The Seeds of Discovery (SeeD) initiative aims to characterize genetic resources from crop genebanks to make them more useful for plant breeding programs addressing climate change and food security. SeeD will sequence the genomes of 25,000 maize and 40,000 wheat accessions, and combine this with phenotypic data to create open-access databases. This will allow breeders to more efficiently utilize biodiversity from genebanks to develop new varieties with improved drought tolerance, heat tolerance, nutrition and other traits. SeeD also aims to build capacity of agricultural scientists and strengthen global partnerships around using crop diversity.

1. Seeds of Discovery (SeeD)
Un-tapping Crop Biodiversity for Climate
Change and Sustainable Food Production
Kevin Pixley -- K.Pixley@cgiar.org
The World Bank, 14 January 2015

2. CIMMYT’s Mission
Sustainably increase the
productivity of maize and wheat
systems for global food security
and poverty reduction

3. “The seriousness or magnitude of
the world food problem should not
be underestimated. Recent
success in expanding wheat, rice
and maize production in Asian
countries offers the possibility of
buying 20-30 years of time”
N.E. Borlaug, 1969 – A Green
Revolution Yields a Golden Harvest
Borlaug’s 1969 prophecy

4. “In the next 50 years we will need
to produce as much food as has
been consumed over our entire
human history.”
Megan Clark
CEO of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial
Research Organization (CSIRO)
Australia

5. US Census Bureau & International Data Base, 2011
Population growth projections by region

6. General scientific consensus on climate change:
Tropical areas will be strongly affected (drought + heat)
Sources: Krechowicz, et. al., 2010; Lobell et al 2011

7. The World Bank, Food Price Watch, August 2012

8. Concern: Food and energy price inflation may
exceed income growth of the poor

9. Biodiversity – the genetic resources increasingly only found in CIMMYT’s
and other germplasm banks – can help breeding programs bridge the gap
between current and needed rates of productivity gains.

10.  Current breeding materials contain only a fraction of the useful genetic
variation available [e.g. like the visible portion of an iceberg].
 Much of the needed diversity exists, like needles in a haystack, on the
shelves of gene banks.
 Genomic tools enable us to search for and use valuable diversity much
more effectively.

12. SeeD’s Vision of Success: the wealth contained in the world’s genetic
resources is ‘unlocked’ for breeders globally to make new varieties
≈ 28,000 maize ≈ 140,000 wheat
Genetic
resources

13. Heat
tolerance
Drought
tolerance
Nutritional
value New diseases
SeeD priorities

14. Increasing CO2 threatens human nutrition
Percentage change in nutrients at elevated (546-586 ppm) (note: 550 ppm is
expected by 2060) CO2 relative to ambient (ca 400 ppm) CO2
Myers et al., 2014. Nature

16. Appliance of cutting edge science – why now?
Ed Buckler, USDA-Cornell (SeeD partner)
1993
1,500 bp/day
2012
38,400,000,000
bp/day
And cheaper…
What does it mean to get
25-Million-Fold Better?

17. SeeD – high-density genetic profiles
 25,000 Maize ( ̴90%)
 40,000 Wheat ( ̴30%)
 Sequencing the entire “library” of maize and wheat is now feasible.
 DNA sequence differences underlie useful variation to address current
and future challenges to plant breeding.

19. Genebanks = supermarket
Genebanks today are like supermarkets full of tins without labels; finding
what you need is like searching for a needle in a haystack.
SeeD will label the genebank tins with genotypic and phenotypic information
making it much easier to use this biodiversity in breeding programs.

22. Use biodiversity for bio-fortification
Zinc deficiency afflicts ̴2 billion people
Fishing in the wheat gene bank:
evaluated ~15,000 landraces
Numberoflandraces
Zinc (ppm)
 Stunted & underweight
children
 Brain development disorders

23. SeeD develops bridging germplasm – “half-
way” between accessions and elite varieties.

24. ARS agronomist Cecil Salmon
acquired seeds from Japan in 1946.
ARS plant breeder Orville Vogel
worked with it for 13 years.
Borlaug crossed these with
Mexico's best wheats.
Borlaug's semi-dwarf wheats
enabled India to launch its Green
Revolution.
Wheat production doubled by 1970
and tripled by 1982.
+ 30 YEARS!
Successful use of ‘dwarf’ gene

25. Successful use of ‘exotic’ sources of
high provitamin A
3 high provitamin A hybrids
released in Zambia in 2012
Sources from Thailand
and USA - 2003
9 years from source to
release

27. • Train a new generation of agricultural
scientists
 Strategic research  impact-driven research
and/for development (R&D)
 Rejuvenate interest in agricultural R&D
 Huge datasets are a magnet to attract talent
to agricultural R&D
• Workshops and 1:1 training
 Building capacity of scientists entering ag
R&D
 Enhancing capacity in the existing generation
of ag R&D scientists
• Links to post-graduate programs
 opportunities for many MSc and PhD projects
Capacity-strengthening: facilitating equity by
enabling access to information and knowledge

28. Why CIMMYT?
 Most extensive wheat & maize collections in the
world.
 >50 years working with maize & wheat genetic
resources.
 Unparalleled
network of
partners and
testing sites
around the world.

29. SeeD has a plan, with a timeline for delivering products

30. Seeds of Discovery (SeeD)
Our current challenge: to attract global support for an
initiative with truly global impact
 Initiated in 2011
 Mostly funded by the Mexican government
 Four Components
1. Molecular & phenotypic characterization  open-access database(s)
2. Informatics tools & knowledge extraction
3. Bridging germplasm
4. Capacity building
Progress snapshot 2014
– Valuable biodiversity has been identified (tar spot, zinc, heat, drought)
– Foundations established for more and continued value generation
– Extensive molecular data
– Phenotypic data “important momentum”
– Tools platform in development
– Bridging germplasm started
– Capacity building plans initiated

31. “We know that if we don't confront climate change, there will be
no hope of ending poverty or boosting shared prosperity.”
“…lay out clear policy frameworks for how forestry and agriculture
can achieve the needs of nutrition and food security, the support
of rural livelihoods, and reduced emissions from land use.”
“…insured losses from weather-related events are
growing… …fully 75 percent of catastrophe-related losses
worldwide are still uninsured.”
“…the longer we delay in tackling climate change, the higher the
cost will be to do the right thing for our planet and for our
children.”
“The costs of inaction are rising.”
World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim
Speech at the Council on Foreign Relations
Washington D.C., United States
December 8, 2014

32. Partners voices
• “SeeD will realize breeding gains that are impossible to reach through
traditional means”
• “A truly global public good – it benefits ALL!”
• “We want … heat, drought, NUE, yield, quality ….”
• “SeeD is the backbone for international efforts in this field”
• “SeeD will contribute to breakthroughs in developing new breeding
methods”
• “A new wave of research, a new way of breeding”
CG Consortium Office: “we are fully
supportive of this project… these
genotyping approaches with accurate
phenotyping and pre-breeding will allow
to speed up our CGIAR breeding
programs for the smallhoders’ benefit…”
Global Crop Diversity Trust: “SeeD is a
“blueprint” and “foundational initiative” for
the Diversity Seek (DivSeek) initiative for
other crops.”