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Born in Africa: A lifelong cross-continental love affair with science

 Africa, Asia, Crop breeding, Genetics, Genomics, Researchers, Rice, Women in science  2 Responses »
Nov 302012
 
Photo: IRRI

Sigrid Heuer

Meet Sigrid Heuer (pictured), a Molecular Biologist and Senior Scientist at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). Her lively and riveting story will take us from Africa through her native Europe and on to Asia, and finally Down Under to Australia.

Origins – the African chapter
Africa holds a special and soft spot in Sigrid’s love affair with science: it was while on this continent that she realised her calling in life as a scientist – linking people doing pure research on plant genes to help plants survive and even thrive in harsh environments, with people who want to apply that knowledge to breed crops that can change the lives of millions of farmers who constantly compromise with nature to make a living.

Photo: IRRI

Fieldwork: Sigrid at a field trial for rice phosphorus uptake.

“Working as a postdoc at the Africa Rice Center in Senegal was a real life-changing experience,” Sigrid recollects with great fondness. “It’s where I found my niche, using my background in theoretical science and applying it to developing crops that could overcome abiotic stresses, and in doing so, make a real impact on people’s lives.”

Rowing further down the river: from upstream to downstream science
Sigrid was born and raised in Hamburg, Germany. She remembers wanting to be a psychologist and didn’t consider science until a few years after finishing school. After completing a biology undergraduate at Phillips University, Marburg, Germany, she returned to her home city of Hamburg to complete a Masters and PhD in plant physiology and molecular biology respectively.

“Back then, I was really involved in upstream science, fascinated in the fine details without much consideration of how such research could benefit society,” says Sigrid. “I still enjoy this form of science and really do value its purpose, but putting it into practice and focusing on the impact that it can have is what really motivates me now.”

Moving to IRRI, and meeting Pup1 and GCP
After three years in Senegal, Sigrid moved to the Philippines to join IRRI in 2003, first as a consultant then as a part-time scientist. In these early years, she was working on several projects, one of which was the GCP-funded Pup1 (rice phosphorus uptake) project.

“The project sought to identify the genes associated with phosphorus uptake in rice lines that could tolerate phosphorus-deficient soils,” says Sigrid. “It was an interesting project in which I was able to use my background in molecular biology. Little by little, I got more and more involved in the Pup1 project and after a year I was asked by Matthias Wissuwa, who was leading the project at the time, if I wanted to take it over. It was a great opportunity which I jumped at, not knowing then how challenging it would prove.”

Pup1 was the first major project I had managed. It was a playground of sorts that allowed me to learn what I needed to know about managing a project – writing proposals and reports, managing budgets and people’s time, and everything else that comes with leading a team.

The ‘root’ and  ‘command post’ where it all happens: Sigrid in the office. For the benefit of our readers, we would have credited the young artist whose colourful work graces the background below the bookshelf, but we were too polite to pry and prise out the young talent’s name, having hogged too much of Sigrid’s time already!

Learning to lead – both work and play

Over the last seven years, Sigrid has been a Principal Investigator and joint leader of the project, which has given her latitude to mature professionally, and not just in science alone. “It’s been tough but personally fulfilling,” Sigrid says, with just a touch of exhaustion.

“Pup1 was the first major project I had managed. It was a playground of sorts that allowed me to learn what I needed to know about managing a project – writing proposals and reports, managing budgets and people’s time, and everything else that comes with leading a team. I was really lucky to have Matthias’ help as well as the other experienced collaborators and networks. However, the main factor that made my job a lot less stressful, was the benefit of long-term funding and support from GCP. GCP was always there, supporting us and giving us confidence even when we weren’t sure we were going to succeed.”

Persistence pays: tangible products, plus publication in Nature
In August 2012, Sigrid and her team achieved what they had set out to do seven years ago, through what Sigrid puts down to sheer persistence: their discovery of the Pup1 gene was recognised by their scientific peers and published in the highly renowned journal,  Nature.

Sigrid (3rd left) at the lab with other colleagues in the phosphorus uptake team.

“Having our paper published is really something special and personally my greatest achievement to date,” says Sigrid, but she is also quick to add that it was a team achievement, and that the achievement was in itself humbling.

“It was a double reward for persisting with the research, and with getting it into Nature. We wanted it in Nature for several reasons. To raise awareness on phosphorus deficiency and phosphorus being a limited resource, especially in poorer countries; and to draw attention to how we do molecular breeding these days, which is a speedier, easier and cost-effective approach to developing crops that have the potential to alleviate such problems.”

Sigrid hopes the article will have a lasting impression on readers, and encourage funders to continue to support projects that have such impact on the lives of end-users.

What next? Technology transfer, transitions and torch smoothly passing on…
With the Pup1 gene now found, IRRI researchers are working with breeders from country-based breeding programmes around the world to help them understand the techniques to breed local varieties of rice that can grow in phosphorus-deficient soils. They are also collaborating with other projects that wish to use the Pup1 project as a case study for phosphorous deficiency tolerance in other crops like maize, sorghum, and wheat (see an example here, that includes partners from Africa and Latin America).

Sigrid sees this next stage as a perfect time to step down from the project: she plans to move to Adelaide, Australia at the end of 2012 to lead a new project that is looking at drought and nitrogen deficiency tolerance in wheat.

“Matthias passed the baton on to me, and now I get to pass the baton on to someone else, so it’s nice. And I’ll be sure to always be around to help them too.”

Links

Sigrid’s presentation at the GCP General Research Meeting 2011

 

 

Breeding beans to better battle drought and disease in Ethiopia

 Africa, Beans, Crop breeding, Genetics, Genomics, Legumes  No Responses »
Nov 132012
 

Bean breeding in his bones: Asrat A Amele

For our bean team, we already see the benefits of being in the Tropical Legumes I  project. We now understand molecular breeding, and we are able to apply molecular breeding techniques.” – Asrat A Amele (pictured)

Asrat is a bean breeder at Ethiopia’s South Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) at the Awassa Research Centre.

Besides breeding beans that will better battle drought, Asrat’s team combines drought tolerance with resistance to the bean stem maggot (BSM) – a pest that afflicts all bean-growing zones in Ethiopia.

Connections, continuity and capacity building
The Tropical Legumes I (TLI) was not an entirely new connection, as Asrat’s involvement with GCP predates this particular project. He started off as a GCP-funded fellow in 2007, investigating bean genetics for drought tolerance. The fellowship would also seem him do a stint in Colombia at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture  (CIAT, by its Spanish acronym). His work at the time on root phenotyping and quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis has since been published.

At that time, Asrat remarked:

The GCP fellowships programme is great for a person like me, working in a developing-country research institute. I can say it potentially provides researchers with up-to-date scientific knowledge in areas of specialisation. It provides better contact with scientists in other parts of the world and opens a wider window to think on problems and deliver better research products.”

