International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
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Combining multiple technologies: Integrated soil fertility management
Get PDFThis chapter shows how Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) can be combined and integrated further at farm and landscape levels to improve farming system performance. ISFM is an example of a system-wide technology. It is a set of soil fertility management practices, including use of industrial fertilizer, organic inputs, and improved crop varieties, combined with knowledge on how to adapt the practices to local conditions. Its benefits include agronomic efficiency, enhanced productivity, reduced risk, reduced need for industrial fertilizers, and reduction in post-harvest losses. The farmers' responses and opportunities for adoption are also discussed
Improving efficiency of knowledge and technology diffusion using community seed banks and farmer‑to‑farmer extension: experiences from Malawi
Get PDFBackground: Agri-innovations are mostly delivered to farmers through private and public sector-led institutions around the world, with various degrees of success in Malawi. These distribution systems, on the other hand, do not meet everyone’s production and productivity needs, particularly those of smallholder farmers. Alternative gap-filling systems are therefore required. Over the course of 7 years, we performed two studies in Malawi to assess the efficiency
of integrated farmer led agri-innovation delivery mechanisms, in order to advise programming and delivery
improvements. The first study looked at the impact of farmer-led technology delivery on agricultural output and productivity. It was split into two phases: learning (2010–2015) and scaling-out (2016–2019). The second study looked at how smallholder farmers changed their behaviour, after receiving instruction during the scaling-out phase. A farmerled social network, community seed banks, was used as the research platform. Results: The number of farmers who had access to improved seed increased by 35-fold from 2.4% in the baseline year. Groundnut, the major study crop, had a 1.8-fold increase in productivity. In sorghum, and common bean, the difference in grain yield between beneficiaries and control populations was 19% and 30%, respectively. The lowest aflatoxin contamination was found in groundnut grain samples from trained farmers, showing that learning had
occurred, with three training sessions sufficient for initiating and sustaining adoption of agri-innovations.
Conclusions: Many developing country economies have limited investments in agricultural extension and advisory
services, and as well as inefficient agri-input delivery systems, limiting access to science solutions needed to boost productivity. The farmer-led technology and knowledge dissemination systems examined in this research, are appropriate for a variety farming contexts, especially for crops underinvested by private sector, and where public extension and advisory services are poorly funded
Experimental games in transdisciplinary research: The potential importance of individual payments
No full textLaboratory experiments in social sciences are a powerful tool with which to study causal mechanisms in human interactions. Over the past several years, experimental games have been applied increasingly in transdisciplinary research in natural resource management with a strong purpose to develop capacity to promote learning and behavioral change. Yet, few studies have evaluated the potential of different experimental game designs to promote collective action outside of experiments. In a framed field experiment on water management in rural India, we compared within-game behavior and collective action outside the game between individuals who received individual payments and those who did not. Our results show little evidence for different behavior in the game. However, we find some evidence that our experimental game induced real-world changes compared to a control group without game intervention and that this change is slightly more likely to occur when individual payments are used
First report of Fusarium equiseti causing crown and root rot of cucumber in India
Get PDFIn 2018–2020, during surveys of approximately 160 ha in
15 cucumber growing locations across the Solan District of
Himachal Pradesh, the crop was found to be infected by a root
and crown rot fungus causing symptoms such as the yellowing
and wilting of leaves in 5–15% of plants. Two–three days
after the isolations were made from root, crown and stem
portions (Aldakil et al. 2019), in 60% of 40 samples colonies
grew out that were initially white, aerial and floccose and
later on turned yellowish to buff brown in colour...
Enhanced Diffusion and Scaling of Seed, Varietal Knowledge through Comparative, Experiential Learning
Get PDFComparative farmer field trials can be an
important channel for the successful evaluation, reliable
evidence, and acceptance of agricultural technologies.
