Technology generation to dissemination: lessons learned from the tef improvement project

Abstract

Indigenous crops also known as orphan crops are key contributors to food security, which is becoming increasingly vulnerable with the current trend of population growth and climate change. They have the major advantage that they fit well into the general socio-economic and ecological context of developing world agriculture. However, most indigenous crops did not benefit from the Green Revolution, which dramatically increased the yield of major crops such as wheat and rice. Here, we describe the Tef Improvement Project, which employs both conventional-and molecular-breeding techniques to improve tef-an orphan crop important to the food security in the Horn of Africa, a region of the world with recurring devastating famines. We have established an efficient pipeline to bring improved tef lines from the laboratory to the farmers of Ethiopia. Of critical importance to the long-term success of this project is -018-2115-5 the cooperation among participants in Ethiopia and Switzerland, including donors, policy makers, research institutions, and farmers. Together, European and African scientists have developed a pipeline using breeding and genomic tools to improve the orphan crop tef and bring new cultivars to the farmers in Ethiopia. We highlight a new variety, Tesfa, developed in this pipeline and possessing a novel and desirable combination of traits. Tesfa's recent approval for release illustrates the success of the project and marks a milestone as it is the first variety (of many in the pipeline) to be released.

Significance and prospects of an orphan crop tef

“…Research on tef genomics started very recently (Girma et al 2014;Cannarozzi et al 2018a). The first whole-genome sequence of tef contains 672 Mbp representing 87% of the total tef genome size (Cannarozzi et al 2014).…”

Panicle Angle is an Important Factor in Tef Lodging Tolerance

“…However, due to the high value of the tef straw as a livestock feed, breeding for a significant reduction in plant height might have little acceptance by the farmers (Yami, 2013). In order to be successful tef improvement projects must also take into account the agroecology and socioeconomic conditions of the region (Cannarozzi et al, 2018) and as such alternatives to shortening the stem must be found. The lower lodging varieties had a lower self-weight moment which makes them less likely to bend under their own weight.…”

“…In order to be successful, tef improvement projects must also take into account the agroecology and socioeconomic conditions of the region (Cannarozzi et al, 2018). We, therefore, compare morphological traits and measure mechanical properties in five different tef genotypes to investigate alternatives to breed for shorter stems.…”

“…The inclusion of these two genotypes in the current study enabled us to investigate the effect of panicle morphology on the mechanical properties of tef plants. Kinde is a mutant line identified from an ethyl-methane sulfonate (EMS) mutagenized population by screening for gibberellic acid (GA) insensitivity (Cannarozzi et al, 2018) since GA insensitive mutants in wheat were semidwarf (Peng et al, 1999). Similar to GA insensitive mutants in other plants, kinde mutants are small in stature.…”

Orphan crops: their importance and the urgency of improvement

“…The project aims at improving the orphan cereal crop tef and it is hosted at the Institute of Plant Sciences at the University of Bern in Switzerland. The project employs key genetic and genomic tools (Esfeld et al 2013b;Girma et al 2018) and collaborates with the National Tef Improvement Program in Ethiopia to develop tef varieties with desirable traits (Cannarozzi et al 2018a;Kebede et al 2018). The group led an international group of scientists which resulted in the genome sequence of the draft genome of tef (Cannarozzi et al 2014).…”