Research Results
1. Diversifying Indian Crops in the Name of Nutrition—and the Planet
Basically, rice and wheat now contribute three-quarters of India’s cereal production (44% and 30%, respectively), and these cereals continue to comprise much of per capita calorie consumption—60% and 70% in urban and rural households, respectively. This does not augur well for the nutritional status of the country. There is a need for Indian farmers to diversify the crops they grow. In addition to growing a greater variety of staple cereal crops, they need to produce (for general consumption) various other crops, such as pulses, vegetables, and fruits. When they do so, it will help to improve farmers’ incomes, raise the citizens’ nutritional status, and also make farming more sustainable. A study by a team of scientists from the USA and India shows that if India replaced some of its predominant rice crop with other grains—such as sorghum, finger and pearl millets—it would slash the energy use of national cereal production by up to 12%, water use by almost a quarter, and greenhouse gas emissions by up to 13%. The greater diversity of grains would also boost availability of protein by 1-5% in people’s diets, and of iron by up to 49%.
The study also showed that to deliver on those goals, the share of those three crops in cereal agriculture would need to rise, from the current 14% to between 21 and 32%. Doing so is not easy, however. But it would help grapple with the challenges of increasing food production, enhancing the climate resilience of production systems, addressing micronutrient deficiencies, and reducing environmental impacts, and changing consumption patterns. Such a multidimensional perspective, based on the cultural, climatic, and ecological setting of each country, provides an effective approach for assessing the current state of food production systems and for making informed decisions that enhance their sustainability.
For more, see https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2019/11/diversifying-indian-crops-in-the-name-of-nutrition-and-the-planet/
Or
Access the full article at https://www.pnas.org/content/116/50/25034
2. Research on Irrigation of Crops
Agriculture is continuously under pressure to meet the demands of an increasing global population under changing conditions, which include rainfall and water availability. The largest yield gap in crop productivity among the different regions of the World stems from the fact that a vast area of cropland is rainfed. Water management thus becomes very crucial. Water management techniques that lead to the optimal use of limited resources are not yet well identified. Matt Yost, a researcher at Utah State University, is working on finding the best combination of practices to maximize yield, profit, and water efficiency.
Yost is looking at a host of water management techniques, which include using irrigation scheduling and advanced pivot irrigation technology, along with crop and soil management practices, such as rotation of drought-tolerant crops, cover crops, and reduced tillage. Initial findings suggest that pivot irrigation technologies, such as mobile drip and low-energy precision application or spray application, can be very beneficial in that they can be used to maintain crop yields with the use of about 20% less water. It also appears that most farmers may be able to reduce irrigation rates by 10%, with no reduction in crop yields. Biochar (charcoal used for soil treatment) applications are also showing some short-term crop yield or water-saving benefits.
For more, see https://phys.org/news/2019-12-farm-profits.html
and
https://scisoc.confex.com/scisoc/2019am/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/120334
3. Discovery of a Mediating Protein that Signals a Plant’s Immune System Could Lead to More Pest-Resistant Crops
Plants are constantly exposed to evolving pathogens and pests, with the resulting crop losses representing a considerable threat to global food security. As pathogen evolution can overcome disease resistance that is conferred by individual plant resistance genes, an enhanced understanding of the plant immune system is necessary for the long-term development of effective disease management strategies. Plant immunity is controlled by a complex signalling network and is difficult to study. A new actor in the immune system of plants has been identified. Scientists at the Desert Agriculture Initiative, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia have found that the protein MAP4K4 (mitogen-activated protein kinase kinasekinasekinase 4) is needed to mount proper defences against environmental pathogens. This discovery helps explain the tight control of immune signalling in plants and reveals targets in a molecular pathway that could be manipulated by crop breeders.
“Our findings are directly applicable to make plants more resistant to pathogens,” says study author, Heribert Hirt, professor of plant science at KAUST’s Center for Desert Agriculture. So far, Hirt and his group have only described this function of MAP4K4 in Arabidopsis immunity. “The next step is to test our findings also in crops by generating knock-out mutants,” Hirt says. “This is quite feasible now by using CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology that is established in tomato, rice, and other species of agricultural importance.”
