International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
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Finger Millet Improvement in Post-genomic Era: Hundred Years of Breeding and Moving Forward
Get PDFFinger millet, grown on about 5 Mha globally under semi-arid environments of East Africa and South Asia, serves as an important dual-purpose crop to address food, forage, and nutritional needs in these marginal regions. Despite the tremendous yield potential, the area cultivated for small millets, including finger millet, decreased by 25.7% globally between 1961 and 2018. Finger millet improvement program began in 1913 in India; however, concentrated efforts to realize genetic gains in this climate-resilient crop are yet to be deployed compared to the efforts invested in improving other major cereals. This has resulted in lower productivity of finger millet in farmer’s fields than its potential yield even after more than 100 years of breeding. However, significant genetic variability is available for traits of importance. The breeding programs in Asia and Africa have refined the hybridization techniques and breeding objectives as per local needs. ICRISAT, an international center with finger millet as one of its mandate crops, is engaged with partners to generate new germplasm to enhance the productivity of this crop in marginal regions. This program, based in India and Kenya, has developed and distributed germplasm and breeding lines globally in the last few decades. Many promising and widely adapted cultivars have been released and adopted in many countries. Hybridization between the Indian and African gene pools of finger millet in the 1990s brought a paradigm shift in finger millet production in India. Now, breeding pipelines have been strengthened with the identification of newly identified germplasm for traits of importance, especially for blast resistance. Recently, finger millet genome sequencing was accomplished, and with the availability of advanced phenotyping protocols for various traits of importance, it has opened new opportunities to enhance genetic gains in this crop. This chapter informs about historical breeding efforts and discusses the prospects and challenges of finger millet breeding to enhance breeding efficiency and genetic gains in finger millet. International collaborative efforts toward improving agronomic traits, value addition, and the trade value of finger millet would help marginal farmers of southeast Asia and Africa but will also help enhance the commercial value of this underutilized millet
Estimating the impact of biological control of maize stemborers on productivity and poverty in Kenya: a continuous treatment approach
Get PDFThis study examines the farm-level effects of stemborers’ biological control (BC) using biological and household survey data collected in rural Kenya. The authors use a continuous treatment impact-evaluation method to estimate BC’s average and marginal treatment effects. Findings indicate that, on average, a one percent increase in the intensity of BC increases maize yield by 9.3 kg per hectare and reduces the poverty level of maize-growing farm households by 0.5%. Developing and promoting biological control can be seen as an additional tool in the fight against food insecurity and poverty in Africa through controlling important pests
Assessing the rural food environment for advancing sustainable healthy diets: Insights from India
Get PDFWorld agricultural production has seen significant growth in the past four decades, yet malnutrition remains a persistent problem, particularly in the global south and more so in the rural areas. Need for a holistic approach to food systems is becoming crucial in designing policies that support the transition to sustainable and healthy diets. The present study is aimed to understand the rural food environment in the Telangana state in southern India by analyzing the combination of external and personal factors affecting food choices, attitudes, and consumption behavior. We developed a scoring-based methodology to assess the external and personal domains and dimensions to understand the food environment. The results showed that rural households favored carbohydrate-rich food groups obtained mostly from their own production or subsidized sources. On the other hand, protein and micronutrient-rich food groups were neglected due to affordability and preference for taste, cultural factors, and the limitations of external food environment. The findings of this study provide a deeper understanding of the food environment in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) conext. By highlighting the interplay between agriculture, food environments, and nutrition outcomes, this study contributes to the ongoing effort to address the global malnutrition crisis and support the development of healthier and more sustainable food systems. These findings can be useful to guide policy actions towards achieving food security and nutrition in the rural regions where food environments are under rapid transitions in the LMICs
Research for development approaches in mixed crop-livestock systems of the Ethiopian highlands
Get PDFThis study presents processes and success stories that emerged from Africa RISING’s Research for Development project in the Ethiopian Highlands. The project has tested a combination of participatory tools at multiple levels, with systems thinking and concern for sustainable and diversified livelihoods. Bottom-up approaches guided the selection of technological interventions that could address the priority farming system challenges of the communities, leading to higher uptake levels and increased impact. Joint learning, appropriate technology selection, and the creation of an enabling environment such as the formation of farmer research groups, the establishment of innovation platforms,
and capacity development for institutional and technical innovations were key to this study. The study concludes by identifying key lessons that focus more on matching innovations to community needs and geographies, systems
orientation/integration of innovations, stepwise approaches to enhance the adoption of innovations, documenting farmers’ capacity to modify innovations, building successful partnerships, and facilitating wider scaling of innovations for future implementation of agricultural research for development projects
Solar-based irrigation systems as a game changer to improve agricultural practices in sub-Sahara Africa: A case study from Mali
Get PDFIntroduction: In rainfed agricultural systems, sustainable and efficient water management practices are key to improved agricultural productivity and natural resource management. The agricultural system in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) relies heavily on the availability of rainfall. With the erratic and unreliable rainfall pattern associated with poor and fragile soils, agricultural productivity has remained very low over the years. Much of the SSA agricultural land has been degraded with low fertility as a result of ongoing cultivation and wind and water erosion. This has resulted in an increased food shortage due to the ever-increasing population and land degradation. Better agricultural and nutritional security are further hampered by the lack of reliable access to the available water resources in the subsurface hydrological system.
