Maize in Asia – Status, Challenges and Opportunities. B.M. Prasanna

1. Maize in Asia –
Status, Challenges
and Opportunities
B.M. Prasanna
Director, Global Maize Program, CIMMYT
& CGIAR Research Program MAIZE
13th Asian Maize Conference
Ludhiana, India; Oct 8-10, 2018

2. Maize provides food, feed, and income to
millions of people
Global
production
in 2017-18
1045
million
metric tons

3. MAIZE: Focus Geographies
Asian countries with
>2 MMT Production
1. China (232 MMT)
2. India (27 MMT)
3. Indonesia (20 MMT)
4. Philippines (7.2 MMT)
5. Pakistan (6.1 MMT)
6. Vietnam (5.2 MMT)
7. Thailand (4.8 MMT)
8. Bangladesh (2.4 MMT)
9. Nepal (2.2 MMT)

4. Asian Maize Trends
 World’s maize production growing at a rate of 3.5%; Asia-Pacific maize
production growing at a CAGR of 5.2%.
 Consumption in India, China, Thailand, and Vietnam expected to grow
at the rate of 4.5% annually up to 2021, whereas, the world
consumption rate is expected to grow at 3.5% annually.
 Demand more than supply – China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, and
Malaysia will increase their maize import levels continuously.
 Indonesia expected to become one of the largest maize importers by
2021 (4.3 MMT).
Maize Yield Countries
Above 7 t/ha Turkey (0.68 M ha; temperate/sub-tropical); Bangladesh (0.33 M ha)
Above 5 t/ha, but
below 7 t/ha
China (36 M ha; 81% temperate); Indonesia (3.79 M ha)
Above 3 t/ha, but
below 5 t/ha
Pakistan (1.33 M ha); Vietnam (1.15 M ha); Thailand (1.14 M ha);
Myanmar (0.49 M ha)
Between 2-3 t/ha India (10.2 M ha); Philippines (2.48 M ha); Nepal (0.89 M ha); Bhutan,
Afghanistan

5. Tropical rainfed maize yields in Asia are quite low,
compared to the temperate maize…
HeatWaterloggingDrought
 More than 80% maize area in South and SE Asia under rainfed
conditions, and vulnerable to climatic extremes, especially in
the monsoon season
 Resource-poor smallholders’ affordability and access to
high-quality inputs

6. Building Climate Resilience requires Multi-pronged
Strategy and Multi-institutional Synergies
Sustainable Intensification
of Maize-based Systems
Climate-resilient
varieties
Climate-smart
agronomic
practices
Stronger seed
systems
Site-specific
nutrient
management
Enabling policies
Integrated pest
management

7. Drought Tolerant Maize: Flagship Product of MAIZE
 Over 300 elite DT maize
varieties released across sub-
Saharan Africa, and grown in
nearly 3.5 M ha.
 Partnerships with over 100
SME seed companies in
producing and commercializing
annually ~75,000 tons of
certified DT maize seed across
Africa.

8. DT Maize Varieties for Asia: A New Beginning!!
• AAA: Syngenta
(female) x CIMMYT
(male) DT maize
hybrids for rainfed
maize areas in South
& SE Asia
• Commercialization
initiated through
SMEs in India

9. Heat Tolerant Maize for Asia
Strong Wave of Products
 23 heat stress
phenotyping sites across 4
countries in South Asia
 >50 heat-tolerant maize
hybrids licensed by
CIMMYT over the last
three years
 9 heat-tolerant maize
hybrids released so far in
Bangladesh, Nepal and
India – several more in
pipeline

10. MAIZE Varieties Released in 2017
79 varieties released in 2017 across Africa, LatAm
and Asia (71 from CIMMYT; 8 from IITA) by partners
with traits preferred by smallholder farmers

11. Targeted Varietal Replacement, and Reaching Scale
 Replacing the old/obsolete
varieties with climate-
resilient varieties is the
need of the hour.
 Seed scaling, promoting and
deploying low-cost
improved maize hybrids in
targeted geographies (e.g.,
rainfed, stress-prone agro-
ecologies)
 Need for stronger public-
private partnerships

12. IMIC-Asia II (India) Field Day (24th March 2018)

13. High-Zn Maize
(>33 ppm) in LatAm
QPM varieties occupy >1.2 M
ha in the developing world
Nutritionally Enriched Maize
Quality Protein Maize
(QPM)
Provitamin A-rich
Maize
More than 100,000 households
in southern Africa consuming
orange maize