4. Impact of Climate Change on the Productivity of Rice and Wheat Crops in Punjab
Global warming could lead to an increase in pest insect populations, harming yields of staple crops like wheat, soybeans, and corn. While warmer temperatures create longer growing seasons and faster growth rates for plants, they also increase the metabolic rate and number of breeding cycles of insect populations. Sunny Kumar and Baljinder Kaur Sidanaat at the Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana have studied seasonal trends in climate variables and their impact on rice and wheat yields in Punjab, by using daily data of temperature and rainfall (by district) from 1986 to 2015. A significant rise in mean temperature was observed in both the rice- and wheat-growing periods. Rainfall during the rice-growing period has decreased 7% annually over the past 30 years.
The authors conclude that climate change and fluctuations experienced in Punjab over the past three decades have reduced rice and wheat yields and, consequently, national food security. If the climate change is significant, the rice yield could fall by about 8.10% by 2080, and the wheat yield by about 6.51%. To mitigate the effects of climate change, it is necessary to adopt climate-resilient crop choices and irrigation practices and technologies.
For more, see https://www.epw.in/journal/2019/46/special-articles/impact-climate-change-productivity-rice-and-wheat.html
5. Researchers Clear the Path for ‘Designer’ Plants
The world population is projected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050, and India is expected to have 1.73 billion people by then. As a result, food production worldwide will need to rise by 70%, while food production in the developing world will need to double, according to several estimates. Crop Improvement through genetic manipulation (by various means) could play a key role in that effort, and scientists will require diverse tools to do so. Efforts are underway in many laboratories around the globe.
A team of researchers at the University of Georgia, the USA, led by Bob Schmitz, have identified cis-regulatory elements (sequences controlling gene expression at all developmental stages) or CREs, in 13 plant species, including maize, rice, green beans, and barley. They have thus found a way to identify gene regulatory elements that could help produce “designer” plants and lead to improvements in food crops at a critical time. Accumulating knowledge about gene promoters, cis sequences, and their cooperating factors allows uniform expression systems and highly predictable results.
The study provides genetic, epigenomic, and functional molecular evidence to support the widespread existence of gene–distal loci that act as long-range transcriptional cis-regulatory elements (CREs) in the maize genome. Chromatin loops link together putative CREs with genes and recapitulate genetic interactions. These results provide functional support for the widespread existence of CREs that act over large genomic distances to control gene expression.
For more, see https://phys.org/news/2019-11-path.html?utm_source=nwletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-nwletter
Potential Crops/Technologies
1. Genebank Genomics Bridges the Gap Between the Conservation of Crop Diversity and Plant Breeding
Genebanks are repositories of genetic resources/germplasm of plants, animals, fish, microorganisms, and their DNA, in an effort to conserve agricultural biodiversity for the future, as well for use in crop improvement. Globally, genetic resources of several major and minor crop plants and their wild relatives are conserved in genebanks. Genebanks have the long-term mission of preserving plant genetic resources as an agricultural legacy for future crop improvement. Operating procedures for seed storage and plant propagation have been in place for decades. However, there is still a significant gap in terms of effective means for the discovery and transfer of beneficial alleles from landraces and wild relatives into modern varieties.
German researchers, led by Martin Mascher of German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, review the prospects of using molecular passport data derived from genomic sequence information as a universal monitoring tool at the single-plant level, both within and between genebanks. Potentially, the transformation of genebanks into bio-digital resource centres, together with recent advances in breeding methodologies, will facilitate the selection of useful genetic variation and enable more effective use of genetic resources in breeding programmes. The authors suggest that this approach improves access to the crop diversity conserved in genebanks. Maschre and colleagues propose linking catalogues of natural genetic variation and enquiries into biological mechanisms of plant performance as a long-term joint research goal of genebanks, plant geneticists, and breeders.
For more, see https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-019-0443-6?fbclid=IwAR3hNUDa4GEAR9Wz1jDG4dG_EEggCUSZ_dXroUX-Md1Wu8ZRwlDIWys5Y8E
2. Benefits from Cover Crops Confirmed
In agriculture, cover crops are plants that are planted to cover the soil rather than for the purpose of being harvested. Cover crops manage soil erosion, soil fertility, soil quality, water, weeds, pests, diseases, biodiversity and wildlife in an agroecosystem Cover crops are something that should be on every agricultural producer’s and consumer’s list. Biomass will act as a protective barrier against wind and rain erosion. As the biomass breaks down, it adds organic matter back into the soil and improves soil fertility. Cover crop root structures help in erosion control by locking soil into place. Species with deep taproots help bust up compaction and improve nutrient cycling. Cover crops help in reducing weeds as well.
