QTL (qALT6) that encompasses ZmMATE1 show deeper roots and longer secondary roots in acidic soils, whereas the roots of L53 are mainly confined in the corrected top soil. Photo 2: Maize ears, representing the improved yield stability in acidic soils of a NIL per se and crossed with L3. NILs have the genetic background of L53 introgressed with qALT6, the major aluminium-tolerance QTL.

 

 …the students have really become my arms…  helping me a lot with the experiments…

Giving and receiving: students step in, partners in print
Supervising students has become a larger part of Claudia’s life since becoming a member of the Genetics Graduate Programme at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, in 2004. Because of this, she credits the students for helping her with her research. “I don’t have as much time as I used to in the lab, so the students have really become my arms in that area, helping me a lot with the experiments,” Claudia reveals. “This isn’t to say that they don’t have to think about what they are doing. I encourage them to always be thinking about why they are doing an experiment and what the result means. At the end of the day, they need to know more about what they are doing than I do, so they can identify indiscretions and successes.”

Claudia says she is always preaching three simple instructions to her students – work hard, always continue to learn and like what you do. “The last instruction is particularly important because as a scientist you need to dedicate a lot of time to what you do, so it helps if you like it. If you don’t like it then it becomes frustrating and no fun at all. I don’t think of my work as a job, rather as a passion. I just enjoy it so much!”

Claudia’s passion is not just a matter of the heart but also of the head, expressing itself in print. Her latest publication reflects the most current results on maize aluminium tolerance, highlighting GCP support, partnerships within and beyond EMBRAPA embracing Cornell University and the Agricultural Research Services of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA–ARS) , as well as the strong presence of students. Check it out

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SLIDES

Jul 232014
 

 

DNA spiral

DNA spiral

Crop researchers including plant breeders across five continents are collaborating on several GCP projects to develop local varieties of sorghum, maize and rice, which can withstand phosphorus deficiency and aluminium toxicity – two of the most widespread constraints leading to poor crop productivity in acidic soils. These soils account for nearly half the world’s arable soils, with the problem particularly pronounced in the tropics, where few smallholder farmers can afford the costly farm inputs to mitigate the problems. Fortunately, science has a solution, working with nature and the plants’ own defences, and capitalising on cereal ‘family history’ from 65 million years ago. Read on in this riveting story related by scientists, that will carry you from USA to Africa and Asia with a critical stopover in Brazil and back again, so ….

… welcome to Brazil, where there is more going than the 2014 football World Cup! Turning from sports to matters cerebral and science, drive six hours northwest from Rio de Janeiro and you’ll arrive in Sete Lagoas, nerve centre of the EMBRAPA Maize and Sorghum Research Centre. EMBRAPA stands for Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária  ‒  in  English, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation.

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Jurandir Magalhães

Jurandir Magalhães (pictured), or Jura as he prefers to be called, is a cereal molecular geneticist and principal scientist who’s been at EMBRAPA since 2002.

“EMBRAPA develops projects and research to produce, adapt and diffuse knowledge and technologies in maize and sorghum production by the efficient and rational use of natural resources,” Jura explains.

Such business is also GCP’s bread and butter. So when in 2004, Jura and his former PhD supervisor at Cornell University, Leon Kochian, submitted their first GCP project proposal to clone a major aluminium tolerance gene in sorghum they had been searching for, GCP approved the proposal.

“We were already in the process of cloning the AltSB gene,” remembers Jura, “So when this opportunity came along from GCP, we thought it would provide us with the appropriate conditions to carry this out and complete the work.”

Cloning the AltSB gene would prove to be one of the first steps in GCP’s foundation sorghum and maize projects, both of which seek to provide farmers in the developing world with crops that will not only survive but thrive in the acidic soils that make up more than half of the world’s arable soils (see map below).

More than half of world’s potentially arable soils are highly acidic.

More than half of world’s potentially arable soils are highly acidic.