Farmer-managed comparative trials reinforce the
agricultural extension system as they validate new
technologies in farmers’ field conditions. Thus, on-farm
comparative trials allow the farmers to evaluate the
differentiable impact of tested technology in their settings. The ingrained concept of “learning by doing” in such trials creates or improves the knowledge of farmers, and enhanced knowledge cascades into the scaling of technology. Climate resilient high yielding rice varieties
are considered the most efficient solution against stagnating yields and recurrent abiotic stresses to
consolidate the nation’s food security. Despite the
development and availability of several new varieties,
farmers in South Asia, including India, continue to
cultivate older varieties owing to poor varietal awareness
and knowledge, especially among small and marginal
farmers with less resource endowment. Therefore, awareness of the benefits of modern varieties among farmers is likely to motivate them. This concept has been ascertained by the present study. It verifies the positive effect of comparative learning of varieties through on-farm trials in the popularization of new stress-tolerant rice varieties (STRVs). Further, the impact of the gender and institutional linkage-based (through women self-help groups (SHG)) introduction of STRVs on scaling is also proven. The analysis and inferences are based on the findings of a randomized control experiment conducted in the state of Odisha in India using the STRV, BINA Dhan 11 in Head-to-Head (H2H) trials
Optimizing Crop Water Use for Drought and Climate Change Adaptation Requires a Multi-Scale Approach
Get PDFSelection criteria that co-optimize water use efficiency and yield are needed to promote plant productivity in increasingly challenging and variable drought scenarios, particularly dryland cereals in the semi-arid tropics. Optimizing water use efficiency and yield fundamentally involves transpiration dynamics, where restriction of maximum transpiration rate helps to avoid early crop failure, while maximizing grain filling. Transpiration restriction can be regulated by multiple mechanisms and involves cross-organ coordination. This coordination involves complex feedbacks and feedforwards over time scales ranging from minutes to weeks, and from spatial scales ranging from cell membrane to crop canopy. Aquaporins have direct effect but various compensation and coordination pathways involve phenology, relative root and shoot growth, shoot architecture, root length distribution profile, as well as other architectural and anatomical aspects of plant form and function. We propose gravimetric phenotyping as an integrative, cross-scale solution to understand the dynamic, interwoven, and context-dependent coordination of transpiration regulation. The most fruitful breeding strategy is likely to be that which maintains focus on the phene of interest, namely, daily and season level transpiration dynamics. This direct selection approach is more precise than yield-based selection but sufficiently integrative to capture attenuating and complementary factors
Genotyping-by-Sequencing Based Investigation of Population Structure and Genome Wide Association Studies for Seven Agronomically Important Traits in a Set of 346 Oryza rufipogon Accessions
Get PDFBeing one of the most important staple dietary constituents globally, genetic enhancement of cultivated rice for yield, agronomically important traits is of substantial importance. Even though the climatic factors and crop management practices impact complex traits like yield immensely, the contribution of variation by underlying genetic factors surpasses them all. Previous studies have highlighted the importance of utilizing exotic germplasm, landraces in enhancing the diversity of gene pool, leading to better selections and thus superior cultivars. Thus, to fully exploit the potential of progenitor of Asian cultivated rice for productivity related traits, genome wide association study (GWAS) for seven agronomically important traits was conducted on a panel of 346 O. rufipogon accessions using a set of 15,083 high-quality single nucleotide polymorphic markers. The phenotypic data analysis indicated large continuous variation for all the traits under study, with a significant negative correlation observed between grain parameters and agronomic parameters like plant height, culm thickness. The presence of 74.28% admixtures in the panel as revealed by investigating population structure indicated the panel to be very poorly genetically differentiated, with rapid LD decay. The genome-wide association analyses revealed a total of 47 strong MTAs with 19 SNPs located in/close to previously reported QTL/genic regions providing a positive analytic proof for our studies. The allelic differences of significant MTAs were found to be statistically significant at 34 genomic regions. A total of 51 O. rufipogon accessions harboured combination of superior alleles and thus serve as potential candidates for accelerating rice breeding programs. The present study identified 27 novel SNPs to be significantly associated with different traits. Allelic differences between cultivated and wild rice at significant MTAs determined superior alleles to be absent at 12 positions implying substantial scope of improvement by their targeted introgression into cultivars. Introgression of novel significant genomic regions into breeder’s pool would broaden the genetic base of cultivated rice, thus making the crop more resilient