Thorugh GCP, Asrat also attended a molecular breeding course at Wageningen University and Research Centre in The Netherlands. Wageningen is a GCP Consortium member.

The ravages wrought by bean stem maggot.

Having passed through that door of opportunity and looking back now, what does Asrat say? “Through TLI, we were able to access new parental sources of germplasm recommended for release and use for breeding. For instance, we’ve received more than 200 lines from CIAT, from which 10 have been selected to be used as parents. We plan to do crosses with these parents to develop a marker-assisted recurrent selection [MARS] population, based on the problems plaguing beans in Africa.”

And it’s not all about material but also matters cerebral (and matters manual, as we shall see further on): “From the science meetings we attend, we’ve also gained valuable new contacts and acquired new knowledge.” Asrat reveals.

Two…and two

Fitsum Alemayehu

Daniel Ambachew

The next step is to validate the workability of MARS, and SARI has a GCP-funded PhD student, Fistum Alemayehu (pictured right), registered at the South Africa’s Free State University and conducting his phenotyping in Ethiopia, alongside other well-trained staff that SARI now has. Fistum is working on marker-assisted recurrent selection for drought tolerance in beans, while Daniel Ambachew (pictured left), another GCP-funded MSc student enrolled at Haramaya University, Ethiopia, is evaluating recombinant inbred line populations and varieties for combined dual tolerance of drought and bean stem maggot.

Both students are using molecular breeding: “For this work, we’ll be using SNP* markers. It is probably the first use of bean SNPs in sub-Saharan Africa. We will now do QTL analysis with the bean population we have from CIAT,” reveals Asrat.

* SNP: (pronounced ‘snips’) is a technical term, and the abbreviation is derived from ‘single nucleotide polymorphism’ – an advanced molecular-marker system widely used in genetic science. You can read more about SNPs in this press release.

Of humans and machines

A training session on maintaining farm machinery.

Moving on to matters manual and mechanical, besides enhanced human resources, SARI has benefited from infrastructure support as part of GCP’s comprehensive capacity-building package: the Institute now has an irrigation system to enable them conduct drought trials, and SARI technicians from more than 20 different SARI stations have been trained in proper use and routine maintenance of farm machinery. SARI also received two automatic weather stations from GCP for high-precision climatic data capture, with automated data loading and sharing with other partners in the network.

Through this project, SARI is now well tuned into the international arena of bean research and development, and profiting in new ways from this exposure to growing international connections.

Water drilling to install irrigation equipment at SARI.

Institutional revolution and rebirth
The engagement with GCP has revolutionised bean breeding at SARI and institutionalised marker-assisted selection. As a result, SARI will soon have a small molecular breeding laboratory funded by another agency. This lab will support one more PhD student and an additional MSc student, both registered in Ethiopian universities and working on marker-assisted selection for beans.

Thus, in this southern corner of Ethiopia, bean breeders conversant in molecular methods will continue to be ‘born’, better-prepared and well-equipped to meet the challenges facing bean breeding today.

 

 

 

Asrat on video

Links

SLIDES: Phenotyping common beans for tolerance of drought and bean stem maggots in Ethiopia

 

Beans: Sidestepping variety… to create varieties to combat drought, disease and pests

 Africa, Beans, Crop breeding, Genetics, Genomics, Legumes  No Responses »
Oct 302012
 

BREAK-TIME AND BRAKE-TIME from beans for a bit: Steve Beebe takes a pause to strike a pose in a bean field.

“These [molecular breeding] techniques, combined with conventional methods, shorten the time it takes to breed improved varieties  that simultaneoulsy combine several traits.

And this means that we also get them out to farmers more quickly compared to phenotypic selection alone.”
– Steve Beebe

THE NEAR-PERFECT FOOD: Common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L) comprise the world’s most important food legume, feeding about 200 million people in sub-Saharan Africa alone. Their nutritional value is so high, they have been termed ‘a near-perfect food’. They are also easy to grow, adapting readily to different cropping systems and maturing quickly.

That said, this otherwise versatile, adaptable and dapper dicotyledon does have some inherent drawbacks and ailments that crop science seeks to cure….

Rains are rapidly retreating, and drought doggedly advancing
Despite the crop’s widespread cultivation in Africa, “yields are low, stagnating at between 20 and 30 percent of their potential,” remarks Steve Beebe, GCP’s Product Delivery Coordinator for beans, and a researcher at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT, by its Spanish acronym).

“The main problem is drought, brought about by climate change,” he says. “And it’s spreading – it already affects 70 percent of Africa’s major bean-producing regions.”  Drought decimates bean harvests in most of Eastern Africa, but is particularly severe in the mid-altitudes of Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Zimbabwe, as well as in southern Africa as a whole.

A myriad of forms and hues: bean diversity eloquently speaks for itself in this riot of colours.

Drought, doubt and duality − Diversity a double-edged sword
“Common beans can tolerate drought to some extent, using various mechanisms that differ from variety to variety,” explains Steve. But breeding for drought resistance is complicated by the thousands of bean varieties that are available. They differ considerably according to growth habit, seed colour, shape, size and cooking qualities, and cultivation characteristics.

“A variety might be fantastic in resisting drought,” says Steve, ‘but if its plant type demands extra work, the farmers won’t grow it,” he explains. “Likewise, if consumers don’t like the seed colour, or the beans take too long to cook, then they won’t buy.”

Molecular breeding deals a hand, waves a wand, and weaves a band
This is where molecular breeding techniques come in handy, deftly dealing with the complexities of breeding drought-resistant beans that also meet farmer and consumer preferences. No guesswork about it: molecular breeding rapidly and precisely gets to the heart of the matter, and helps weave all these different ‘strands’ together.

The bean research team has developed ‘genetic stocks’, or strains of beans that are crossed with the varieties favoured by farmers and consumers. The ‘crosses’ are made so that the gene or genes with the desired trait are incorporated into the preferred varieties.

The resulting new varieties are then evaluated for their performance in different environments throughout eastern and southern Africa, with particular focus on Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and Zimbabwe which are the target countries of the Tropical Legumes I (TLI) project.

Propping up the plant protein: a veritable tapestry of terraces of climbing beans.

GCP supported this foundation work to develop these molecular markers. This type of breeding – known in breeder parlance as marker-assisted selection (MAS) – was also successfully used to combine and aggregate resistance to drought; to pests such as bean stem maggot (BSM); and to diseases such as bean common mosaic necrosis potyvirus (BCNMV) and to bruchid or common bacterial blight (CBB). The resulting ‘combinations’ laden with all this good stuff were then bred into commercial-type bean lines.

“These techniques, combined with conventional methods, shorten the time it takes to breed improved varieties that simultaneoulsy combine several traits,” comments Steve. “This means that we also get them out to farmers more quickly compared to phenotypic selection alone.”

Informed by history and reality
Breeding new useful varieties is greatly aided by first understanding the crop’s genetic diversity, and by always staying connected with the reality on the ground: earlier foundation work facilitated by GCP surfaced the diversity in the bean varieties that farmers grow, and how that diversity could then be broadened with genes to resist drought, pests and disease.