Methods: This study used socio-economic data from 112 farm households and Boolean and Fuzzy methods to understand farmers' perceptions and identify suitable areas to implement Solar Based Irrigation Systems (SBISs) in the agro-ecologies of Bougouni and Koutiala districts of southern Mali.
Results and discussion: Results revealed that the usage of SBISs has been recent (4.5 years), majorly (77%) constructed by donor-funded projects mainly for domestic water use and livestock (88%). With regards to irrigation, vegetable production was the dominant water use (60%) enabling rural farm households to gain over 40% of extra household income during the dry season. Results further showed that 4,274 km2 (22%) of the total land area for the Bougouni district, and 1,722 km2 (18%) of the Koutiala district are suitable for solar-based irrigation. The affordability of solar panels in many places makes SBISs to be an emerging climate-smart technology for most rural Malian populations
Genetic mapping identified three hotspot genomic regions and candidate genes controlling heat tolerance-related traits in groundnut
No full textGroundnut productivity and quality have been impeded by rising temperatures in semi-arid environments. Hence, understanding the effects and molecular mechanisms of heat stress tolerance will aid in tackling yield losses. In this context, a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population was developed and phenotyped for eight seasons at three locations for agronomic, phenological, and physiological traits under heat stress. A genetic map was constructed using genotyping-by-sequencing with 478 single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) loci spanning a map distance of 1,961.39 cM. Quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis using phenotypic and genotypic data identified 45 major main-effect QTLs for 21 traits. Intriguingly, three QTL clusters (Cluster-1-Ah03, Cluster-2-Ah12, and Cluster-3-Ah20) harbor more than half of the major QTLs (30/45, 66.6%) for various heat tolerant traits, explaining 10.4%–38.6%, 10.6%–44.6%, and 10.1%–49.5% of phenotypic variance, respectively. Furthermore, important candidate genes encoding DHHC-type zinc finger family protein (arahy.J0Y6Y5), peptide transporter 1 (arahy.8ZMT0C), pentatricopeptide repeat-containing protein (arahy.4A4JE9), Ulp1 protease family (arahy.X568GS), Kelch repeat F-box protein (arahy.I7X4PC), FRIGIDA-like protein (arahy.0C3V8Z), and post-illumination chlorophyll fluorescence increase (arahy.92ZGJC) were the underlying three QTL clusters. The putative functions of these genes suggested their involvement in seed development, regulating plant architecture, yield, genesis and growth of plants, flowering time regulation, and photosynthesis. Our results could provide a platform for further fine mapping, gene discovery, and developing markers for genomics-assisted breeding to develop heat-tolerant groundnut varieties
Do Millets Contribute to Food Safety Better than Maize and Other Staple Crops and Commodities?