Risa Demasi, Co-Founder Grassland Oregon, USA says that data from the nationwide 2017 Cover Crop Survey conducted by Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education found cover crop usage to increase yields of subsequent corn, soybean, and wheat crops. Yields for 586 cornfields of similar management found an average increase of 2.3 bushels per acre (or 340 kg/ha) following a 2015 cover crop over fields that had no cover. Soybean yields of 552 fields found an average increase of 2.1 bushels per acre (290 kg/ha) following a 2015 cover crop, and wheat yields from 192 fields showed an increase of 1.9 bushels per acre (281 kg/ha).
It was found that cover crops also help in improving the performance of animals grazing on cover crops that are a mixture of grasses and legumes. There was an impressive reduction of inputs on a corn, soybean, and beef farm, achieved through consistent cover-crop use and planting cash crops into standing cover crops to fully capture biomass and nitrogen contributions.
(Editor’s note): Although the practice of cover crops is centuries old in India, it has given way to chemical fertilizers and herbicides. However, there are appears to be a growing realization among the Indian farming community that these quick-fix measures have side effects and may not work very well in the long term, thus making a strong case for cover crops).
For more, see https://www.hpj.com/crops/giving-thanks-for-cover-crops/article_63aa5126-061f-11ea-becd-7bdb23ca9590.html
4. Satellite ‘Surveillance’ Reveals Which Sustainable Farming Methods Work— and Which Don’t
High-resolution satellite data can be used to monitor crops and help farmers double the gains from sustainable intensification, finds a new Nature Sustainability study, published by Meha Jain and colleagues from the School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. It’s the first study that shows how satellite technology could be used to help farmers quantify the environmental and commercial benefits of sustainable farming—identifying which interventions work, and which don’t.
Feeding a growing population while reducing negative environmental impacts is one of the greatest challenges of the coming decades. Jain and colleagues show that microsatellite data can be used to detect the impact of sustainable intensification interventions at large scales and to target the fields that would benefit the most, thereby doubling yield gains. Their work shows that satellite data can provide a scalable approach to sustainably increase food production.
and
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0396-x
News:
1. AI for Plant Breeding in an Ever-Changing Climate
There has been a fair amount of discussion and writing in recent years about how artificial intelligence (AI) might impact agriculture, the food industry, and the field of bioengineering. Dan Jacobson, a research and development staff member in the Biosciences Division at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), has a few ideas. Jacobson and his team have been studying plants to understand the genetic variables and patterns that help them in adapting to changing environments and climates, using for this work some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, located at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF). Jacobson’s team is currently working on numerous projects that form an integrated roadmap for the future of AI in plant breeding and bioenergy.
For more, see https://www.newswise.com/doescience/?article_id=722548&returnurl=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubmV3c3dpc2UuY29tL2FydGljbGVzL2xpc3Q=
and
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167779919301143
2. Gene Editing Delivers Sorghum with 15-16% Protein
Researchers have achieved a major breakthrough in sorghum, elevating the protein of the globally important cereal crop from 9-10% to a staggering 15-16%. The breakthrough was revealed by Professor Ian Godwin (pictured) at the TropAg 2019 conference in Brisbane, following research carried out by the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation. Further development work on the new sorghum is expected to be carried out in the USA.
Professor Godwin said the genes of the sorghum plant had been edited to unlock the digestibility level of the available protein.”Gene editing has enabled us to knock out some of the existing genes,” Professor Godwin said. “That has increased the digestibility of the crop.”
For more, see https://www.northqueenslandregister.com.au/story/6500841/gene-editing-delivers-major-sorghum-protein-lift/?cs=4750
3. Global Treaty Critical for Saving Disappearing Plants amid Climate Change
As a public good that benefits the global community, crop diversity must remain a legacy for generations to come, said FAO’s Deputy Director-General for Climate and Natural Resources, Maria Helena Semedo. Semedo made the remarks at the eighth session of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (GB-8) at FAO’s headquarters in Rome. She noted that the Treaty has created the largest global genepool, which has been accessed 5.4 million times by farmers, scientists, and plant breeders.