14. Biofortified maize hybrids released in India in 2017 using MABC
QPM + Provitamin A
QPM
Source: Firoz Hossain (ICAR-IARI)

15. Maize Nutritional Quality Enrichment
What needs to be done
 Bringing greater awareness among the maize-consuming
communities in Asia about nutritional benefits of QPM,
high-Zn and provitamin A maize.
 Mainstreaming high-Zn trait into elite germplasm for
targeted agro-ecologies
 Effectively converging improved agronomy with
biofortification strategy in the nutritional enrichment
strategy
 Forging stronger partnerships with the private sector,
especially agri-food sector players, for stimulating
demand for nutritionally enriched maize products

16. 𝑅𝑡 =
𝑖𝑟𝜎𝐴
𝑦
i, selection intensity r, selection accuracy
, genetic variation𝝈 𝑨y, cycle time
Off-season nurseries
Doubled haploid technology
Gene bank
Temperate-Tropical
Introgressions
Phenotyping
Reduced field variability
Phenotyping network
Marker-assisted breeding
Genomic selection
Increasing Genetic Gains in Stress-prone Tropical Environments

17. New Technologies to speed up Maize Breeding
Doubled Haploid (DH) Technology
Maize DH Facility in Kiboko, Kenya
CIM2GTAILs with high haploid
induction rate (10-13%) released
in 2017.
 superior agronomic performance
 reduce DH development costs by
at least 30%
Over 100,000 DH lines
produced annually for partners in
Africa and LatAm

18. Use of DH Lines in Maize Breeding
 Since 2013, CIMMYT has produced and
evaluated >250,000 DH lines, leading
to identification of DH lines with:
• Superior per se performance
• Good combining ability for stress tolerance
• Resistance to MLN
 80 DH-based elite CIMMYT hybrids
released so far in ESA by partners with
better performance over commercial
checks under optimum, drought, and low
nitrogen stress conditions
 Six DH lines have been released as
CMLs – CML566, CML567, CML568,
CML569, CML570 and CML584.
CML566

19. High-throughput & Low-cost Field-based Phenotyping
Source: Mainassara (CIMMYT, Zimbabwe)
High-throughput field-based phenotyping in
CIMMYT maize breeding programs
Validation Deployment
Stand count
Plant and ear
height
Canopy
senescence
Disease
severity
Anthesis date
Yield
components
Image analysis for
yield components:
Reduces time
required for
measurements by
90% and cost by
80%
Proximal sensing for
plant and ear
height: Reduces
time required for
measurements by
50% and cost by
75%

20. MAIZE Molecular Breeding Pipeline
Molecular
Discovery
Molecular
Deployment
Line
Development
Product
Development
Seed
Systems

21. Molecular Breeding for MLN Resistance
Introgression of qMLN_06.157 from KS23-6 into CIMMYT’s DT but
MLN-susceptible elite genetic backgrounds