What next?
Over the remaining two years of Phase II of the Tropical Legumes I (TLI) project, the bean team will use the genetic tools and breeding populations to incorporate drought tolerance into farmer- and market-preferred varieties. “Hence, productivity levels on smallholder farms are expected to increase significantly,” says Steve.

Partnerships
The work on beans is led by CIAT, working in partnership with Ethiopia’s South Agricultural Research Institute (SARI),  the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI),  Malawi’s Department of Agricultural Research and Technical Services (DARTS) and  Zimbabwe’s Crop Breeding Institute (CBI) of the Department of Research and Specialist Services (DR&SS).

Other close collaborators include the eastern, central and southern Africa regional bean research networks (ECABREN and SABRN, their acronyms) which are components of the Pan-African Bean Research Alliance (PABRA). Cornell University (USA) is also involved.

VIDEO: Steve talks about what has been achieved so far in bean research, and what remains to be done

Links

 

Banana genetics: (not-so-)Easy as ♫ABC, 123♫

 Bananas, Genetics, Genomics  No Responses »
Sep 202012
 

Getting to the core of a world-favourite dessert by unravelling banana’s origin and genealogy

GCP has enabled us to lay a credible foundation, which gave us a leg-up in the intense competition that typifies the genome sequencing arena” – Angélique D’Hont, CIRAD researcher

‘A’ is also for Angélique, as you will see once you read on…

An ‘A’ to our banana team for ushering in a new era in banana genetics. But let soup precede dessert, and don’t let this worry you: stay with us because we’re still very much on the topic and focused on bananas, which offer the whole range from soup and starters, to main course and dessert, plus everything else in between, being central for the food security of more than 400 million people in the tropics: around a third each is produced in Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America, and the Caribbean. About 87  percent of all the bananas produced worldwide are grown by small-scale farmers.

Moving back then to soup for starters, we’re serving up our own unique blend of alphanumeric banana ‘soup’, spiced with ABCs, a pinch of 123s, plus a dash of alpha and omega. Curious about the ABCs? Look no further:‘C’ for getting to the core of ‘B’ for bananas, and an ‘A’ score for our ace genomics team that did it.

Read how GCP seeded … and succeeded, in helping open a new era in banana genetics. An achievement by itself, and an important milestone on the road to unlocking genetic diversity for the resource-poor, which is GCP’s raison d’être.

So get your travelling gear please, for time travel with a ‘midspace checkpoint’ in Malaysia.

We start in 2004, when GCP commissioned a survey of diversity with microsatellites (or SSRs, simple sequence repeats) for all mandate food crops in the CGIAR crop research Centres. The objective of that study was to make new genetic diversity from genebank accessions available to breeders.

The endpoint is opening new research avenues to incorporate genes for disease resistance, with the added bonus of an article published in Nature online on July 11 2012, entitled The banana (Musa acuminata) genome and the evolution of monocotyledonous plants.

It may not be quite as easy as the ABC and 123 that The Jacksons promise in song, but we promise you that the science is just as exciting, with practical implications for breeding hardy disease-resistant bananas. Onwards then to the first leg of this three-step journey!

(Prefer a shorter version of this story in pictures? We’ve got it! Choose your medium between Flickr and Facebook)

1) Let’s go Greek: the alpha and omega of it

Rewinding to the beginning

The proof of the pudding is in the eating: we imagine that Jean Christophe Glaszmann just has to be saying “Yummy!” as he samples this banana.

Start point, 2004: “At that time, several research groups had developed SSR markers for bananas, but there was no coordination and only sketchy germplasm studies,” recalls Jean Christophe Glaszmann (pictured), then the leader of what was GCP’s Subprogramme 1 (SP1) on Genetic Diversity on a joint appointment with CIRAD. He stepped down as SP1 Leader in March 2010, and is currently the Director of a multi-institutional research unit Genetic improvement and adaptation of Mediterranean and tropical plants (AGAP, by its French acronym) at France’s Centre de ccoopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD) in Montpellier.

Jean Christophe continues, “The reference studies had been conducted with RFLP* markers, a very useful tool but far too cumbersome for undertaking large surveys. We mobilised Bioversity International, CIRAD and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture for the project. The process took time, but delivered critical products.” [*RFLP stands for restriction fragmented length polymorphism]

Fastforward to 2012, and gets just a little geeky…

Eight years down the road in 2012, the list of achievements is impressive, as evidenced by a suite of published papers which provide the details of the analysis of SSR diversity and describe how the data enabled the researchers to unravel the origin and genealogy of the most important dessert bananas. The origin of the predominant variety – Cavendish – suggested by the markers, involves two rounds of spontaneous hybridisation between three markedly differentiated subspecies. This scheme has been marvellously corroborated by linguistic patterns found in banana variety names as revealed in a paper published in 2011 in the proceedings of USA’s National Academy of Sciences.

But what else happened in between the start- and end-point? We now get to the really ‘sweet’ part of this bonanza for banana breeding!

It is now possible to conduct research to identify and incorporate genes for disease resistance within fertile populations that are close to the early progenitors, and then inter-cross them to re-establish sterility and obtain vigorous, disease-resistant and seedless progenies.

 2) Of bits, bananas, breeding and breadcrumbs

Threading all these bits together for breeding better bananas is akin to following a trail of breadcrumbs, in which GCP played an important facilitating role: where in the germplasm to undertake genetic recombination is one key; and then, how to expedite incorporation of disease resistance and how to control sterility – so as to first suppress it, then re-establish it – is another set of keys that are necessary for proficient breeding.

Hei Leung in the lab at IRRI.

In 2005, Hei Leung (pictured), then Leader of GCP’s Subprogramme 2 on Comparative Genomics (until June 2007) on a dual appointment with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), recognised that with GCP’s main focus being drought tolerance in crops, Musa (the banana and plantain botanical genus) was somewhat on the fringe. However, it was still important that GCP support the emergence of banana genomics.

Hei is currently Programme Leader of Genetic Diversity and Gene Discovery at IRRI. He remembers, “We had a highly motivated group of researchers willing to devote their efforts to Musa. Nicolas Roux at Bioversity was a passionate advocate for the partnership. The GCP community could offer a framework for novel interactions among banana-related actors and players working on other crops, such as rice. The team led by Takuji Sasaki of Japan’s National Institute of Agrobiological Science, which had vast experience in rice genome sequencing, added the scientific power. So, living up to its name as a Challenge Programme, GCP decided to take the gamble on banana genomics and help it fly.”

Angélique D’Hont, CIRAD researcher and lead author of the article published in ‘Nature’.