No full textMillets (broadly classified to include sorghum) used to be traditional staple food crops across Africa and Asia, which were largely replaced by the Big 3, rice, wheat, and maize. Millets are known for their health and nutritional benefits; however, their benefits toward food safety in comparison to maize and other major crops are not often highlighted. Existing studies show that although occasionally contaminated with toxigenic strains of Aspergillus flavus, the overall aflatoxin contamination is less compared to maize, groundnut, sesame, and bambara nut. In cases of extreme temperature, aflatoxin contamination in millets can go high, particularly during droughts and floods. Yet, in general, millets are less susceptible to two major mycotoxins, namely, aflatoxin and fumonisin, are richer in iron and zinc, and have a low glycemic index and good lipid profile, which help reduce the risks of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Additionally, finger millet provides an alternative source of calcium, containing three times as much calcium and a similar bioavailability percentage as milk, which is useful not only for marginalized individuals who cannot afford milk but also for lactose intolerant individuals. In this chapter, aflatoxin contamination in millets is discussed in detail as compared to maize and other major crops, along with other food safety and nutritional advantages of consuming millets
Machine Learning-Based Ensemble Band Selection for Early Water Stress Identification in Groundnut Canopy Using UAV-Based Hyperspectral Imaging
No full textThis letter presents the early identification of water stress in groundnut (GN) canopy using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based hyperspectral imaging (HSI) (in 385–1020 nm) and machine learning (ML) techniques. An efficient HSI data analysis pipeline was presented which includes image quality assessment (IQA), denoising, band selection (BS), and classification. A novel ML-based ensemble feature selection (FS) algorithm has been proposed for optimal water stress sensitive waveband selection. The data analysis pipeline and the selected bands were validated on HSI data acquired at two different water stress levels. Wavelengths 515.05, 552.16, 711.92, 724.75, and 931.92 nm were identified as optimal water stress sensitive bands in the GN canopy, using which we could identify early stress with 96.46% accuracy. The proposed data analysis pipeline and ensemble FS algorithm will benefit crop phenotyping applications such as early abiotic stress detection
Genetic enhancement of Trichoderma asperellum biocontrol potentials and carbendazim tolerance for chickpea dry root rot disease management
No full textAdvances in biocontrol potentials and fungicide resistance are highly desirable for Trichoderma. Thus, it is profitable to use mutagenic agents to develop superior strains with enhanced biocontrol properties and fungicide tolerance in Trichoderma. This study investigates the N-methyl-n-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine (NTG) (100 mg/L) induced mutants of Trichoderma asperellum. Six NTG (3 each from 1st & 2nd round) induced mutants were developed and evaluated their biocontrol activities and carbendazim tolerance. Among the mutant N2-3, N2-1, N1 and N2-2 gave the best antagonistic and volatile metabolite activities on inhibition of chickpea F. oxysporum f. sp. ciceri, B. cinerea and R. bataticola mycelium under in vitro condition. Mutant N2-2 (5626.40 μg/ml) showed the highest EC50 value against carbendazim followed by N2-3 (206.36 μg/ml) and N2-1 (16.41 μg/ml); and succeeded to sporulate even at 2000 μg/ml of carbendazim. The biocontrol activity of N2-2 and N2 with half-dose of carbendazim was evaluated on chickpea dry root rot under controlled environment. Disease reduction and progress of the dry root rot was extremely low in T7 (N2-2 + with half-dose of carbendazim) treatment. Further, carbendazim resistant mutants demonstrated mutation in tub2 gene of β-tubulin family which was suggested through the 37 and 183 residue changes in the superimposed protein structures encoded by tub2 gene in N2 and N2-2 with WT respectively. This study conclusively implies that the enhanced carbendazim tolerance in N2-2 mutant did not affect the mycoparasitism and plant growth activity of Trichoderma. These mutants were as good as the wild-type with respect to all inherent attributes
Enhancing climate change resilience in agricultural crops
Get PDFClimate change threatens global food and nutritional security through negative effects on crop growth and
agricultural productivity. Many countries have adopted ambitious climate change mitigation and adaptation targets that will exacerbate the problem, as they require significant changes in current agri-food systems. In this review, we provide a roadmap for improved crop production that encompasses the effective transfer of current knowledge into plant breeding and crop management strategies that will underpin sustainable agriculture intensification and climate resilience. We identify the main problem areas and highlight outstanding questions and potential solutions that can be applied to mitigate the impacts of climate change on crop
growth and productivity. Although translation of scientific advances into crop production lags far behind current scientific knowledge and technology, we consider that a holistic approach, combining disciplines in collaborative efforts, can drive better connections between research, policy, and the needs of society