Strategic plan and approaches for Afghanistan wheat improvement under SATREPS
Manickavelu Alagu1, Tomohiro Ban1, Hisashi Tsujimoto2, Minami Matsui3, and Youichi Kondo3
1 : Kihara Institute for Biological Research, Yokohama City University, 641-12 Maioka-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama 244-0813, Japan
2 : Laboratory of Molecular Breeding, Arid Land Research Center, Tottori University, 1390 Hamasaka, Tottori 680-0001, Japan
3 : RIKEN Plant Science Center, 1-4-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama 230-0045, Japan
Corresponding author: Manickavelu Alagu
E-mail: manicks@yokohama-cu.ac.jp
Abstract
Rapidly growth of the global population and climate change are great concern for sustainable global food production and environment conservation in developing countries. Wheat breeding and genetic studies will find a way of great advantage for sustainable development mitigating the global threats. Particular in Afghanistan, the re-establishment of farming system is one of the major contributions to poverty reduction and social welfare after the civil war. The accumulation of scientific knowledge, technology development, researcher’s training, the restoration of related facilities and effective extension services are essential to establish future generation. Wheat is the most important crop in Afghan which accounts for 77% of all cereal production (Anonymous, 2010), but its production volumes are not able to meet demand due to low productivity under the unfavorable natural condition, mainly of drought (Fig. 1). While wheat production currently depends on rain fall where covered over 75% area of cultivation, the expansion of irrigation system and wheat breeding system adapted to marginal lands in the Afghan climate will be critical and challenging (Agriculture Prospects Reports, 2012). Our new five years project ‘Development of wheat breeding materials for sustainable food production in Afghanistan’ launched in 2011 April. Aim of this project is development of wheat breeding system for sustainable food production in Afghanistan to conserve the local varieties and wild relatives of wheat, and maximizing their potential as a breeding material (pre-breeding) for high yield and good quality in parallel with capacity development.
SATREPS - Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development
Based on the needs of developing countries, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) cooperates with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to entails promotion of international joint research targeting global issues and envisaging future utilization of research outcomes with systemic reforms (http://www.jst.go.jp/global/english/). Implemented through collaboration with Official Development Assistance (ODA), the aim of the program is to acquire new knowledge leading to resolution of global issues and advancement of science and technology. Such international joint research under the program will also address the research and development of capacity and contribute to the sustained research activities in developing countries.
Framework and activities of project
This project intends to discover and conserve useful wheat germplasm with highly adapted to marginal lands. The useful experimental lines will be used for cross breeding of superior wheat variety to develop new breeding materials combining drought tolerance, disease resistance, high yielding and high quality traits. Kihara Institute for Biological Research, Yokohama City University have conserved valuable wheat germplasm, including around 500 Afghan wheat local varieties and wild relatives, which Professor Hitoshi Kihara and team explored and collected from 1950’s to 1970’s in Afghanistan by Kyoto University Scientific Expedition. This project conducts research for development on the genetic diversity and agricultural characteristics of these wheat collections through international collaboration. The collections are expected to be brought back to Afghanistan along with the well-trained Afghan researchers. The project targets to develop novel breeding materials for future Afghan wheat breeding system with adapted to marginal lands. It would be helpful and valuable to reconstruct the wheat breeding system for sustainable crop production in Afghanistan, which can contribute as a core function to increase wheat production in Afghanistan. Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL), Afghanistan is our main counterpart with whom we made the pipeline to achieve our project ideas. Further the project is catalysts by Japanese experts (including Tottori University and RIKEN PSC) and international networks through CGIAR Centers (CIMMYT and ICARDA) contribute in all aspects of project. The overall framework of our project is showed in Fig. 2.
Activities and expected outcomes of the project
By keeping the target of future Afghanistan wheat improvement in mind, the following targets are outlined.
a) Assessment of genetic diversity for Afghan wheat landraces for rain-fed wheat improvement
b) Development of practical wheat improvement system in MAIL with capacity development of Afghan researchers
c) Development of novel wheat breeding materials with widely adaptation introduced from the wheat landraces and wild relatives are developed
d) Conservation and utilization of Afghan wheat germplasms
The scientific outline or approaches for the projects is showed in Fig. 3. The expected outcomes from this project in five years (2011-16) are,
1. Accumulation of knowledge on the genetic diversity among wheat germplasm originated from Afghanistan to improve adapted commercial wheat varieties;
2. Development of practical breeding and evaluation methods for wheat germplasm highly adapted to marginal lands in Afghanistan;
3. Development of novel wheat breeding materials with widely adaptation introduced from wheat wild relatives; and
4. Afghan wheat germplasm are conserved and utilized
5. Short term, long term training (Master courses) and technical workshops for capacity development.
Current status
Based on clear goals and plan, the project made the good foundation for the research and capacity development. Through counter-part, national and international collaboration, the phenotypic characterization of Afghan landraces for various morphological, elemental composition and biotic stresses were started last year which has been continuing in the consecutive years to get concise data. Molecular characterization is underway with high-through put markers in order to get the genome wide data for diversity and population structure analysis. Based on phenomics and genomics data, establishing Afghan wheat core-set is possible to carry-out further in-depth research and application. In the case of capacity development, currently four master students are enrolled in Yokohama City University in order to carry-out basic and applied wheat research for future Afghanistan wheat improvement.
References
Anonymous (2010) World Food Report.
Agriculture Prospects Reports (2012) MAIL, Afghanistan.