Through several projects, GCP helped consolidate Musa genomic resources, contributed to the establishment of medium-throughput DArT markers as well as the construction of the first saturated genetic map. Additional contributions included the first round of sequencing of large chromosome segments (BAC clones) and its comparison with the rice sequence and a detailed analysis of resistance gene analogues. All these findings have now been published in peer-reviewed journals. And while publication takes time, it still remains a high-premium benchmark for quality and validation of results, and for efficient sharing of information. It reinforces the value of collaboration, builds capacity and gives visibility to all partners, thereby providing potential new avenues for funding.

Such was the case with bananas: using a collaborative partnership framework established with the Global Musa Genomics Consortium, animated by Nicolas Roux and now chaired by Chris Town, the community developed a case for sequencing the genome. With the mentorship of Francis Quétier, contacts were made with various major players in genomics, which in the end formalised a project between France’s CIRAD and CEA–Genoscope, funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche and led by Angélique D’Hont (pictured) and Patrick Wincker.

GCP contributed DArT analysis for anchoring the sequence to the genetic map. But, as stressed by Angélique, CIRAD researcher and lead author of the Nature paper: “Above all, GCP has enabled us to lay a credible foundation, which gave us a leg-up in the intense competition that typifies the genome sequencing arena. We were delighted that France rolled the dice in our favour by funding this work.”

3) Musa musings on the road to and from Malaysia checkpoint

Three years down the road, the team published a description of the genome of a wild banana from Malaysia.

Jean Christophe communes with a Musa plant, perhaps musing “What’s your family history and when will you be fully grown?”

Let’s drill down to some technical facts and figures here: the Musa genome has some 520 million nucleotides distributed across 11 chromosomes, revealing traces of past duplications and bearing some 36,000 genes. While most genes derived from duplication tend to lose their function, some develop novel functions that are essential for evolution; bananas seem to have an outstanding range of transcription factors that could be involved in fruit maturity.

And while the road ahead remains long, we now have a good understanding of banana’s genetic diversity, we have genomic templates for functional studies (a whole-gene repertoire) as well as for structural studies (the chromosome arrangement in one subspecies) aimed at unraveling the genomic translocations that could control sterility in the species complex.

It is now possible to conduct research to identify and incorporate genes for disease resistance within fertile populations that are close to the early progenitors, and then inter-cross them to re-establish sterility and obtain vigorous, disease-resistant and seedless progenies.

This is undoubtedly an inspiring challenge towards unlocking the genetic diversity in this crop, which is central to food security for more than 400 million people in the tropics.

Links

 

♫We’ll rock your world!♫

 Comparative genomics in cereals, Crop breeding, Genomics, Researchers, Rice  No Responses »
Sep 072012
 

“It is very rare that scientists can take their projects wherever they go. I’ve been very lucky to be able to do this, and much of this has to do with the support I’ve received from GCP.” – Matthias Wissuwa

In the world of phosphorus, Matthias (pictured) is somewhat of a ‘rock star, not that he would admit to it. We don’t understand why not, since to borrow his words, the project he’s involved has becoming something of a ‘celebrity project’ in the scientific community.

For  a decade-and-a-half, he has searched tirelessly for a rice gene that could improve the crop’s yield in phosphorus-deficient soils –which make up half of the world’s soils. Last month, his transnational team published in Nature that their 15-year quest had ended, having finally found the elusive gene – Pup1.

We celebrate this happy ending, especially as we had the added pleasure of talking to Matthias recently: it was delightful in listening to the modest German recount the long journey which has taken him from his home town of Hamburg, to USA, Japan, The Philippines and back to Japan, all this while,  faithfully ‘carrying’ Pup1 with him as he switched employers. As you’ve seen, Japan scores a double strike, so our ‘rock star’ is also ‘big on Japan’! 

Talking to Matthias, we could sense the achievement was only just sinking in – that he and his team’s years of laboratory work was becoming a practical reality that will aid rice-growing farmers from Africa to Asia,  and hopefully other grain growers in years to come. Here’s what Matthias had to say…

You started this project back in 1997. Tell us how you became interested in phosphorus deficiency and rice.

After completing my PhD in the United States, I accepted a postdoc position in Tsukuba, Japan, with the National Institute of Agro-Environmental Sciences (NIAES). It was an easy decision because my wife is Japanese.

My postdoc host, Dr Ae was interested in phosphorus, particularly in legumes. I originally started work on tolerance to phosphorus deficiency in groundnuts, but soon changed to rice to take advantage of the molecular tools available for rice.

Tsukuba is a very new city. It’s called The Science City in Japan because the Japanese government built it to house all the national research institutes. This was great for me as I became interested in QTL mapping, which was pioneered by scientists in Tsukuba. I got talking to people in the rice research community in Tsukuba and was introduced to Dr Yano, who was developing mapping populations for rice at the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences. He kindly gave me his populations and that’s how I started to map QTL for phosphorus-deficiency tolerance in rice.

Dr Ae was perplexed by my decision, believing that studying legumes was far more challenging than rice. He always told me: “Rice is boring. They just make long, fine roots to capture phosphorus.” That was 15 years ago and he turned out to be right. Long roots are the secret for phosphorus uptake in rice, particular in Kasalath and varieties like that.

Field trials for phosporus-efficient rice in The Philippines.

Did you share Dr Ae’s hypothesis that longer roots were the secret to some rice varieties being able to tolerate phosphorus-deficient soils?

For a long time, I was not sure if it was just long roots. It was a real chicken-and-egg scenario – does strong phosphorus uptake spur root growth, or the other way around?

As it turns out, it is the latter – plants growing longer roots help with the uptake of more phosphorus – and Pup1 is responsible for this.

We have now shifted our aim and are looking for varieties of rice tolerant to phosphorus-deficient soils that either:

  • release organic acids, phosphatases or some other compound that makes phosphorus more readily available for the plant to absorb, or
  • manipulate soil microorganisms to favour those that can aid in making phosphorus more soluble, or
  • very efficiently utilise phosphorus once it is taken up.

All three mechanisms are found in legumes, so there is reason to believe that they exist in rice and we are now working on finding them.

GCP has been interested in the project since 2004 as its outcome aligns with GCP’s goals to improve crop yields and security in developing countries… It has become something of a ‘celebrity project’ in the scientific community, attracting researchers to work on the project or collaborate with us.

In 2002 you left NIAES and accepted a position with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), and were encouraged to continue your work on Pup1. When you moved back to Tsukuba in 2005 to accept the position you currently hold with the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS), you were again encouraged to continue your Pup1 project, collaborating with your successor at IRRI, Dr Sigrid Heuer. How important has it been to you and the project to have the support of your institutes?

It is very rare that scientists can take their projects wherever they go. I’ve been very lucky to be able to do this, and much of this has to do with the support I’ve received from GCP. They’ve been interested in the project since 2004 as its outcome aligns with GCP’s goals to improve crop yields and security in developing countries.

When I left IRRI, Sigrid was just starting and was more or less free to take on the project, so I asked her if she’d be interested in continuing my work with Pup1 at IRRI and collaborate with me in Japan. She was actually the perfect person for the project because her background in molecular biology complemented my background as a plant breeder.

