International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
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Morphological Characteristics of ICRISAT-bred Pearl Millet Hybrid Seed Parents (2005-2018)
Get PDFPearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L) R. Br.) is a major warm-season nutri-cereal grown on ~34 million
ha across the world with the majority of area (>95%) in the arid and semi-arid tropical (SAT) regions of
Asia (~11 million ha) and Africa (~22 million ha) (FAO, 2020). India is the largest producer with an average
production of 9.35 million tonnes and productivity of 1391 kg ha-1 occupying an area of 7.41 million ha
(Directorate of Millets Development, 2021-22). It is a highly cross-pollinated crop with an outcrossing
rate of more than 85%. The protogynous flowering and wind-borne pollination favor cross-pollination,
making open-pollinated varieties (OPVs) as the natural cultivar state of this crop. However, OPVs, are not
amenable to achieving as much heterozygosity and the consequent heterosis as possible in single-cross
hybrids. Furthermore, OPVs are highly heterogeneous and hence morphologically more variable than
single-cross hybrids. It has been observed that single-cross hybrids generally give 20-30% more grain yield
than OPVs (Rai et al. 2006). Based on these considerations, and with the availability of a commercially
exploitable cytoplasmic-nuclear male sterility (CMS), the National Agricultural Research System (NARS) in
India took the first significant step in the world to embark on grain hybrid development. With the rapid
growth of vibrant seed industry, pearl millet research in India, both in the private and the public sector,
is now almost all directed towards hybrid breeding. In alignment with the regional priority in Asia region,
ICRISAT’s pearl millet improvement research at Patancheru plays a pivotal role in developing diverse range
of improved breeding lines and potential hybrid parents, leaving the development, testing and release of
hybrids to the NARS and the private sector....
Framework for Incorporating Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) Elements in Climate Information Services (CIS)
Get PDFWe advance a gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) framework for incorporating climate information services (CIS), which is now becoming central due to the ongoing climate change and climate variability. We understand gender as a social construct of who women and men are supposed to be. Gender inequalities seem to be enduring such that, despite innovations in agricultural and climate information technologies, unequal gender power dynamics will still
emerge. As far back as the 1960s, the gendered inequalities in accessing technologies could be identified. Such a historical analysis clearly shows that the different technological solutions are clearly embedded within the society in which they evolve in. The paper uses a literature review methodological approach whilst informing the implementation of an ongoing Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) Project. The findings reveal that unless women are intentionally included in designing and developing agricultural technologies, specifically climate information systems, there is a danger that women will be excluded from the benefits. Conway’s law
clearly stipulates that technological innovations are not neutral as they are a projection of the values of their creators. It is, therefore, central to grasp the values of creators of different technological solutions and innovations. The key findings are built around the espoused conceptual framework, which has five indicators, namely: (1) gender targeting by intentional design, (2) collection of sex-disaggregated data, (3) conduct an analysis of the sex-disaggregated data, (4) dissemination of the technological
options and (5) conduct continuous monitoring of gender and ongoing empowerment evaluation. The five indicator domains are further complemented by their respective assumptions. Our GESI recommendations are on the five selected indicator domains. These domains must be used within the three focal development areas: agricultural data hub, climate information services training, and flood and drought indicators, which are all being implemented in Zambia. Other AICCRA Project countries are Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, and Senegal. This paper engages why CIS has not gained significant traction in Africa, as it has not genuinely incorporated the differential gender technological nuances
Whole‑genome resequencing of Sorghum bicolor and S. bicolor × S. halepense lines provides new insights for improving plant agroecological characteristics
Get PDFSorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. (Moench)) is the world’s fifth economically most important cereal and is a staple particularly in the semi-arid tropics of Africa and Asia. Genetic gains in this crop can benefit from wild relatives such as Sorghum halepense. Genome sequences including those from this wild species can boost the study of genome-wide and intraspecific variation for dissecting the genetic basis and improving important traits in sorghum. The whole-genome resequencing carried out in this work on a panel of 172 populations of S. bicolor and S. bicolor × S. halepense (SbxSh) advanced lines generated a total of 567,046,841 SNPs, 91,825,474 indels, 1,532,171 SVs, and 4,973,961 CNVs. Clearly, SbxSh accumulated more variants and mutations with powerful effects on genetic differentiation. A total of 5,548 genes private to SbxSh mapped to biological process GO enrichment terms; 34 of these genes mapped to root system development (GO: 0022622). Two of the root specific genes i.e., ROOT PRIMORDIUM DEFECTIVE 1 (RPD1; GeneID: 8054879) and RETARDED ROOT GROWTH (RRG, GeneID: 8072111), were found to exert direct effect on root growth and development. This is the first report on whole-genome resequencing of a sorghum panel that includes S. halepense genome. Mining the
private variants and genes of this wild species can provide insights capable of boosting sorghum genetic improvement, particularly the perenniality trait that is compliant with agroecological practices, sustainable agriculture, and climate change resilience
Genetic Progress in 50 Years of Potato Breeding in India: Where Do We Stand?
