Breeding

September 30, 2011March 25, 2022

Seems like all that rice breeding was worth it after all

ACIAR has just published a huge study of the impact of IRRI’s rice breeding work in SE Asia. The press release has the key numbers:

“Southeast Asian rice farmers are harvesting an extra US$1.46 billion worth of rice a year as a result of rice breeding.”
“…IRRI’s research on improving rice varietal yield between 1985 and 2009 … [boosted] … rice yield by up to 13%.”
“…IRRI’s improved rice varieties increased farmers’ returns by US$127 a hectare in southern Vietnam, $76 a hectare in Indonesia, and $52 a hectare in the Philippines.”
“The annual impact of IRRI’s research in these three countries alone exceeded IRRI’s total budget since it was founded in 1960.”

But I guess the figure the Australians were really after is that in the final table:

A pretty decent return.

Good to see the pioneering work of IRRI (and others) in documenting pedigree information in a usable way recognized — and indeed made use of. And good to see the International Network for Genetic Evaluation of Rice (INGER) and its use of the International Treaty’s multilateral access and benefit sharing system highlighted in the study as a model for germplasm exchange and use. Of course one would have loved to see the genebank’s role in producing the impact also recognized, rather than sort of tacitly taken for granted as usual, but maybe the data can be used to bring that out more in a follow-up.

I see another couple of opportunities for further research, actually. There is little in the study about the genetic nature of the improved varieties that are having all this impact. To what extent can their pedigrees be traced back to crop wild relatives, say? And, indeed, how many different parent lines have been involved in their development, and how genetically different were they? That will surely to some extent determine how sustainable these impressive impacts are likely to be.

September 29, 2011September 29, 2011

Nibbles: IRRI impact, Peruvian food, Nutritional strategy, Ethnobiology, Street food forum, Mulefoot hogs, Polyculture, Cheeses, Asimina triloba, Protected areas

Australians justify their investment in IRRI. Now that’s what I call impact!
Peruvian cuisine takes over the world. But, as Eve points out elsewhere, “We have a thousand kinds of potatoes in Peru, thousands” is not hyperbole.
Jess scoops the world with a nutrition strategy for the masses.
Indians need sorghum and millets to keep healthy.
Ethnobiology: The Book.
Talking about street food. Hold the mayo.
Not all pigs are cloven-hoofed. A tetrapod zoologist explains syndactyly.
Polyculture; is it all Pollyanna? Science will answer.
A flavour map of British cheeses. You know you need it.
Foraging for pawpaws. Not those pawpaws.
Bird areas apps. CWRs next?

September 28, 2011September 27, 2011

Bringing together researchers and breeders

It all started with a bravura Annals of Botany blog post from Pat Heslop Harrison from a scientific conference in Assisi: “Italian Genetics Societies in Assisi: staple foods and orphan crops via epigenomics and systems biology.”

That got posted to Facebook, where I commented on it by extracting what I found a particularly trenchant sentence:

I failed to notice substantial contributions to discussions or presentations from breeders or seed organizations, the end users of so much of the research discussed.

There were more comments in other media, apparently, and Pat felt the need to follow up. He’s done that both on his blog and on Facebook. And what he says is, again, well worth reading in full. Here’s a taster:

Unfortunately the difficulty making links of researchers with the seed companies and breeders is found in almost all of Europe, perhaps with the exception of the Netherlands.

There are other exceptions around the world:

India is brilliant in doing these things, with farmers’ cooperatives, tissue culture/propagation companies, extension workers (running trials etc), always at the meetings and willing to show you their lines, approaches, and discuss applications of what you say (see, for example, my blog from last year). USA is different with the land-grant universities taking research all the way to finished varieties.

And Africa? Anyway, I’d really like to know that the breeders think, so I’ve sent the various links to GIPB. But I can see that centralizing this discussion may prove tricky. Share fair, anyone? Well, maybe.

September 26, 2011September 26, 2011

Brainfood: Breeding resistance, Pastures, Wheats, Dates, Conservation, Habitats, Old olives, Spinach selection, Maize breeding

Cytological and Molecular Characterization of Homoeologous Group-1 Chromosomes in Hybrid Derivatives of a Durum Disomic Alien Addition Line. Getting tolerance to Fusarium head blight into durum wheat ain’t easy.
Sustainable, low-input, warm-season, grass–legume grassland mixtures: mission (nearly) impossible? Apparently really difficult to find native North America legume forage species tolerant of both freezing and high temperatures, but people are looking. Gotta wonder if it’s a problem elsewhere too. Ethiopian highlands?
Diversity of different farmer and modern wheat varieties cultivated in contrasting organic farming conditions in western Europe and implications for European seed and variety legislation. Strong selection for uniformity (for regulation) is not reflected in uniformity assessed on farm. And farmer varieties were good outside their region of origin.
Glycaemic index of three Indian rice varieties. All three the same, high, GI. So, “There is an urgent need to study the GI of other commonly consumed rice varieties and to develop rice of a lower GI value”. Er, right.
Glycemic indices of five varieties of dates in healthy and diabetic subjects. All five the same, low, GI and no difference in diabetics.
Agricultural expansion and the fate of global conservation priorities. Conservation needs to think about agriculture.
Which habitats of European importance depend on agricultural practices? 63 of them, mainly through grazing and mowing.
Centennial olive trees as a reservoir of genetic diversity. Only about 10% of old trees matched current cultivars.
Phenotypic Changes in Different Spinach Varieties Grown and Selected under Organic Conditions. There were phenotypic changes after just three seasons of selection, in one case resulting in a “new” variety.
Open-Pollinated vs. Hybrid Maize Cultivars. Hybrids are not the only way to improve maize productivity, apparently.
Plant breeding for harmony between agriculture and the environment. “Plant breeding can be a powerful tool to bring “harmony” between agriculture and the environment, but partnerships between plant breeders, ecologists, urban planners, and policy makers are needed to make this a reality.” I was just going to ask, why can’t we all just get along.

Don’t forget the open Mendeley group for the papers we link to here. Even if you don’t use Mendeley, you can subscribe to the RSS feed from the group and get stuff that way.

September 23, 2011September 23, 2011

Nibbles: Collecting, US heirlooms, Sequencing NUS, Nutrition strategies, Potatoes and climate change, Italian genetics

NSF re-invents the genebank wheel. No, that’s unfair, they’ve given much-needed money to evolutionary scientists to go out and collect seeds of 34 species in a really pernickety way.
Heirlooms being lost (maybe) and being re-found in the US. Thanks to Eve (on FB) for both.
A Cape tomato by any other name…
Gates Foundation has a new nutrition strategy. Gotta admire the chutzpah of summarizing the thing in basically half a side of A4. Compare and contrast, both as to content and presentation, with the CGIAR. Unfair again, I know, but that’s the kind of mood I’m in. Jess unavailable for comment.
Very complicated, very pretty maps about potatoes and climate change.
“I failed to notice substantial contributions to discussions or presentations from breeders or seed organizations, the end users of so much of the research discussed.” Pat Heslop Harrison calls ’em like he seems ’em.