Over the past seven years, we have worked together very well, and with the addition of Rico Gamuyao, a PhD student supervised by Sigrid, things have recently progressed quite quickly to the point that we were able to pinpoint Pup1.

So GCP has played a major role along your journey?

Yes, definitely. The support from GCP on the Pup1 project, now in its 8th year, was instrumental at getting this project to where it is.

Quite simply, the funding from GCP allowed us to hire Rico as well as Juan Pariasca-Tanaka, a project scientist with me at JIRCAS. Neither Sigrid nor myself had the time to do all the hands-on work so having both Rico and Juan has been hugely helpful.

How important has the collaboration between IRRI and JIRCAS been for the project?

Are they playing with mud? Not at all! Working. Matthias (L) and Rico (R) have zipped up their boots and gone back to their bee…er…. we mean, roots, mucking mud here as they do some fieldwork related to the search for PSTOL1.

Tremendously important. Sigrid’s group at IRRI is relatively small as is mine in Japan, so we rely on each other’s complementary expertise when working on complicated projects.

We have also been fortunate to have constant interest in the project from the scientific community. It has become something of a ‘celebrity project’, and as such, attracted researchers to work on the project or collaborate with us.

For example, we are working with two US groups at Cornell University and Penn State, that are also funded by GCP, trying to track down Pup1 in other crops and identifying genes that control root architecture, and how different architectures may affect P uptake.

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

It really has been a team effort and we wouldn’t have got to where we are now without all the help of everyone involved

You’ve been described as the Godfather and Guru of Pup1. How do compliments like this make you feel?

It makes me laugh but of course it’s a very well-meant comment, and to some extent, considering I’ve worked on it for 15 years, you could say that there is some truth to it.

I’ve done all the original work, but Sigrid has been just as instrumental. She did the part where my expertise was no longer adequate – the molecular side, looking at genes and thinking about the function of a gene and testing for its function.

It really has been a team effort and we wouldn’t have got to where we are now without all the help of everyone involved, which also includes the support of Dr Yano over the years.

…phosphorus deficiency is a worldwide problem that has recently gained public attention because of how expensive phosphate fertilisers have become…Farmers are always interested in saving money and improving yields and we believe this discovery will help with both.

Have you been surprised by the attention this project has received?

As I said, the project has always been in the scientific spotlight because it was the first to map a major QTL for phosphorus uptake.

We knew from the Sub1 story – the submergence tolerance gene, which was published in Nature 4–5 years ago – that the media would probably be interested in this similar discovery. I’m still very surprised that this unsexy story has caused such interest.

You have to remember though, phosphorus deficiency is a worldwide problem that has recently gained public attention because of how expensive phosphate fertilisers have become. About four years ago, the price almost tripled and continues to stay high.

Farmers are always interested in saving money and improving yields and we believe this discovery will help with both.

Phosphorus deficiency is probably even more critical in Africa than it is in Asia… This means Pup1 may have its biggest impact in Africa.

How will the research continue?

Having focused so much on the basic research, we now want to turn our attention to the application. IRRI and JIRCAS will train national breeding programmes to use marker-assisted selection and help them breed their own rice varieties with Pup1.

Sigrid and IRRI are mainly working with Asian national breeding programmes and we at JIRCAS focus more on African programmes such as the Africa Rice Center. Phosphorus deficiency is probably even more critical in Africa than it is in Asia, as phosphate fertilisers aren’t used nearly as much as they are in Asia. This means Pup1 may have its biggest impact in Africa.

We are also looking for new sources of tolerance to phosphorus-deficiency. One very exciting project involves West African rice (Oryza glaberrima) the father of the Nerica ™ (New Rice for Africa) varieties.

So far, we have found that this rice is very tolerant to phosphorus-deficient soils. It does have Pup1, but in addition harbours novel genes that also enhance performance on phosphorus-deficient soils.

We hope to discover a Pup2 in the years to come.

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On common ground – A longstanding association

 Funders, GCP, History  No Responses »
Jul 082012
 

SDC and GCP

Today, we catch up with SDC’s Carmen Thönnissen (pictured). She walks us through the whys of Switzerland’s continued funding to GCP that has spanned nearly the Programme’s entire lifetime.

We were …drawn to GCP’s upstream–downstream connections, and its pre-conceived product delivery path. GCP produces global public goods, with a clear focus on strategic research for development, while also addressing important upstream research elements in crop science such as gene discovery and marker validation. In addition, GCP already had a Product Delivery Strategy to guarantee downstream application.

The way GCP uses and ‘bundles’ resources within and beyond CGIAR, then as now, is attractive to us as a meaningful approach, promising good value for money.”

GCP’s work is very results-oriented and pragmatic, forging partnerships followed by concrete actions to address bottlenecks in research for development in molecular crop breeding, without ruling out conventional breeding.

Carmen Thönnissen is Senior Advisor, Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Corporate Domain Global Cooperation of the Global Programme for Food Security. Through the years, SDC has been a consistent GCP funder. Today, Carmen gives us some insights into this longstanding relationship.

Tell us briefly about SDC and its funding to GCP
SDC is the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, affiliated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Swiss Government.

We’ve funded GCP since 2006 with an annual contribution of 450,000 Swiss francs – a total of 1.9 million so far.

SDC provides GCP core unrestricted funds at Programme level, meaning that SDC does not tie its funding to specific GCP projects, giving GCP discretion over these funds.

Why does SDC support GCP?
We share a long history with GCP, going as far back as the Programme’s ‘pre-birth’.

Starting in 2001, CGIAR adopted a more programmatic systemwide approach and endorsed the concept of Challenge Programmes. Between 2002 and 2005, SDC actively supported this process and the emerging Challenge Programmes.

In 2005, SDC reviewed its support to CGIAR and identified SDC priority regions, research priorities, and guiding principles for its unrestricted funding to the CGIAR system.

From this review, SDC decided to invest 30 percent of its core unrestricted funds to several CGIAR Systemwide and Challenge Programmes, one being GCP.

The Challenge Programmes were perceived as results-oriented, poverty-relevant and responsive to the CGIAR reform process of that time. They were also partnership-oriented, with transparent communication strategies.

Several points convinced SDC to invest in GCP, and I’ll mention just some of these. One was GCP’s focus on crops in marginal areas and on drought tolerance in sub-Saharan Africa, and South and Southeast Asia. These overlap with SDC’s own thematic and geographical priorities.

We were also drawn to GCP’s upstream–downstream connections, and its pre-conceived product delivery path. GCP produces global public goods, with a clear focus on strategic research for development, while also addressing important upstream research elements in crop science such as gene discovery and marker validation. In addition, GCP already had a Product Delivery Strategy to guarantee downstream application.