Get PDFAlthough the potato is a crop that was introduced in India, it has become a staple food and is grown in both the hills and plains. Potato breeding started in India in the 1950s’ and has contributed significantly to improving production. However, it is important to ascertain genetic progress in terms of changes in its yield over time. This study used the ‘Era trial’ methodology, wherein 22 potato varieties released in different decades ranging from 1968-2012 were evaluated in replicated multi-location trials for three consecutive years (2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17) in four potato growing zones of the country. The traits recorded were total tuber yield, marketable tuber yield and tuber dry matter content. Mixed model REML analysis showed significant differences among varieties and environments. Tuber dry matter content showed the least variation among varieties. The highest tuber yields were observed in the West-Central plains (WCP), while mean tuber yields were high in the North-Western plains (NWP). The zone-wise entry mean based broad-sense heritability estimates for all the three traits were high, although individual environment estimates observed low and moderate heritability too. Genetic gain results showed a positive trend for total and marketable tuber yields in NWP, WCP and Hill region (HR), while no gain was observed in the Eastern plains (EP) zone. The maximum annual rate of genetic gain for total tuber yield was 0.4%, 0.3% and 0.2% in WCP, HR and NWP. Positive genetic gain for tuber dry matter content was 0.2% in HR and 0.08% in WCP, while the other two zones had negative genetic gain for the trait. The annual rate of genetic gain for tuber yields and dry matter in potatoes does not commensurate with the future demand for the crop, underlining the need for holistic modern breeding techniques to boost genetic gains in potato breeding in India
Coping with cereal production risks due to the vagaries of weather, labour shortages and input markets through management in southern Mali
Get PDFProduction of cereals (maize, sorghum, millet) in southern Mali is challenged by several hazards that affect yield
and yield variability. The research aims to inform decision making towards effective risk management by quantifying cereal yield losses at field level due to production hazards under different management strategies. Five hazards relevant for farmers were analysed: late onset of rains, insufficient total rainfall, dry spells, low fertiliser quality and sudden lack of labour. The frequency and impact on yield of these hazards were assessed by combining a long term weather database (1965–2019) with outputs of the DSSAT crop model (baseline and optimised variety, fertiliser rates and sowing dates), and visualised in a risk matrix. The prevalence of the weather hazards was common, with all of them occurring at least once every five years. Frequency of nonweather
hazards were perceived to occur once every five years (labour hazards) and once every ten years (fertiliser hazards). Under baseline conditions maize (3.39 t / ha) outperformed sorghum (1.74 t / ha) and millet (1.33 t / ha), except in cases of fertiliser hazard when sorghum yielded more than maize. Maize responded relatively well to N application, and sorghum performed relatively well without N application. The benefit of millet resided in low yield variability, and lower sensitivity to the weather hazards. Changing management to optimise yields generally involved early sowing (22 days, 2 days and 27 days after onset for maize, sorghum and millet), increased N applications (66 kg N / ha, 27 kg N / ha and 111 kg N / ha for maize, sorghum and millet), and using short duration varieties. For millet the long duration variety was more beneficial. For maize there was opportunity to increase the yield without affecting the risk of yield loss, while for sorghum there was a synergy and for millet a trade-off between yield and risk. The different interactions between hazards and management for the three cereals stress the importance of maintaining farm diversity, as well as operational farm flexibility to respond to production risks
