C4FUTURE - Fortifying and Enhancing Resilience in C4 Crops for Current and Future Climate Change Adversities
Global climate change, towards more elevated temperature, greater aridity and more frequent erratic climate events, becomes a major threat to agricultural sustainability, food security and social stability. This does not only concern Mediterranean regions but also central and northern Europe. Hence, enhancing crop resilience to climate change is a major challenge facing the global agricultural community. C4FUTURE is one consortium supported by SusCrop ERA-NET Cofund for Sustainable Crop Production, with partners from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, India and Turkey. The focus on two C4 cereal crops (maize and sorghum) is dictated by current climate change scenarios and the necessity to sustainably improve agricultural production, as well as nutritional and health-promoting quality of crop products.
Schedule:
09:00-09:10 Welcome and overview of C4FUTURE
09:10-09:50 Dr Alain Charcosset, Université Paris-Saclay, INRAE, CNRS, AgroParisTech, France
Genetics and history of European maize. A case study for climate adaptation
09:50-10:30 Dr Ephrem Habyarimana, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), India
Possibility of using wild sorghum to improve agroecological properties, nitrogen use efficiency, and adaptation to low nitrogen production systems in cultivated sorghum
10:30-11:10 Prof Faheem Shehzad Baloch, Sivas University of Science and Technology, Sivas, Turkey
Genetic and genomic resources for sustainable crop improvements: Few examples with case studies
11:10-11:30 Dr Line Berggreen Carlenius, Danish Centre for Food and Agriculture (DCA), Aarhus University, Denmark
Opportunities and challenges in working with communication and stakeholder engagement in large cross-European research projects/programmes
- Dr Alain Charcosset, research director, INRAE, UMR GQE-Le Moulon, Université Paris-Saclay, INRAE, CNRS, AgroParisTech, IDEEV, France
Genetics and history of European maize. A case study for climate adaptation
Maize was first introduced into Europe through Sevilla in 1493 by Colombus coming back from the Caribbean. Its cultivation on a broad scale is then reported in Germany as early as 1539. Genetic and historical investigations show that maize adapted rapidly to contrasted European environments thanks to introductions from different American latitudes, and then intercrossing events (admixture). In the 2nd half of 20th century, hybrid selection developed in Europe by crossing productive inbred lines from US origin with European lines conferring climate adaptation features. These events highlight a major role of admixture and hybridization to rapidly combine traits to address new uses or environmental challenges. They leave us a legacy of original genetic materials that is of key interest for implementing projects like C4 Future and detect promising diversity sources for adressing climate change, agroecology and food transition.
- Dr Ephrem Habyarimana, principal scientist – head of sorghum breeding, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), India
Possibility of using wild sorghum to improve agroecological properties, nitrogen use efficiency, and adaptation to low nitrogen production systems in cultivated sorghum
Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) is the world’s fifth economically most important cereal and is a staple particularly in the semi-arid tropics of Africa and Asia. its uses in western countries is steadily increasing due particularly to its climate change resilience and health promoting properties. Genetic gains in this crop can benefit from wild relatives such as Sorghum halepense. Hybridization of Sorghum bicolor with wild Sorghum halepense can help meet agroecological requirements of generating high-yields in an environment friendly way. In this work, we present the Resource Use Efficiency results from a whole-genome resequenced diversity panel made up of S. bicolor and an advanced population derived from S. bicolor × S. halepense multi-parent crosses. Agronomic, physiological, primary productivity, nitrogen use efficiency metrics, and norms of reaction results are discussed.
Genetic and genomic resources for sustainable crop improvements: Few examples with case studies
Türkiye is the part of Fertile Crescent and is a most important center of domestication and diversity of most crops, particularly cereals and legumes. Genetic resources from its area of diversity represent the novel source of genetic variation for traits of agricultural interest. In the late sixties, the green revolution with the introduction of dwarf genes resulted in a tremendous increase in the yield of wheat initially through conventional breeding methods, particularly in Asia and Latin America and later on in Africa as well. This green revolution secured the world from hunger and extended to other crops in the late 1980s and 1990s for food security. Since the green revolution, the application of various technologies in the agriculture sector reflected the increase in yield and quality of various crops to meet the global demand for food. With the increasing population of the world, various threats such as limited arable land, climate change, and ever-increasing food demands pose challenges to agricultural production. Innovation of biotechnological and genomics techniques provides sustainable strategies to further improve the yield, quality, and resistance to biotic and biotic stresses. Among these technologies, the use of DNA molecular markers is one of the main strategies for effective crop improvement for various traits of economic interest in crops. DNA markers improved the accuracy of classical plant breeding utilizing marker-assisted selection (MAS). For marker-assisted selection, thousands of QTLs and linked markers have been mapped and identified for various plant characteristics in most crops. Thus, the identification of the agronomic and nutritional traits from natural germplasm is an important prerequisite for their effective utilization in breeding programs that seek to improve the quality of crops. We had huge wild and cultivated germplasm of many crops such as bread and durum wheat, common bean, lentil, chickpea, sesame, maize, peanut, soybean, and many medicinal plants, etc. We characterize these germplasms for different adaptive and nutritional aspects. Recent advances in genomics, particularly the development next generation sequencing techniques, the ability to generate genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) based SNP datasets and the whole genome sequencing of the reference genome of most of the crops have enabled genome-wide association study (GWAS) to be an attractive approach for examining the genetic architecture of polygenic traits in crops. We will provide here a few examples of DNA markers applications for the identification of linked markers and - marker-assisted selection for desirable agronomic and nutritional traits in some crops of agricultural importance.
- Dr Line Berggreen Carlenius, special consultant, Danish Centre for Food and Agriculture (DCA), Aarhus University, Denmark
Opportunities and challenges in working with communication and stakeholder engagement in large cross-European research projects/programmes
Experience generates ideas for how to rethink the approach to communication and stakeholder engagement. This talk will paint a picture of experience and will call out for dialogue and knowledge sharing.