The way GCP uses and ‘bundles’ resources within and beyond CGIAR, then as now, is attractive to us as a meaningful approach, promising good value for money. Back then, SDC was interested in the exploration of plant diversity and the application of advanced genomics and comparative biology to advance breeding of the main staple crops grown by resource-poor farmers, which was the very objective of GCP.

Our funds were intended to be used to increase the exploratory implementation of new research tools in applied breeding programmes to produce improved drought-tolerant crop varieties.

We liked GCP’s structured approach of a Global Access Policy backed by guidelines on public–private sector partnerships and addressing intellectual property.

We also found the ‘suite approach’ proposed by GCP attractive, since at that time, very little was being done in these fields by CGIAR. We were drawn to the mix of a research component – on the impact of modern and integrated breeding approaches on productivity in developing countries, plus a service component aiming to disseminate knowledge, resources and technology, alongside lab services and capacity building.

GCP’s work is very results-oriented and pragmatic, forging partnerships followed by concrete actions to address bottlenecks in research for development in molecular crop breeding, without ruling out conventional breeding.

You mentioned common SDC–GCP thematic and geographic scope. Are there other areas where the missions of SDC and GCP overlap?
SDC has a focus on genetic resource improvement, and also supported the CGIAR Systemwide Programme on Genetic Resources, as well as the Global Crop Diversity Trust.

Supporting GCP is in line with SDC’s internal guidelines on Green Biotechnology. Among other things, we avoid single-donor initiatives, instead working within larger programmes that not only have a clear focus but also aim to strengthen developing-country capacity.

GCP’s work is very results-oriented and pragmatic. GCP plays a strong facilitating role in forging partnerships, which is followed by concrete actions, services, tools, methods, and so on, to address the bottlenecks identified by the research-for-development network with the aim of supporting molecular crop breeding for various crops, regions and partners, without ruling out conventional breeding.

SDC shares the view that Green Biotechnology, including genetic modification, can never fully replace conventional breeding, but it can be an important tool in improving plant-breeding programmes.

What outcomes are you expecting from this support?
To mention just a few, improved accessibility to modern breeding tools, methods and approaches for the developing world, plus enhanced capacity for developing-world partners on using these tools, as well as them knowing their rights and obligations regarding access to, and use of, plant genetic resources and related tools.

We also hope to see improved services for breeders, including learning materials and information on new resources for crop breeding. The long-term outcome we’d like to see is improved crop varieties, more resistant to abiotic and biotic stresses.

What are some of the lessons learnt from investing in GCP?
The importance of a strong programmatic orientation and the role of an honest broker in effective partnerships: GCP plays the role of enabler and facilitator, while its research partners are the actors.

Investing in GCP enables us to project a clear flow from upstream to applied research – with capacity building included – in the critical areas of food security and climate change.

Relevant links

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Chickpea research in Ethiopia – A major boost for food security

 Africa, Chickpeas, Crop breeding  No Responses »
Jun 302012
 

Fikre Asnake (pictured)  is a researcher and breeder in both Tropical Legumes I and II projects (TLI and TLII), working at the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR).

He has been leading the project activities since 2008. Through the project, EIAR has obtained diverse chickpea germplasm from ICRISAT. This germplasm is undergoing different breeding schemes using marker-assisted recurrent selection (MARS) and marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC) for evaluation.

The germplasm is now in the pre-release testing phase. Some of the work is being done by postgraduate students trained by TLI (two PhDs and 1 MSc). The project is using MABC to introduce drought-resistant traits into proven superior cultivars. “We expect good gains in productivity for drought-prone environments, which will make a huge difference. The varieties we hope to release will increase not only quantity, but also quality,” says Fikre. “We anticipate some of these improved chickpea varieties will be released in the course of Phase II of the TLI project, based on work that began in Phase I.”

Building capacity
Capacity-building is a crucial cornerstone. “In addition to our three postgraduate students, about five or six of our researchers and technicians have been trained in molecular breeding and related areas, mostly at ICRISAT in India ,” reports Fikre. And that is not all: “We have also benefited from infrastructure improvements, including construction of a rainout shelter for our drought trials and coldrooms for seed preservation. A glasshouse will also be built for trials under controlled conditions.”

Fikre further notes, “These facilities and staff development will make us more effective in achieving the objectives we have set in the project. In addition, because the infrastructure is shared with other colleagues not directly involved in the TLI project, it is also an indirect conduit for further cementing synergies and collaboration, even as we already have good synergies with the national programme’s breeding scheme.”

Fikre is keen to see the capacity building translate into a larger critical mass of breeders conversant with molecular breeding, as well as an increase in the information on chickpeas, an area in which students have been extremely instrumental in eriching. “We are all learning a lot from molecular technologies through TLI, and beyond that, how to actually apply these technologies in a breeding programme.”

VIDEO: Fikre discusses capacity-building with other TLI colleagues

What next?
Looking into the future, what are Fikre’s projections and aspirations regarding TLI Phase II? “It is now time to test the drought-tolerant breeding lines already processed and tested through MARS. We will be undertaking this testing over the next two to three years or so, to see what gains have been made towards improving chickpeas.”

This testing will be done through multilocation trials both in research stations as well as on farmers’ fields, and will include a parallel evaluation and validation by colleagues outside the project.

“By the end of TLI Phase II, our goal is to have varieties that will go to farmers’ fields that will make a clearly discernible difference,” concludes Fikre.

VIDEO: Involving farmers in selecting varieties – Fikre and other TLI colleagues

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Chickpea research in Kenya – A boon for the fallow period

 Africa, Chickpeas, Crop breeding, Legumes  No Responses »
Jun 302012
 

“When we first started working on this project in mid-2007, our breeding programme was very weak,” says Paul Kimurto (pictured), Lead Scientist for chickpea research in the Tropical Legumes I (TLI) project, Kenya, and a lecturer in Crop Science at Egerton University.

“We have since accumulated a lot of germplasm, a chickpea reference set, and a mapping population, all of which have greatly boosted our breeding programme. From these, we have been able to select appropriate genotypes, and we obtained 400 breeding lines. None of this would have been directly possible without GCP’s support,” adds Paul. [Editor’s note: A ‘reference set’ is a sub-sample of existing germplasm collections that facilitates and enables access to existing crop diversity for desired traits, such as drought tolerance or resistance to disease or pests]

Due to their hardiness against drought, chickpeas have been steadily gaining popularity in Kenyan drylands – including the dry highlands – where they are grown as a ‘relay’ crop after wheat and maize harvests during the short rains, when the land would otherwise lie fallow. “Chickpeas have therefore increased food security and nutritional status of more than 27,000 households living in Baringo, Koibatek, Kerio Valley and Bomet Districts in Kenya, who frequently face hunger due to frequent crop failure of main staples such as maize and beans owing to climate change,” says Paul.

Chickpea adoption in these areas has increased due to close collaboration between GCP, ICRISAT and Egerton University through funding, training, resources and germplasm facilitated by GCP.

