See text at http://molcyt.org/2012/11/29/superdomestication-feed-forward-breeding-and-climate-proofing-crops/ which also links the the YouTube talk using these slides

1. Superdomestication and feed-forward
plant breeding:
Genomic and molecular cytogenetic
approaches
http://molcyt.org/2012/11/29/superdomestication-feed-forwa
Trude Schwarzacher and Pat Heslop-Harrison
ts32@le.ac.uk and phh4@le.ac.uk
www.molcyt.com
These are the slides that go with the talk on YouTube
and some text on molcyt.com for commentary. See:
http://molcyt.org/2012/11/29/superdomestication-feed-forwa

2. • The talk on
http://molcyt.org/2012/11/29/superdomestication-feed-forward-breeding-and
starts with my personal approach to climate proofing!
• Climate Proofing of Food Crops: Genetic
Improvement for Adaptation to High
Temperatures in Drought Prone Areas and
Beyond: an IAEA/FAO Coordinated Research
Programme (CRP)
http://www-naweb.iaea.org/nafa/pbg/crp/drought-prone-areas.html
archive:
http://www.webcitation.org/6CKx3EVsw
Contribution from Pat Heslop-Harrison and
Trude Schwarzacher at www.molcyt.com to:

3. http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/2012/feedbillions.html
Archived URL at http://www.webcitation.org/6CKtUmjvr

4. 7234 5 May 2012 7N33.558 38E40.120 North of Hawassa, Ethiopis

5. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ homepage of 19 Nov 2012

6. Birth of Agriculture
10,000 years ago
Domestication of crops
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/paleobefore.html

7. Threats to sustainability:
no different for 10,000 years
• Habitat destruction
• Climate change (abiotic stresses)
• Diseases (biotic stresses)
• Changes in what people want
• Blindness to what is happening

9. Phases of Domestication
• Heslop-Harrison JS, Schwarzacher T. 2012.
Genetics and genomics of crop domestication
In: Plant Biotechnology and Agriculture:
Prospects for the 21st century. Eds Arie
Altman, Paul Michael Hasegawa pp 3-18.
• http://tinyurl.com/cropdomestication
• Arie Altman - extensive work with IAEA-Genetics and Plant Breeding
• See www.molcyt.com for full list of papers; all
available on request, many downloadable
with password and userID both ‘visitor’

10. Theme of my talk
Superdomestication and feed-forward plant breeding:
Genomic and molecular cytogenetic approaches
See: http://tinyurl.com/superdomestication
Climate Proofing of Food Crops: Genetic Improvement
• Planning ahead! What do we need?
• How do we achieve these objectives?
– Knowledge of past
– Biodiversity, mutation, hybrids/introgression
– Abiotic focus, but diseases also change with
abiotic changes; sustainability critical
– Approaches and technology
• Widely applicable and generic approaches

11. Recent molcyt.com research
• Banana genome sequence (published 2012)
• Tri-species hybrid germplasm in Brassica
• Wheat germplasm including introgression from wild
Thinopyrum with novel virus resistance loci
• Somatic hybrids in Nicotiana for disease resistance (published 2011)
• Biomass gene identification in Lolium
• Origin of Panicum miliaceum (broomcorn millet) – the worlds
most water-efficient crop
• Genome evolution in Arachis – peanut/groundnut
• Wild and landrace characterization of linseed/flax (including
farmer-led trials)

12. Banana genome
sequence
Led by Angelique D’Hont, France
520 Mbp giving knowledge of ALL
36,000 genes including the
agronomic and food-related
properties
Use for diversity access & breeding
• Fundamental importance to research
since it allows us to compare banana
with the related grasses and palms to
understand genome evolutionary
processes
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7410/pdf/nature11241.pdf
http://molcyt.org/2012/08/16/banana-genome-sequence-in-the-news/

13. Brassica diversity
• Important vegetable /oil worldwide
• Irrigation water already limiting
• Wide germplasm pool
B. rapa
AA genomes
B. juncea 2n=2x=20
B. napus
AABB genomes AACC genomes
2n=4x=36 2n=4x=38
B. nigra BB B. carinata B. oleracea
genomes BBCC genomes CC genomes
2n=2x=16 2n=4x=34 2n=2x=18
• Tri-species hybrid in Pakistani
Brassica juncea 2n=36 landrace
) B. rapa (AA) B. nigra (BB) B. juncea B. oleracea (CC) B. juncea (AABB) B. napus (AACC)
(AABB)
000
00
00
00
00
Faisal Nouroz & PHH 2013 (submitted 2012)

14. Wsm-1: only effective source of resistance to the
virus WSMV
Viruses cannot be readily cured (as in human) and normally the
control in wheat is by spraying insecticides to stop insect spread
In situ hybridization showing (red) two
chromosomes arms introgressed from
Parental lines and hybrid derivatives: the wild Thinopyrum into wheat
Yellow plants are infected
http://dx.doi.org/10.3198/jpr2008.06.0345crc
Work led by RA Graybosch, USDA; hybrids made originally by his colleagues