… identifying the AltSB gene was a significant achievement which brought the project closer to their final objective, which is to breed aluminium-tolerant crops that will improve yields in harsh environments, in turn improving the quality of life for farmers.”

A star is born: identifying and cloning AltSB
For 30 years, Leon Kochian (pictured below) has combined lecturing and supervising duties at Cornell University and the United States Department of Agriculture, with his quest to understand the genetic and physiological mechanisms behind the ability of some cereals to withstand acidic soils. Leon is also the Product Delivery Coordinator for GCP’s Comparative Genomics Research Initiative.

Leon Kochian

Leon Kochian

Aluminium toxicity is associated with acidic soils and is the primary limitation on crop production for more than 30 percent of farmland in Southeast Asia and Latin America, and approximately 20 percent in East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and North America. Aluminium ions damage roots and impair their growth and function. This results in reduced nutrient and water uptake, which in turn depresses yield.

“These effects can be limited by applying lime to increase the soil’s pH. However, this isn’t a viable option for farmers in developing countries,” says Leon, who was the Principal Investigator for the premier AltSB project and is currently involved in several off-shoot projects.

Working on the understanding that grasses like barley and wheat use membrane transporters to insulate themselves against subsoil aluminium, Leon and Jura searched for a similar transporter in sorghum varieties that were known to tolerate aluminium.

“In wheat, when aluminium levels are high, these membrane transporters prompt organic acid release from the tip of the root,” explains Leon. “The organic acid binds with the aluminium ion, preventing it from entering the root. We found that in certain sorghum varieties, AltSB is the gene that encodes a specialised organic acid transport protein – SbMATE*  –  which mediates the release of citric acid. From cloning the gene, we found it is highly expressed in aluminium-tolerant sorghum varieties. We also found that the expression increases the longer the plant is exposed to high levels of aluminium.”

[*Editor’s note: different from the gene with the same name, hence not in italics]

Leon says identifying the AltSB gene and then cloning it was a significant achievement and it brought the project closer to their final objective, which he says is “to breed aluminium-tolerant crops that will improve yields in harsh environments, in turn improving the quality of life for farmers.”

This research was long and intensive, but it set a firm foundation for the work in GCP Phase II, which seeks to use what we have learnt in the laboratory and apply it to breed crops that are tolerant to biotic or abiotic stress such as aluminium toxicity and phosphorus deficiency.”

Comparative genomics: finding similar genes in different crops
Wheat, maize, sorghum and rice are all part of the Poaceae (grasses) family, evolving from a common grass ancestor 65 million years ago. Over this time they have become very different from each other. However, at a genetic level they still have a lot in common.

Over the last 20 years, genetic researchers all over the world have been mapping these cereals’ genomes. These maps are now being used by geneticists and plant breeders to identify similarities and differences between the genes of different cereal species. This process is termed comparative genomics and is a fundamental research theme for GCP research as part of its second phase.

rajeev-varshney_1332450938

Rajeev Varshney

“The objective during GCP Phase I was to study the genomes of important crops and identify genes conferring resistance or tolerance to biotic or abiotic stresses,” says Rajeev Varshney (pictured), Director, Center of Excellence in Genomics and Principal Scientist in applied genomics at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). “This research was long and intensive, but it set a firm foundation for the work in GCP Phase II, which seeks to use what we have learnt in the laboratory and apply it to breed crops that are tolerant to biotic or abiotic stress such as aluminium toxicity and phosphorus deficiency.”

Until August 2013, Rajeev had oversight on GCP’s comparative genomics research projects on aluminium tolerance and phosphorus deficiency is sorghum, maize and rice, as part of his GCP role as Leader of the Comparative and Applied Genomics Theme.

“Phosphorus deficiency and aluminium toxicity are soil problems that typically coincide in acidic soils,” says Rajeev. “They are two of the most critical constraints responsible for low crop productivity on acid soils worldwide. These projects are combining the aluminium tolerance work done by EMBRAPA and Cornell University with the phosphorus efficiency work done by IRRI [International Rice Research Institute] and JIRCAS [Japan International Research Centre for Agricultural Sciences] to first identify and validate similar aluminium-tolerance and phosphorus-efficient genes in sorghum, maize and rice, and then, secondly, breed crops with these combined improvements.”