Exposure and capacity building
Through the project, various members of the Egerton research team have benefited from training in Europe, Africa and Asia on wide-ranging aspects of modern breeding, including data management. The learning resources that the team accesses through GCP are also shared widely and used as teaching materials and resources for faculty staff and postgraduate students not directly involved in the project.

“We have also benefitted from physical infrastructure such as a rain-shelter, irrigation system, laboratory equipment and a greenhouse. We didn’t have these, and probably couldn’t have had them, because all these are costly investments. This has greatly improved the efficiency of not only our research, but also our teaching,” says Paul. In addition, three postgraduate students are supported by GCP – two are pursuing PhDs and one a Masters, all using modern molecular breeding methods in their studies.

VIDEO: Paul discusses capacity building in Kenya, alongside other TLI colleagues


Community gains

Besides the university, capacity building has benefited the broader community: agricultural extension staff from the Ministry of Agriculture and from Koibatek Farmers Training Centre (one of the project’s research site), have been trained in various fields. The Centre manager attended a GCP course in Ghana tailored for research station staff (link below), as did an Egerton University technician.

In addition to aiding research trials, the irrigation system and weather station installed at Koibatek help with teaching and producing crop seed and planting materials as well as pasture for the community, since the Centre has a mandate to provide high-quality seed and livestock breeds to the community.

According to Beatrice Komen, a farmer in Koibatek, the irrigation system “has enabled the Agricultural Training Centre supply us with high-quality pasture and crop seeds for planting during the right time because Egerton University uses it to produce sufficient seed without having to rely on seasonal conditions.”

Paul adds, “The automated weather station is a first in the region.” The weather station also feeds regional data into the national meteorological database and is used for teaching by secondary schools in the community.

Going further, faster
Paul observes “With the direct funding we obtain through the project, we are able to expand into other areas of dryland research such as soil science and nitrogen fixation for chickpeas. Our efficiency has also increased: with the greenhouse and rainout shelter, we can now rapidly obtain generation crosses. And the irrigation system means we can now do off-season trials without having to wait for seasonal changes.”

“We have learnt a lot through our involvement with the Programme, including outsourcing of genotyping services which GCP fully supports, the advanced tools and wide range of services offered by the Integrated Breeding Platform for both breeding and data management,” says Paul. “We have also received digital tablet for electronic field data collection in a more efficient and accurate manner compared to the traditional pen and paper.”

The goal
“Our goal is to apply the modern breeding methods we have learnt to release new improved drought- and disease-resistant varieties before the project closes in mid-2014.” Some of these new methods include using quantitative trait loci (QTLs) through marker-assisted selection (MAS) and marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC).

“The results we obtain will provide foundation seed that can then be used for mass production through the Tropical Legumes II project,” says Paul.

“Our task is not complete until we have improved varieties in the hands of farmers,” he concludes.

VIDEO on farmer participation, and the relevance of genomics – Paul and TLI colleagues

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Chickpeas: Toughening a tough crop for tougher times by healing its Achilles’ heel

 Africa, Chickpeas, Crop breeding, Legumes  No Responses »
Jun 262012
 

It’s all about water and weakness – or strength. The Greek legend has it that Achilles was dipped into River Styx by his mother, Thetis, in order to make him invulnerable. His heel wasn’t covered by the water and he later died of the wound from an arrow that struck his heel.

In our times, this analogy can be applied to chickpeas, where this streetwise tough customer in the crop kingdom that thrives on the most rugged terrains is hamstrung if there is no rain at the critical grain-filling period – its sole Achilles’ heel, when it cannot take the searing heat in the drylands it otherwise thrives in.

But before you read on about the latter-day borrowing of this ancient legend, and science’s quest to heal the hit from heat and to cure the crop’s fatal flaw on water, first, an important aside…

Who’s now calling the shots in chickpea research?

Molecular breeding in Phase I was led by ICRISAT, with country partners in a supporting role. In Phase II, activities are being led by country partners, which also assures sustainability and continuity of the work. ICRISAT is now in a facilitating role, providing training and data, while the research work is now in the hands of country partners.” – Pooran Gaur, Principal Scientist: Chickpea Breeding,  ICRISAT.

The facts
Chickpeas are an ancient crop that was first domesticated in central and western Asia. Today, this crop is cultivated in 40 countries and is second only to common beans as the food legume most widely grown by smallholders. The two main types of chickpeas – desi and kabuli – are valuable for both subsistence and cash.

Even for the hardy, times are tough
“Chickpeas are well-known to be drought-tolerant,” says Rajeev K Varshney, Principal Investigator of the project to improve chickpeas work in the Tropical Legumes I Project (TLI). He explains, “The plants are very efficient in using water and possess roots that seek out residual moisture in deeper soil layers.” However, he points out that, with changing climatic conditions, especially in drier areas, terminal drought – when rain does not fall during grain-filling – is the crop’s Achilles’ heel, and principal production constraint.

“Chickpeas are such tough plants that, even for conditions of terminal drought, yields can be increased by improving root characteristics and water-use efficiency,” says Rajeev. The research team has identified several lines with superior traits such as drought tolerance, after screening a set of 300 diverse lines selected based on molecular diversity of large germplasm collections.

VIDEO CLIP: Recipe for chickpea success

Enhancing the genetic makeup to beat the heat
The team went on to develop genomic resources such as molecular markers. With these markers, the team developed a high-density genetic map, and identified a genomic region containing several quantitative trait loci (QTLs), conferring drought tolerance. “QTLs help pinpoint, more specifically, the location of genes that govern particular traits like root length” explains Rajeev.

Longer roots will naturally give the plants a deeper reach into the water table. Root length is the difference between survival and perishing, which is why trees will be left standing on a landscape otherwise laid bare by prolonged drought.

Q for ‘quick’: QTLs speed things along from lab to field, and running with the winners
The discovery of QTLs makes identifying tolerant plants not only easier, but also cheaper and faster. “This means that better-adapted varieties will reach farmers faster, improving food security,” says Rajeev.

Pooran Gaur, GCP’s Product Delivery Coordinator for chickpeas, Principal Scientist for Chickpea Breeding at ICRISAT, and an important collaborator on the TLI project, adds, “We began marker-assisted selection backcrossing (MABC) in Phase I. By 2011, lines were already being evaluated in Ethiopia, India and Kenya. We are now at the stage of singling out the most promising lines.”

Putting chickpeas to the test: Rajeev Varshney (left) and Pooran Gaur (right) inspecting a chickpea field trial.

What was achieved in Phase I, and what outcomes are expected?
Phase I run from mid-2007 to mid-2010, during which time 10 superior lines for improved drought tolerance and insect resistance were identified for Ethiopia, Kenya and India. As well, a total of 1,600 SSR markers and 768 SNPs on GoldenGate assays were developed, along with an expanded DArT array with more than 15,000 features. A high-density reference genetic map and two intraspecific genetic maps were developed.