Breeding Drought-Tolerant Pearl Millet Using Conventional and Genomic Approaches: Achievements and Prospects
Get PDFPearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.] is a C4 crop cultivated for its grain and
stover in crop-livestock-based rain-fed farming systems of tropics and subtropics in
the Indian subcontinent and sub-Saharan Africa. The intensity of drought is predicted
to further exacerbate because of looming climate change, necessitating greater focus
on pearl millet breeding for drought tolerance. The nature of drought in different target
populations of pearl millet-growing environments (TPEs) is highly variable in its timing,
intensity, and duration. Pearl millet response to drought in various growth stages
has been studied comprehensively. Dissection of drought tolerance physiology and
phenology has helped in understanding the yield formation process under drought
conditions. The overall understanding of TPEs and differential sensitivity of various
growth stages to water stress helped to identify target traits for manipulation through
breeding for drought tolerance. Recent advancement in high-throughput phenotyping
platforms has made it more realistic to screen large populations/germplasm for droughtadaptive
traits. The role of adapted germplasm has been emphasized for drought
breeding, as the measured performance under drought stress is largely an outcome
of adaptation to stress environments. Hybridization of adapted landraces with selected
elite genetic material has been stated to amalgamate adaptation and productivity.
Substantial progress has been made in the development of genomic resources
that have been used to explore genetic diversity, linkage mapping (QTLs), markertrait
association (MTA), and genomic selection (GS) in pearl millet. High-throughput
genotyping (HTPG) platforms are now available at a low cost, offering enormous
opportunities to apply markers assisted selection (MAS) in conventional breeding
programs targeting drought tolerance. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology,
micro-environmental modeling, and pearl millet whole genome re-sequence information
covering circa 1,000 wild and cultivated accessions have helped to greater understand germplasm, genomes, candidate genes, and markers. Their application in molecular
breeding would lead to the development of high-yielding and drought-tolerant pearl
millet cultivars. This review examines how the strategic use of genetic resources, modern
genomics, molecular biology, and shuttle breeding can further enhance the development
and delivery of drought-tolerant cultivars
Biochemical Components Conferring Resistance to Pigeonpea Genotypes against Callosobruchus chinensis (L.) (Coleoptera: Bruchidae) under Semitropical Storage Conditions
Get PDFBackground: Pigeonpea, [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.] is one of the most common tropical and subtropical pulse crops belonging to the family Leguminosae. Bruchids, Callosobruchus chinensis is one of the most important storage pest of pulses in Asia and Africa. The present research focuses mainly on the possibilities of exploring biochemical sources of resistance to bruchids in cultivated and wild relatives of pigeonpea. This is an alternative method to reduce the use of insecticides and could be used in breeding programs to develop integrated pest management strategies for controlling bruchids.
Methods: Various cultivars of pigeonpea and their wild relatives were studied under laboratory conditions for biochemical resistance to C. chinensis at ICRISAT, Hyderabad during 2018-19 and 2019-20. The maintained culture of pulse beetle, were used for various bioassay techniques.