These collaborations are really exciting! They make it possible to answer questions that we could not answer ourselves, or that we would have overlooked, were it not for the partnerships.”

When AltSB met Pup1
Having spent more than a decade identifying and cloning AltSB, Jura and Leon have recently turned their attention to identifying and cloning the genes responsible for phosphorus efficiency in sorghum. Luckily, they weren’t starting from scratch this time, as another GCP project on the other side of the world was well on the way to identifying a phosphorus-efficiency gene in rice.

Led by Matthias Wissuwa at JIRCAS and Sigrid Heuer at IRRI, the Asian base GCP project had identified a gene locus, which encoded a particular protein kinase that allowed varieties with this gene to grow successfully in low-phosphorous conditions. They termed the region of the rice genome where this gene resides as ‘phosphorus uptake 1’ or Pup1 as it is commonly referred to in short.

“In phosphorus-poor soils, this protein kinase instructs the plant to grow larger, longer roots, which are able to forage through more soil to absorb and store more nutrients,” explains Sigrid. “By having a larger root surface area, plants can explore a greater area in the soil and find more phosphorus than usual. It’s like having a larger sponge to absorb more water!”

Read more about the mechanics of Pup-1 and the evolution of the project.

Jura and Leon are working on the same theory as IRRI and JIRCAS, that larger and longer roots enhance phosphorus efficiency. They are identifying sorghum with these traits, using comparative genomics to identify a locus similar to Pup1 in these low-phosphorus-tolerant varieties, and then verify whether the genes at this locus are responsible for the trait.

“So far, the results are promising and we have evidence that Pup1 homologues may underlie a major QTL for phosphorous uptake in sorghum,” says Jura who is leading the project to identify and validate Pup1 and other phosphorus-efficiency QTLs in sorghum.  QTL stands for ‘quantitative trait locus’ which refers to stretches of DNA containing ‒ or linked to ‒ the genes responsible for a quantitative trait  “What we have to do now is to see if this carries over in the field, leading to enhanced phosphorus uptake and grain yield in low-phosphorus soils,” he adds.

Jura and Leon are also returning the favour to IRRI and JIRCAS and are collaborating with both institutes to identify and clone in rice similar genes to the AltSB gene in sorghum.

“These collaborations are really exciting! They make it possible to answer questions that we could not answer ourselves, or that we would have overlooked, were it not for the partnerships,” says Sigrid.

To make a difference in rural development, to truly contribute to improved food security through crop improvement and incomes for poor farmers, we knew that capacity development had to be a continuing cornerstone in our strategy.”

Building capacity in Africa
In GCP Phase II which is more application oriented, projects must have objectives that deliver products and build capacity in developing-world breeding programmes.

Jean-Marcel Ribaut

Jean-Marcel Ribaut

“The thought behind the latter requirement is that GCP is not going to be around after 2014 so we need to facilitate these country breeding programmes to take ownership of the science and products so they can continue it locally,” says Jean-Marcel Ribaut, GCP Director (pictured). “To make a difference in rural development, to truly contribute to improved food security through crop improvement and incomes for poor farmers, we knew that capacity development had to be a continuing cornerstone in our strategy.”

Back to Brazil: Jura says this requirement is not uncommon for EMBRAPA projects as the Brazilian government seeks to become a world leader in science and agriculture. “Before GCP started, we had been working with African partners for five to six years through the McKnight Project. It was great when GCP came along as we were able to continue these collaborations.”

Samuel Gudu

Samuel Gudu

One collaboration Jura was most pleased to continue was with his colleague and friend, Sam Gudu (pictured), from Moi University, Kenya. Sam has been collaborating with Jura and Leon on several GCP projects and is the only African Principal Investigator in the Comparative Genomics Research Initiative.

