Nurturing “golden eggs” for wheat improvement
by Alison Bentley
Director, Global Wheat Program, CIMMYT
CGIAR Research Program on Wheat (WHEAT) scientists recently reflected on the assets and valuable findings, termed “golden eggs,” that should live on in the 2022-2024 CGIAR Initiatives Portfolio that replaces the CGIAR Research Programs. Their presentations at a recent One CGIAR golden egg event synthesized the outcomes of almost 10 years of applied wheat improvement research.
An integrated translational wheat research & pre-breeding pipeline
CIMMYT wheat physiologists Matthew Reynolds, Carolina Rivera and Francisco Pinto presented the integrated wheat translational research and pre-breeding pipeline that reaches from theoretical crop design through to proof of concept for breeding. This pipeline aims to broaden diversity of the wheat gene pool and to identify and introduce novel traits for wheat breeding. A focus on physiological traits, which are typically harder to measure accurately, has significantly increased understanding of adaptive traits relevant to wheat yields under heat and drought stress. This includes recent work on spike photosynthesis, carbohydrate storage and remobilization and water uptake by roots. The team has also developed new protocols and high throughput phenotyping methods, which are likely to be applicable across crop species. The protocols also assist in analyzing genotype by environment interactions. Priority next steps for this pipeline are to crowd-source new technologies globally that could be applied to advance physiological trait discovery and phenotyping, and expand public-private partnerships to jointly work on common upstream research challenges. Another task is to advance the pipeline concept, to deliver faster progress against the growing range of breeding and climate resilience targets. It can also serve as a model for integrating cutting-edge research into breeding research for development for the Global South, as well as for leveraging public- and private-sector investment and knowledge.
Why long-term investment in core breeding matters
CIMMYT wheat breeders Ravi Singh and Leonardo Crespo described the legacy and impacts of 75 years of CGIAR wheat breeding. The CIMMYT Global Wheat Program operates the largest international breeding network in the CGIAR (the International Wheat Improvement Network, or IWIN) serving over 250 partners in 100 countries. The centralized breeding process, supported by international phenotyping platforms run based on long term collaborations by national programs, ensures that the core traits required by farmers are packaged together in optimal combinations. The use of phenotyping platforms established by national partners allows rigorous preemptive screening for future threats. In the case of wheat blast, a devastating emerging fungal disease, prior screening of CIMMYT material in Bolivia allowed for the rapid release of blast resistant material in Bangladesh (via a variety known as BARI Gom33) just one year after the disease emerged in the country. Next steps for the program include the adoption of accelerated breeding schemes, main-streaming of high grain Zinc, earlier targeting of breeding materials to meet regional needs and establishment of even closer linkages with national programs to expand the testing and selection of new germplasm. In addition, capacity development, a key component of the historical success of wheat improvement in CGIAR target regions will continue to be at the heart of CIMMYT’s wheat activities. Overall, the breeding “machine” at CIMMYT is highly effective at delivering impact with a return on investment of 73:1. Long-term, sustained investment and a process of continuous improvement is necessary to ensure future delivery.
The treasure of agronomic long-term trials: capitalizing on past investments for science-based scaling
CIMMYT cropping system agronomists ML Jat, Christian Thierfelder and Nele Verhulst presented on outcomes from both the WHEAT and MAIZE CRPs in soil health and management. Using a global long-term experimental network across a diverse range of farming systems and conservation agriculture approaches their analyses reveals quantifiable evidence metrics on sustainability, adaptability and resilience to climatic risks in cereal-based cropping systems across three continents (Asia, Africa and Latin America). This provides an important resource for research, policymakers, development practitioners and private sector businesses. Founded in agronomic understanding the outputs are relevant for informing decision making on resource management and climate-resilient production systems and have made policy informed impacts. The next steps are to ensure the continuity of long-term experiments in cereal-based systems in order to provide a data-driven resource for tracking interventions and their impacts on the sustainable development goals and climate effect projections as well as to serve as capacity development platforms. In addition, there are opportunities to connect this vast resource across a range of projects and agricultural initiatives and to use the data resource for modelling, prediction and mitigation of future cereal production challenges.