Result: The results revealed that seeds of wild species C. platycarpus ICPW 68 recorded lowest seed damage by C. chinensis (4.33% and 18.9%) as compared to ICPL 161 (59.78% and 74.40%) both under single and multi-choice tests, respectively. A negative correlation was observed between anti-nutritional factors and seed damage
G-DIRT: a web server for identification and removal of duplicate germplasms based on identity-by-state analysis using single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping data
No full textMaintaining duplicate germplasms in genebanks hampers effective conservation and utilization of genebank resources. The redundant germplasm adds to the cost of germplasm conservation by requiring a large proportion of the genebank financial resources towards conservation rather than enriching the diversity. Besides, genome-wide-association analysis using an association panel with over-represented germplasms can be biased resulting in spurious marker-trait associations. The conventional methods of germplasm duplicate removal using passport information suffer from incomplete or missing passport information and data handling errors at various stages of germplasm enrichment. This limitation is less likely in the case of genotypic data. Therefore, we developed a web-based tool, Germplasm Duplicate Identification and Removal Tool (G-DIRT), which allows germplasm duplicate identification based on identity-by-state analysis using single-nucleotide polymorphism genotyping information along with pre-processing of genotypic data. A homozygous genotypic difference threshold of 0.1% for germplasm duplicates has been determined using tetraploid wheat genotypic data with 94.97% of accuracy. Based on the genotypic difference, the tool also builds a dendrogram that can visually depict the relationship between genotypes. To overcome the constraint of high-dimensional genotypic data, an offline version of G-DIRT in the interface of R has also been developed. The G-DIRT is expected to help genebank curators, breeders and other researchers across the world in identifying germplasm duplicates from the global genebank collections by only using the easily sharable genotypic data instead of physically exchanging the seeds or propagating materials. The web server will complement the existing methods of germplasm duplicate identification based on passport or phenotypic information being freely accessible a
Determinants of quality-based payments for livestock in conflict-prone areas in Kenya
No full textThe mechanisms influencing livestock pricing in Kenya are well studied. The determinants of quality-based payments on markets in conflict-affected areas, however, are hardly documented. In this paper, we offer a deeper understanding of transitions towards quality-based payments from the perspective of livestock buyers in the Kerio-Valley, Kenya. The location is known for protracted communal conflicts. Transcripts from qualitative interviews, focus group discussions and field notes from participant observation we coded and analysed using MAXQDA. Our data identify three broad determinants (chain organisation and financing, market system development, quality and value of livestock) relevant for the transition from traditional to quality-based payments for livestock in conflict prone drylands. We then discuss the standard definition of livestock quality by market players, the behaviours of traders, and market institutions as entry points to leverage transitions to quality-based payments in future. Also, seasonal changes and security perceptions influence the potential for introducing quality-based payments. Although limited to the Kerio-Valley, key insights we offer could apply to similar conflict-prone settings in the region
Magnesium- a Forgotten Element: Phenotypic Variation and Genome Wide Association Study in Turkish Common Bean Germplasm
Get PDFMagnesium (Mg) is the fourth most abundant element in the human body and plays the role of cofactor for more than 300 enzymatic reactions. In plants, Mg is involved in various key physiological and biochemical processes like growth, development, photophosphorylation, chlorophyll formation, protein synthesis, and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. Keeping in view the importance of this element, the present investigation aimed to explore the Mg contents diversity in the seeds of Turkish common bean germplasm and to identify the genomic regions associated with this element. A total of 183 common bean accessions collected from 19 provinces of Turkey were used as plant material. Field experiments were conducted according to an augmented block design during 2018 in two provinces of Turkey, and six commercial cultivars were used as a control group. Analysis of variance depicted that Mg concentration among common bean accessions was statistically significant (p < 0.05) within each environment, however genotype × environment interaction was non-significant. A moderate level (0.60) of heritability was found in this study. Overall mean Mg contents for both environments varied from 0.33 for Nigde-Dermasyon to 1.52 mg kg−1 for Nigde-Derinkuyu landraces, while gross mean Mg contents were 0.92 mg kg−1. At the province level, landraces from Bolu were rich while the landraces from Bitlis were poor in seed Mg contents respectively. The cluster constellation plot divided the studied germplasm into two populations on the basis of their Mg contents. Marker-trait association was performed using a mixed linear model (Q + K) with a total of 7,900 DArTseq markers. A total of six markers present on various chromosomes (two at Pv01, and one marker at each chromosome i.e., Pv03, Pv07, Pv08, Pv11) showed statistically significant association for seed Mg contents. Among these identified markers, the DArT-3367607 marker present on chromosome Pv03 contributed to maximum phenotypic variation (7.5%). Additionally, this marker was found within a narrow region of previously reported markers. We are confident that the results of this study will contribute significantly to start common bean breeding activities using marker assisted selection regarding improved Mg contents