“Our relationship with EMBRAPA and Cornell University has been very fruitful,” says Sam. “We wouldn’t have been able to do as much as we have done without these collaborations or without our other international collaborators at IRRI, JIRCAS, ICRISAT or Niger’s National Institute of Agricultural Research [INRAN].”

Sam is currently working on several projects with these partners looking at validating the genes underlying major aluminium-tolerance and phosphorus-efficiency traits in local sorghum and maize varieties in Kenya, as well as establishing a molecular breeding programme.

“The molecular-marker work has been very interesting. We have selected the best phosphorus-efficient lines from Brazil and Kenya, and have crossed them with local varieties to produce several really good hybrids which we are currently field-testing in Kenya,” explains Sam. “Learning and using these new breeding techniques will enable us to select for and breed new varieties faster.”

Sam is also grateful to both EMBRAPA and Cornell University for hosting several PhD students as part of the project. “This has been a significant outcome as these PhD students are returning to Kenya with a far greater understanding of molecular breeding which they are sharing with us to advance our national breeding programme.”

We’ve used the knowledge that Jura’s and Leon’s AltSB projects have produced to discover and validate similar genes in maize…We identified Kenyan lines carrying the superior allele of ZmMATE …This work will also improve our understanding of what other mechanisms may be working in the Brazilian lines too.” 

‘Everyone’ benefits! Applying the AltSB gene to maize
Claudia Guimarães (pictured) is a maize geneticist at EMBRAPA. But unlike Jura, her interest lies in maize.

Claudia

Claudia Guimarães

Working on the same comparative genomics principle used to identify Pup1 in sorghum, Claudia has been leading a GCP project replicating the sorghum aluminium tolerance work in maize.

“We’ve used the knowledge that Jura’s and Leon’s AltSBprojects have produced to discover and validate similar genes in maize,” explains Claudia. “From our mapping work we identified ZmMATE as the gene underlying a major aluminium tolerance QTL in maize. It has a similar sequence as the gene found in sorghum and it encodes a similar protein membrane transporter that is responsible for citrate extradition.”

A maize field at EMBRAPA. Maize on the left is aluminum-tolerant while the maize on the right is not.

A maize field at EMBRAPA. Maize on the left is aluminium-tolerant while the maize on the right is not.

Using molecular markers, Claudia and her team of researchers from EMBRAPA, Cornell University and Moi University have developed near-isogenic lines from Brazilian and Kenyan maize varieties that show aluminium tolerance, with ZmMATE present. From preliminary field tests, the Brazilian lines have had improved yields in acidic soils.

“We identified a few Kenyan lines carrying the superior allele of ZmMATE that can be used as donors to develop maize varieties with improved aluminium tolerance,” says Claudia.  “This work will also improve our understanding of what other mechanisms may be working in the Brazilian lines too.”

What has pleased Jura and other Principal Investigators the most is the leadership that African partners have taken in GCP projects.

Cherry on the cereal cake
With GCP coming to an end in December 2014, Jura is hopeful that his and other offshoot projects dealing with aluminium tolerance and phosphorus efficiency will deliver on what they set out to do.

“For me, the cherry on the cake for the aluminium-tolerance projects would be if we show that AltSB improves tolerance in acidic soils in Africa. If everything goes well, I think this will be possible as we have already developed molecular markers for AltSB.”

What has pleased Jura and other Principal Investigators the most is the leadership that African partners have taken in GCP projects.

“This has been a credit to them and all those involved to help build their capacity and encourage them to take the lead. I feel this will help sustain the projects into the future and one day help these developing countries produce varieties of sorghum and maize for their farmers that are able to yield just as well in acidic soils as they do in non-acidic soils.”

In the foreground, left to right, Leon, Jura and Sam in a maize field in Kenya.

In the foreground, left to right, Leon, Jura and Sam in a maize field at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), Kitale, in May 2010. They are examining crosses between Kenyan and Brazilian maize germplasm.

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