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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Wheat
molecular
Atlas

Navigating genetic diversity

Understanding and using diversity


The molecular atlas provides data, tools and resources to allow germplasm bank users; wheat breeders, researchers, extension agents etc., to identify the diversity of likely value for their specific needs from the tens of thousands of landraces available to them.

The atlas is structured around three pillars; data and knowledge, tools and training resources. The specific components within these pillars can be accessed alone or in combination, as required by users as illustrated in the example of identification of new variation for heat tolerance.

We are interested in receiving your feedback about the molecular atlas. Please feel free to contact us to ask questions or provide comments.

Data, Knowledge & training resources

SeeD Wheat Germinate is a genetic resources database that stores and provides search and visualization tools for passport data, accession collection information and data, genotypic data and phenotypic data for wheat accessions and derived materials studied as part of the initiative. Germinate was developed by James Hutton Institute, in collaboration with CIMMYT

The CIMMYT Seeds of Discovery Dataverse is a data and software repository containing flat files of data, knowledge and training resources provided in a structured, downloadable format.

Software tools

Flapjack is a multi-platform application that enables graphical visualization of simple and complex genotypes and haplotypes using SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) data. Flapjack enables representation of QTLs and sorting of samples by phenotype. Flapjack was developed by James Hutton Institute, in collaboration with CIMMYT.

CurlyWhirly is a multi-platform application developed to enable interactive visualization of multi-variate analysis, with a particular focus on the outputs of Principal Coordinate Analysis, Principal Components Analysis, Canonical analysis and Multidimensional Scaling. Integration of results with other categorical data facilitates interpretation and selection of points of interest. CurlyWhirly was developed by James Hutton Institute, in collaboration with CIMMYT.

KDSmart is Android platform, digital application for recording phenotypic data in the field, greenhouse or laboratory using a tablet or smart phone. KDSmart was developed by Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT) in collaboration with CIMMYT.

KDXplore is a multi-platform application that helps manage and curate data collected by KDSmart in nurseries, yield trials, production, and observation fields. KDXplore was developed by Diversity Arrays Technology (DArT) in collaboration with CIMMYT.

TRAINING RESOURCES

The CIMMYT Seeds of Discovery Dataverse is a data and software repository containing flat files of data, knowledge and training resources provided in a structured, downloadable format.

Links to other Wheat resources

We are well aware that SeeD is only one of several projects and online resources that deal with wheat genetic diversity or molecular data. As we develop the Wheat Molecular Atlas, we will attempt to link it to other on-line resources and projects, such as:

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.