22. ENTRY 126 126 127 130 130 qMLN 131 132 133 133 AVE
MLN
KS23-6 C/C A/A A/A G/G R/R A/A G:G C/C C/C 4.0 4 4 4 3 3 4 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
CML548/KS23-6 C/C A/A A/A G/G R/R A/A G:G C/C C/C 3.0 3 3 3 3 4 4 3 3 4 3 4 4 4 3 3 3 4 4 3 3 4
CML548/KS23-6 C/C A/A A/A G/G R/R A/A G:G C/C C/C 4.0 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 4 4 3 3 5 4 4 4 3 3 4 3
CML548/KS23-6 C/C A/A A/A G/G R/R A/A G:G C/C C/C 4.0 4 4 3 5 5 3 4 4 4 3 4 3 3 3 3 3 4 5
CML548/KS23-6 C/C A/C A/A G/G R/R A/A - C/C C/C 4.0 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 5 5
CML548/KS23-6 C/C A/C A/A G/G R/R A/A G:G C/C C/C 4.0 6 5 5 4 4 4 4 3 4 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 5 4 4 4 4
CML548/KS23-6 C/C A/A A/A G/G R/R A/G G:A C/T C/T 3.8 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
CML548/KS23-6 C/C A/A A/A G/G R/R A/G G:A C/T C/T 4.0 4 3 4 3 3 4 3 5 3 4 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 6
CML548/KS23-6 C/C A/A A/C G/T R/S A/G G:A C/T C/T 6.0 4 3 5 3 5 8 6 4 7 6 6 7 4 3 4 9 9 9 8
CML548/KS23-6 C/C C/C A/C G/T R/S A/G G:A C/T C/T 5.0 6 4 6 7 4 6 4 6 7 7 6 4 5 3 4 4 4 6 7 3
CML548/KS23-6 C/C C/C C/C T/T S/S G/G G:A C/T C/T 7.0 6 6 6 5 8 4 9 9 6 7 7 8 9 7 8 5 4 9
CML548/KS23-6 C/C C/C C/C T/T S/S G/G A:A T/T T/T 7.9 6 9 5 9 8 9 9 8 6 5 9 9 7 9 8 8
CML548 C/G C/C C/C T/T S/S G/G A:A T/T T/T 7.0 9 5 5 5 5 6 9 9 9 7 9 9 5
KS23-6 C/C A/A G/G R/R A/A A/A 4.0 4 4 5 4 4 4 4
CKDHL0221/KS23-6 C/C A/A G/G R/R A/A A/A 3.0 3 3 3 3 3 4 3 3 4 3 3 4 3 4 4 3 3 4 5 4 4 4 4
CKDHL0221/KS23-6 C/C A/A G/G R/S A/G A/G 6.0 4 4 8 8 4 8 8 8 6 7 4 8 4 4 7 4 4 8 7 4 4 4
CKDHL0221/KS23-6 C/C A/A A/G R/S A/G A/G 7.0 9 9 8 9 9 7 4 9 9 9 8 4 8 4 7 5 9 8 4 9
CKDHL0221/KS23-6 C/G A/C A/G R/S A/G G/G 7.0 9 7 7 6 9 4 4 9
CKDHL0221/KS23-6 C/G A/C A/G R/S A/G G/G 7.0 5 3 9 8 9 4 9 8 7 8 9 3 9 5
CKDHL0221/KS23-6 C/G A/C A/G R/S A/G A/G 7.0 8 5 6 7 5 9 9 5 6 7 8 7 8 9 9 4 9 9 9 9
CKDHL0221/KS23-6 G/G A/C A/G S/S G/G A/G 9.0 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 5 9 9 9 9 9
CKDHL0221/KS23-6 G/G C/C A/A S/S G/G G/G 9.0 8 8 7 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9
CKDHL0221 G/G C/C A/A S/S G/G G/G 8.0 9 6 9 9 5 4 9 9 9 9
MLN SCORES
Toward Gene Editing: qMLN_06.157
qMLN_06.157 localized to ~125 kb interval
Mark Jung
Alyssa DeLeon
Kevin Simcox
Kanwarpal Dhugga

23. Saving Time: Genomic Selection for Complex Traits
A B
Customized
training sets
2017-18
POC
Cornell
GOBII
DMU
BSU

24. Fall Armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda)
 Broad host range, but maize is the most
preferred crop
 Strong migratory capacity (100 km per night)
 30-45 days life cycle in the tropics – multiple
generations during the crop season
 Can affect both the foliage as well as
developing ears

25. Invasion by FAW in Africa
FAW meeting,
Nairobi, 24th May 2018

26. Endemic countries
Non-endemic countries

27. Focus on Integrated Pest Management

28. FAW Monitoring and Surveillance in Bangladesh
Source: Dr Syed Nurul Alam (BARI)
Extensive pheromone trap
network established in
diverse cropping systems

29. Sustainable Intensification
of Maize-based Farming
Systems
Identifying, developing adapting,
and integrating technical
innovations for:
• Efficient use of resources (land,
labor, water, nutrient, and seed)
• Reduced production risks
• Higher farm profitability while
maintaining or enhancing the
natural production base

30. Scale-appropriate Mechanization
• Simple technologies that can reduce harvest time by
80%, and hired labor costs by 60%
• Reduced drudgery, especially for women
• Making farming more attractive to youth

31. Strengthening Maize Value Chains
Lessons to learn from Thailand and Mexico…

32. www.MAIZE.org
Thank You!
The CGIAR Research Program MAIZE receives W1&W2
support from the Governments of Australia, Belgium,
Canada, China, France, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico,
Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden,
Switzerland, UK, US and the World Bank.