15. IWG genomic DNA biotin
dpTa1 digoxigenin

16. http://dx.doi.org/10.3198/jpr2008.06.0345crc

17. Chromosome
and genome
engineering
Cell fusion
hybrid of two
tetraploid
tobacco species,
transferring
fungus
resistance
Deval Patel, Badakshi,
HH, Led by Mike Davey
Annals of Botany 2011
http://aob.oxfordjournals.o
rg/content/108/5/809.full

18. Four sets of Nicotiana
chromosomes hybrid
identified in
Nicotiana 4x + 4x
somatic cell cell fusions
fusion hybrid
Each of 4
chromosome
sets has
distinctive
repetitive
DNA when
probed with
genomic DNA
http://aob.oxfordjourn
als.org/content/108/5 Patel et al
/809.full Ann Bot 2011

19. Panicum miliaceum
Broomcorn millet
Among the first wave of domesticated
species
As important as rice 8,000 years ago
Now only 1% of the production of rice or
wheat
P. miliaceum: the worlds most water-
efficient crop
It is tetraploid; what are the parents?
Why did it not join modern staple crops?
2n = 4x = 36
Led by Harriet Hunt, Cambridge with
Farah Badakshi, PHH www.molcyt.com

20. Panicum miliaceum The
Broomcorn millet
ancestral
genomes
in Panicum
Among the first wave of domesticated miliaceum
species
As important as rice 8,000 years ago
Now only 1% of the production of rice or
wheat
P. miliaceum: the worlds most water-
efficient crop
It is tetraploid; what are the parents?
Why did it not join modern staple crops?
2n = 4x = 36
Led by Harriet Hunt, Cambridge with
Farah Badakshi, PHH www.molcyt.com

21. Arachis genome evolution
Peanut is a tetraploid arising from two
diploids maybe as little a 10,000 years ago
The diploids diverged from a common
ancestor 3.5 M years ago
The genes remain in a similar order, but a
few families of repeated, mobile DNA
sequences, LTR retrotransposons, have Genome
diverged and amplified, distinguishing the repeat
genomes in the tetraploid content
Leaders: Ana Claudia Araujo, David
Bertioli, EMBRAPA, Brazil 2013
This work:
https://pag.confex.com/pag/xx/webprogram/Pap
er3749.html
Related:
http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/
11/05/aob.mcs237.full

22. Linum usitatissimum – Linseed/Flax
• Project with Worku Mhiret, University of
Gondar, Ethiopia
• 200 Accessions characterized by morphology
and molecular markers
• 350 F2 plants from 6 crosses characterized by
morphology and markers
• Farmer-led trials
established

24. Lolium ryegrass QTLs
Major grass for animal
production
Abiotic stress resistance
and biomass are key targets
Which genes are involved?
Field trial of segregating population shows
location of genes involved; now have
candidate genes to select
Combining desirable
characters
Celine Tomaszewski, Ulrike Anhalt; Leader Susanne Barth (Ireland)HH (UK); publication in preparation
See molcyt.com; fine map and candidate genes in preparation
Thesis on-line: https://lra.le.ac.uk/jspui/bitstream/2381/10827/1/2012TomaszewskiCphd.pdf

25. United Nations
Millennium Development Goals- MDGs
• Goal 1 – Eradicate extreme
poverty and hunger
•
Goal 2 – Achieve universal primary education
• Goal 3 – Promote gender
equity and empower women
• Goal 4 – Reduce child
mortality
• Goal 5 – Improve maternal
health
• Goal 6- Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other
diseases
• Goal 7 - Ensure environmental
sustainability
• Goal 8 - Develop a global
partnership for development

26. Recent molcyt.com outputs
• Training
• Fellowships – Pakistan; Brazil; China; India + Europe/USA
• PhD students – Ethiopia; Pakistan; India; Ghana; Saudi +
Europe
• Courses and training
• Refereeing
• Programme reviews, advisory visits
• Website development (help needed!)
• Project development
• We are a research provider and not a research funder
• Very keen to develop projects with CRP Partners

27. Conventional Breeding
• Cross the best with the best and hope for
something better
Superdomestication
• Decide what is wanted and then plan how to get
it
• - variety crosses
• - mutations
• - genepool
• - genes

28. Superdomestication
• Learn what has been done
– Speciation timescales of millions of years
– Hybridization timescale thousands of years
– Breeding timescale hundreds of years
• Learn what we want to do
– Sustainable crop production
– High yield, low input (chemical, mechanical and
labour!)
– Stable/Reliable/Robust/Buffered
– Capital input? Transportable/storable?
• Do it!

29. 50 years of plant breeding progress

31. CytoGenomics …
• The genepool has the diversity to
address these challenges …
• New methods to exploit and
characterize germplasm let use make
better and sustainable use of the
genepool

32. Welcome for collaborators

33. Superdomestication and feed-forward
plant breeding:
Genomic and molecular cytogenetic
approaches
http://molcyt.org/2012/11/29/superdomestication-feed-
forward-breeding-and-climate-proofing-crops/
Trude Schwarzacher and Pat Heslop-Harrison
ts32@le.ac.uk and phh4@le.ac.uk
www.molcyt.com
These are the slides that go with the talk on YouTube
and some text on molcyt.com for commentary. See:
http://molcyt.org/2012/11/29/superdomestication-feed-
forward-breeding-and-climate-proofing-crops/