“We now have materials from marker-assisted backcrossing by using the genomic resources we produced in Phase I. These materials were sent to partners last year [2011]. And because in most cases we have the same people working in TLI as in TLII, this material is being simultaneously evaluated across six to seven locations by all TLI and TLII partners,” says Pooran.

“Preliminary analysis of data is quite encouraging and it seems that we will have drought-tolerant lines soon,” adds Rajeev.

Future work, and who’s now calling the shots in the field
In Phase II, 1,500 SNPs on cost-effective KASPar assays have been developed that have been useful to develop a denser genetic map. In collaboration with University of California–Davis (USA) and the National Institute of Plant Genome Research (India), a physical map has been developed that will help to isolate the genes underlying the QTL region for drought tolerance. A novel molecular breeding approach called marker-assisted recurrent selection (MARS) has been adopted. Over the remaining two years of Phase II, the chickpea work will focus on developing chickpea populations with superior genotypes for drought tolerance through MABC and MARS.

Pooran adds, “Molecular breeding in Phase I was led by ICRISAT, with country partners in a supporting role. In Phase II, activities are being led by country partners, which also assures sustainability and continuity of the work. ICRISAT is now in a facilitating role, providing training and data, while the MABC and MARS aspects are both in the hands of country partners.”

“Another important activity in Phase II is development of multi-parents advanced generation intercross (MAGIC) population that will help generation of genetic populations with enhanced genetic diversity,” says Rajeev.

Partnerships
The chickpea work is led by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), working with partners at the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, Egerton University in Kenya, and the Indian Agricultural Research Institute. Additional collaborators in Phase I included the University of California–Davis (USA), the National Center for Genome Resources (USA) and DArT P/L (Australia).

For more information on the overall work in chickpeas, please contact Rajeev K Varshney, Principal Investigator of the chickpea work.

Video: Featuring Rajeev and partners Fikre Asnake (Ethiopia) and Paul Kimurto (Kenya)

Related links

 

 

Hitting the nail on the head: A nuts-and-bolts approach to local capacity empowerment (short version)

 Capacity building, Closing GCP  No Responses »
Jun 202012
 

Breathing life into support services

By addressing the needs at the heart of quality agricultural research, right there on the station, GCP was the first to cotton on to a crucial missing link between researcher, research station, and support services.” – Hannibal Muhtar (pictured)

“One thing that really energises me,“ enthuses GCP Consultant Hannibal Muhtar, “is seeing people understand why they need to do the work, and being given the chance to do the how.”

And so was born another wonderfully fruitful GCP collaboration. Hannibal, who describes the assignment as “a breath of fresh air,” was asked to identify, together with GCP project Principal Investigators, African research sites of ongoing or potential GCP Research Initiative projects where effective scientific research might be hampered by significant gaps in one fundamental area: infrastructure, equipment and support services. As at June 2012, 19 sites had been selected.

Meet Hannibal Muhtar (audio clip)

Embarking on the voyage to change, storms ‘n’ all
In 2010 and 2011, Hannibal visited these stations, meeting staff at all levels and functions, for an in-depth analyses and appropriate recommendations to assure high-quality field evaluations for GCP-funded projects. With funding from GCP’s Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP), and with the openness, commitment and energy of station staff to implement these recommendations, the efforts are, starting to bear fruit.

Photos: AgCommons

Flashback to 2010. Photo 1: Hannibal (centre) at a planning session at Sega, Western Kenya, with Samuel Gudu of Moi University  (right) and Onkware Augustino (left). Photo 2: Similarly, at Tanzania’s Agricultural Research Institute, Naliendele, with Omari Mponda (right).

But it has not all been smooth sailing, and the storms encountered along en route should not be underestimated.

Weeds, wear and tear, and a walk on the wild side
“The real challenge,” says GCP’s Director of Research, Xavier Delannay (pictured), “is not in the science, but rather in the real nuts-and-bolts of getting the work done in local field conditions.” The obstacles, are often mundane – missing or faulty, weather stations or irrigation systems; weed-infested fields ravaged, or poor drainage, for example. Yet such factors compromise brilliant research. Take unfenced plots for example – equipment gets stolen, and animals roam freely.

Getting down to the brass tacks of local empowerment, and aiming higher
The overarching objective is, in Xavier’s words, “The effective running of local stations, for facilitating local research, improving local crops, and ultimately leading to empowerment and self-reliance of local farming communities.”

In tackling the matter, Hannibal employed a multi-faceted customised approach, based on the needs of each site, for both equipment and training for technicians, tractor operators and station managers. The dedication of the managers to both learn and continue these efforts after the training was particularly gratifying, since it assures sustainability.

“At the end of the day, it’s about achieving food security and improving livelihoods… which pave the way for healthy families and profitable agriculture,” concludes Hannibal.

Lights, curtain… action!
Much like in theatre, with all the ‘props’ in place, field trials are now performing well, thanks to streamlined ‘backstage’ support. Hannibal likens the positive feedback from the partners he has worked with to “A glass of cold water, after a long day in the sun!”

“With proper infrastructure in place, and with research station staff duly equipped with the hands-on expertise and practical know-how to utilise and apply this infrastructure and training, we’re now seeing field experiments being conducted as they should be, and getting good-quality phenotyping data as a result,” says Xavier. “Moreover,” he continues, “by providing glass-houses or the capacity to irrigate in the dry season, we are enabling breeders to accelerate their breeding cycles, so that they can work all year round, rather than having to wait until the rain comes.”
Examples include sites in Kenya, Mali and Nigeria.

The missing link
As the nuts-and-bolts begin to fall in place for, Hannibal reveals: “By addressing the needs at the heart of quality agricultural research, right there on the station, GCP was the first to cotton on to a crucial missing link between researcher, research station, and support services.”

…and yet another missing link…
But the job is not quite done. One crucial gap is the sensitisation of upper management – those at the helm of national research institutes and research station Directors – to support and sustain infrastructure, training and related services. In some cases, costs could be easily met by utilising a priceless asset that most institutes already have, and which they could put to greater us – land and a controlled environment.

Upper management needs to be actively on board. “A research institute should work like a good sewing machine,” says Hannibal. “All well-oiled, all parts working well, and everybody knowing what they need to do.”

In the meantime, however, results from the field suggest that researchers in GCP projects are already reaping the benefits from improved infrastructure and support services, and are already off to a good start.

The ‘stage’ is therefore set: ‘backstage’ and ‘props’ are well primed, performance trials are acting like they should, and the ‘theatre directors’ have an eye on sustainability after GCP’s final curtain call in 2014.

So, long may the show go on, with a cautionary word, however, to continually seek ways to not only maintain but also enhance performance!

Want more details? Read the extended version of this story

Relevant links

  • PODCASTS: You can also listen to Hannibal, by tuning into Episode 2 for the entire interview, or zooming in on your particular area of interest in the mini-podcasts labelled Episodes 2.1 to 2.7 c here.
  • Capacity building
  • Research Initiatives
  • Integrated Breeding Platform website
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