She called for moving beyond staple food crops, and for increased investments in the conservation, availability, and use of plant genetic resources of nutritious food, such as fruits, vegetables, and underutilized crops. She noted that access to scientific information must be increased and the transfer of technologies and expertise, particularly in developing countries, must be enhanced.
For more, see https://reliefweb.int/report/world/global-treaty-critical-saving-disappearing-plants-amid-climate-change
4. Habitat Fragmentation is a Threat to Biodiversity
Biologist and Pulitzer winner Edward O. Wilson calls for setting aside half the Earth for nature, in order to prevent mass extinction and preserve biodiversity. With about 200 species going extinct every day, there is a need for a serious conversation about the conservation of biodiversity, followed by actions. Despite major human impacts in the planet, there is still the opportunity to protect such vast areas of the planet, according to a recent study by the National Geographic Society and co-authored by UC Davis conservationist researcher Jason Riggio. The study—which was released in early October as a global inventory—revealed that 56% of the planet, not including permanent ice and snow, is in low impact areas (LIA), distributed non-randomly across all continents and biomes.
For more, see https://theaggie.org/2019/11/20/habitat-fragmentation-threat-to-biodiversity-research-shows/
The full article can be accessed at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-50558-6.pdf
5. Nine Climate Tipping Points Now ‘Active,’ Warn Scientists
A tipping point in the climate system is a threshold that, when exceeded, can lead to large changes in the state of the system. Potential tipping points have been identified in the physical climate system, in impacted ecosystems, and sometimes in both. More than half of the climate tipping points identified a decade ago are now “active”, a group of leading scientists have warned.This threatens the loss of the Amazon rainforest and the great ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, which are currently undergoing measurable and unprecedented changes much earlier than expected. This “cascade” of changes sparked by global warming could threaten the existence of human civilisations. The growing threat of abrupt and irreversible climate changes must compel political and economic action on emissions.
For more, see https://phys.org/news/2019-11-climate-scientists.html?utm_source=nwletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-nwletter
and
https://www.nature.com/magazine-assets/d41586-019-03595-0/d41586-019-03595-0.pdf
Events
1. Legume Science and Practice 2: 27-29 May 2020, Angers, France.
For more, see http://www.cvent.com/events/advances-in-legume-science-and-practice-2/event-summary-1f0be0055444403bb63e8825e68f91b6.aspx
2.Agriculture for Life, Life for Agriculture, 9th edition: 4-6 June 2020, Bucharest, Romania.
For more, see http://agricultureforlife.usamv.ro/
3. 15th International Conference on Agriculture & Horticulture: 24-25 August 2020, Barcelona, Spain.
For more, see https://agriculture-horticulture.conferenceseries.com/
Other Topics of Interest
1. The goal is to enhance food security and environmental sustainability— everywhere
For more, see https://www.country-guide.ca/crops/a-new-horizon-for-genome-editing-of-crops/
2. Applying biodiversity conservation research in practice
For more, see https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191112110347.htm
and
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320719315708?via%3Dihub
3. The Global Economy of Pulses: Impressive Gains and the Way Forward
For more, see http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/11/global-economy-pulses-impressive-gains-way-forward/
4. UN agency sounds alarm: Dwindling agrobiodiversity ‘severe threat’ to food security
For more, see https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/11/1051411
5. Viewpoint: Intensive ‘industrial’ agriculture boosts farm productivity, promotes environmental sustainability
6. Voluntary Guidelines for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Farmers’ Varieties/Landraces
For more, see https://reliefweb.int/report/world/voluntary-guidelines-conservation-and-sustainable-use-farmers-varietieslandraces
7. Why Did Chinese Farmers Switch to Wheat?
For more, see https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/chinese-farmers/
8. Why indigenous peoples and traditional knowledge are vital to protecting future global biodiversity?
For more, see https://ensia.com/features/indigenous-knowledge-biodiversity/
9. With over USD 60 trillion of new infrastructure in the next 20 years, how can nature thrive amongst the concrete?
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