Tradeoffs and Synergies Across Global Climate Change Adaptations in the Food-Energy-Water Nexus
Get PDFFood-energy-water (FEW) systems are increasingly vulnerable to natural hazards and climate change risks, yet humans depend on these systems for their daily needs, wellbeing, and survival. We investigated how adaptations related to FEW vulnerabilities are occurring and what the global community can learn about the interactions across these adaptations. We conducted a global analysis of a data set derived from scientific literature to present the first large scale assessment (n = 1,204) of evidence-based FEW-related climate adaptations. We found that the most frequently reported adaptations to FEW vulnerabilities by continent occurred in Africa (n = 495) and Asia (n = 492). Adaptations targeting food security were more robustly documented than those relevant to water and energy security, suggesting a greater global demand to address food security. Determining statistically significant associations, we found a network of connections between variables characterizing FEW-related adaptations and showed interconnectedness between a variety of natural hazards, exposures, sectors, actors, cross-cutting topics and geographic locations. Connectivity was found between the vulnerabilities food security, water, community sustainability, and response to sea level rise across cities, settlements, and key infrastructure sectors. Additionally, generalized linear regression models revealed potential synergies and tradeoffs among FEW adaptations, such as a necessity to synergistically adapt systems to protect food and water security and tradeoffs when simultaneously addressing exposures of consumption and production vs. poverty. Results from qualitative thematic coding showcased that adaptations documented as targeting multiple exposures are still limited in considering interconnectivity of systems and applying a nexus approach in their responses. These results suggest that adopting a nexus approach to future FEW-related adaptations can have profound benefits in the management of scarce resources and with financial constraints
Tonoplast inositol transporters: Roles in plant abiotic stress response and crosstalk with other signals
No full textInositol transporters (INT) are thought to be the pivotal transporters for vital metabolites, in particular lipids, minerals, and sugars. These transporters play an important role in transitional metabolism and various signaling pathways in plants through regulating the transduction of messages from hormones, neurotransmitters, and immunologic and growth factors. Extensive studies have been conducted on animal INT, with promising outcomes. However, only few recent studies have highlighted the importance and complexity of INT genes in the regulation of plant physiology stages, including growth and tolerance to stress conditions. The present review summarizes the most recent findings concerning the role of INT or inositol genes in plant metabolism and the response mechanisms triggered by external stressors. Moreover, we highlight the emerging role of vacuoles and vacuolar INT in plant molecular transition and their related roles in plant growth and development. INTs are the essential mediators of inositol uptake and its intracellular broadcasting for various metabolic pathways where they play crucial roles. Additionally, we report evidence on Na+/inositol transporters, which until now have only been characterized in animals, as well as H+/inositol symporters and their kinetic functions and physiological role and suggest their roles and operating mode in plants. A more comprehensive understanding of the INT functioning system, in particular the coordinated movement of inositol and the relation between inositol generation and other important plant signaling pathways, would greatly advance the study of plant stress adaptation
Construction of Practical Haplotype Graph (PHG) with the Whole-Genome Sequence Data
No full textWith the emerging sequencing technologies and cost reduction, the sequence data generation has accelerated from a single individual to multiple (thousands of) individuals of a species. The terabytes of sequence data generated from thousands of individuals include the majority of the redundant sequence which depends on the level of sequence similarity within the population of individuals. Managing large datasets and creating the unique catalogue sequence from such a large population is challenging to analyze, store, and retrieve the information. In this chapter, we discuss the practical haplotype graph (PHG) which addresses the above said challenges and also able to retrieve required information such as variants and sequences more efficiently, which enable researchers to manage and assess large genomic data