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February, 2007
Source:
CIMMYT E-News, vol 4 no. 2 - February 2007
http://www.cimmyt.org/english/wps/news/2007/feb/Njoro.htm
 A
place called Njoro
At an agricultural research
station in Kenya, ingenuity, improvised tools, and a small group
of talented, dedicated researchers and technicians using good
science, are on the front line of the battle to prevent a
potential multi-billion dollar crop disaster for the world.
Peter Njau has a
look of concern on his face and a sense of urgency in his voice.
“Be very gentle,” he says. “You don’t have to separate each
seedling from the others.” Njau, KARI-Njoro’s wheat breeder, is
teaching technicians at the Njoro Agriculture Research Centre of
the
Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) to transplant
thousands of extremely delicate winter wheat seedlings. The
seedlings have been kept in a cool environment to simulate a
temperate winter and now they are ready for what they will
interpret as springtime.
 The
technicians are using a new transplanting method for the very
first time. It should be more efficient but the team only has
one chance to get it right. All day they have been preparing the
plot, wetting it down and cooling the soil using a new sprinkler
irrigation system; making small furrows in the damp soil and
putting in beads of fertilizer; carefully marking and labeling
the location for each plant. The transplanting has to take place
just before sunset so the seedlings will have cool soil and a
cool night to start establishing their young root systems. Any
mistake and they will die and the opportunity to test them for
resistance to the new stem rust will be lost until the next
season.
Speed and
precision are vital since the airborne fungus that was
discovered in Uganda in 1999 has now spread beyond the African
continent. It is following a path that will take it to the great
wheat growing areas of south Asia where farmers grow wheat eaten
by a billion people. In the last great stem rust outbreak in
North America in 1954, the fungus destroyed as much as 40% of
the spring wheat crop.
Old
canvas sheets, twine and branches–makeshift shade for
delicate seedlings at Njoro |
The Njoro station
is in the Great Rift Valley of Kenya, not far from the city of
Nakuru and very close to the Equator. The new stem rust spores
have been present in the air at the station for at least three
years, making it the perfect location for testing wheat to see
if it can resist the fungus. Called Ug99, the new stem rust is
such a large threat to wheat around the world that scientists
dare not transport the spores themselves to other test
locations. Instead as part of the CIMMYT-ICARDA
Global Rust Initiative, which also includes national
partners like KARI and the
Ethiopian Institute of Agriculture Research (EIAR), the
world’s wheat comes to East Africa. Similar work is being
conducted at several sites in Ethiopia by EIAR. “We are
committed to work with international partners to fight the
looming threat of stem rust,” says Dr. Bedada Girma, leader of
EIAR's Stem Rust Task Force.
Njau works for
KARI and manages both his KARI assigned research as well as the
GRI wheat nurseries (plots of different wheat plants) at the
station. In one area the team grows three different kinds of
wheat that are known to be easily infected with Ug99. The three
wheats mature at different times so there is always a source of
infection to challenge the wheat being tested. An adjacent field
has over 3,000 samples of spring wheat in nurseries designed to
confirm what appears to be resistances found in previous
seasons. Those nurseries also include CIMMYT and KARI breeding
populations from which breeders hope to extract high
performance, Ug99 varieties for Kenya and the world.
 Not
far from the plots, inside a small building, sheets of
polyethylene shroud a makeshift innoculum chamber. Plastic
garbage bags act as blinds to keep the room dark. On the floor
are two old plastic spray bottles for water to keep the leaves
of the host wheat plants damp. It is here where the fungus is
grown and multiplied for use later on test plants. “We improvise
a lot here,” says Miriam Kinyua, the Director of the station and
overall coordinator of Kenya wheat research, including GRI
activities. “The world needs this work to be done.” She also
expresses gratitude to the Canadian International Development
Agency for providing funding that let the station put in a good
irrigation system. “We can now grow wheat in the off season and
ensure that if the rains fail, our testing won’t,” she says. She
is also pleased that the research station is now connected to
the rest of the world via a satellite dish and the internet,
another result of the
CIDA contribution. New contributions from
USAID are adding to the support for GRI work in both Kenya
and Ethiopia.
Back at the
transplant plot each group of seedlings is hand watered. Early
the next morning the team will put small tree branches in the
ground around the plot as stakes to hold up some old canvas
sheets. The canvas will shade the fragile seedlings from the hot
equatorial sun for another three days. Perhaps under the
flapping canvas is a seedling that holds the key to durable
resistance to the Ug99 fungus.
For more information Rick Ward,
Coordinator, Global Rust Initiative (r.w.ward@cgiar.org) |
