News

NEWS

  • Wheat phenotyping workshop

    The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) extends a cordial invitation to participate in the training workshop "Wheat phenotyping for the identification of germplasm with high yield potential and tolerance to drought and heat". This will be held in CIMMYT HQ, Texcoco, State of Mexico, on September 28th, 2018 (from 9:00 – 14:00 hrs) as part of the II Plant Breeding Symposium México 2018 (https://trasmejoragen.wixsite.com/inicio) The objective of this workshop is to train participants in the phenotypic characterization of wheat germplasm. Research themes include: climate change; priority characteristics for wheat for Mexico; phenotyping of genetically diverse materials and in the ...

  • II Plant Breeding Symposium Mexico 2018

    MasAgro Biodiversity announces the II Plant Breeding Symposium Mexico 2018 which will be held on September 6 and 7, 2018 at the CIMMYT HQ, Texcoco. Mexico. This event belongs to the series of DuPont Plant Sciences Symposia. For more information please visit the website:https://trasmejoragen.wixsite.com/inicio

  • New video: Crop biodiversity for healthy, nutritious livelihoods

    Erratic weather, poor soil health, and resource shortages keep millions of maize and wheat farmers in developing countries from growing enough to feed their households and communities or to harvest a surplus to sell.

  • 3rd KDSmart app workshop

    The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) extends a cordial invitation to participate in the training workshop on the use of the KDSmart app. This will be held in Texcoco, State of Mexico, on December 20, 2017 (from 9:00 - 17:00 hrs).

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Catalogue

PRODUCTS CATALOGUE

PRODUCTS CATALOGUE

MasAgro Biodiversity, a component of the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) program, focuses on the utilization and conservation of valuable genetic resources with genetic diversity protected in germplasm banks. This program has the purpose of accelerating the development of Varieties of maize and wheat that can meet the nutrition and nutritional demands of a growing population, facing the challenges of climate change.

By characterizing the genetic configuration of CIMMYT germplasm bank collections, the evaluation of priority characteristics – such as drought tolerance, high temperatures and some diseases – and the development of bioinformatics tools that streamline its analysis, MasAgro Biodiversity has Generated a “platform for the utilization of genetic resources” of maize and wheat.

This platform puts several products at the disposal of the scientific community. MasAgro Biodiversity also offers some services in order to promote equity in access and benefits of the use of maize and wheat diversity.

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Karina Frutero and Timoteo Almeraya at work in CIMMYT’s maize genebank. ©2010 (CIMMYT)

Data release
All maize data and attribution information will be made available in the form of a ‘Maize SeeD Catalog’ to stimulate crowdsourcing-based data mining, no later than 24 months after having concluded the generation of each dataset (so that those who generated the data have an opportunity to draft scientific publications to add value to the data). Where possible, we will link the Maize SeeD catalog with other online resources through web services.

Genotypic data
We are now starting to systematically characterize the molecular diversity in the maize collections at CIMMYT and INIFAP, using a new genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) method, which simultaneously quantifies genetic relationships amongst, and allele-frequency profiles within landrace populations (accessions). Examples for primary GBS data, derived from individual plants, can be found in the Wheat SeeD Catalog, where we have already implemented a simple query interface.

Germplasm
Latin American maize landraces are globally the most important maize genetic resources. Mesoamerica (southern Mexico and Guatemala) is where maize ancestors evolved and were domesticated approximately 10,000 years ago, before spreading to North and South America along ancient trade networks.

Maize diversity line-up. ©2010 (CIMMYT)

There are many maize germplasm collections in Mexico, including a large collection held in trust for humanity by CIMMYT under an agreement with the FAO, collections held at the National Center for Genetic Resources (CNRG) of the National Institute for Forestry, Agricultural and Livestock Research (INIFAP), the National Plant Germplasm Bank (BANGEV) at the Chapingo Autonomous University, collections held at the Antonio Narro Autonomous Agrarian University (UAAAN), the Autonomous University of Nuevo León (UANL), the Biological and Agricultural Sciences University Center (CUCBA)at the University of Guadalajara, and a collection of landraces used by subsistence farmers and assembled by the ‘Master Project for Mexican Maize’ (PMMM). All maize genebanks in Mexico are invited to participate in SeeD.

The maize genebank at CIMMYT comprises 27,451 accessions. About 89% of these accessions are landraces; most of them (9,406 or 38%) were collected in Mexico, 3,245 (13%) were collected in Brazil and 2,928 (12%) in Central America and the Caribbean. In addition to landraces, the genebank also conserves wild relatives (388), CIMMYT Maize Lines (CML; 541) and approximately 2,000 pools, populations and breeder varieties – the results of past (pre)breeding efforts.

Arturo Terrón and Humberto Vallejo (INIFAP) sowing a trial for the genome-wide association study (GWAS) under Objective 3 of the maize strategy. ©2012 (CIMMYT)

Traits
In alignment with SeeD’s mission to facilitate a broader and more targeted use of genetic resources in crop improvement, we focus on traits that are key breeding targets in global and Latin American breeding programs. Our principal targets in the context of climate change and resource-use efficiency are heat, drought and low-nitrogen tolerance. Biotic stresses, including resistance to tar spot, ear rots, stalk rot, Cercospora, and Turcicum, are other important traits, along with selected grain-quality characters related to Latin American maize uses. A list of trials conducted for a large genome-wide association study (GWAS) under maize Objective 3 to this date can be found here.

As with all phenotyping work, we also collect data in each trial on standard agronomic traits, such as male and female flowering, root and stalk lodging, plant and ear height, and grain yield.

Links to other maize resources
Maize

For more information please contact us at: seed@masagro.org

RESEARCH PORTFOLIO

RESEARCH PORTFOLIO

Genetic resources

Genetic resources

Capacity

Capacity

Data

Data

Pre-breeding Germplasm

Pre-breeding Germplasm

Knowledge

Knowledge

Software

Software

PHILOSOPHY OF OUR APPROACH

PHILOSOPHY OF OUR APPROACH

So many accessions, so few data!

Many genebanks resemble libraries that lack sufficiently informative catalogs. The advent of next-generation DNA-sequencing platforms has made it possible to characterize the genetic diversity conserved in entire genebanks.

Information management

Generating new data by itself is insufficient if it cannot be effectively disseminated, queried, summarized, visualized, and analyzed. Data generation, therefore, has to go hand-in-hand with providing intuitive software and analysis tools to deal with the rapidly expanding datasets describing maize and wheat genetic resources.

Pre-breeding

A ‘reformatting’ of the diversity in genebanks into a more breeder-ready format could lower the barriers to mobilize novel genetic variation into breeding programs, which in good part are due to the dependency of gene effects on genetic backgrounds.

Traits with complex genetic architecture

Some of the most important challenges to agriculture need to be addressed by manipulating genetically complex characters controlled by small-effect alleles (yield potential, heat and drought tolerance, etc.).

Collecting germplasm.

The availability of sufficient numbers of genebank accessions does not appear to be a factor limiting the use of novel genetic variation in breeding programs, and a new initiative will secure the global network of genebanks of humanity’s major food crops for future generations.