A dwarf plant to help fight hunger in Africa

press release of September 13, 2007

An Ethiopian scientist at the University of Bern is studying, within the framework of the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Plant Survival, Ethiopia's most important cereal crop called tef. Zerihun Tadele is using the latest biotechnological methods to produce dwarf tef lines in order to prevent lodging, which causes significant yield losses. In addition to his research, he is co-organising an international conference aimed at promoting indigenous crops from developing countries. The event will take place in Bern from September 19th to the 21st.

Tef (Eragrostis tef) is Ethiopia's main cereal crop where it covers more than one million hectares of land. Its advantages are numerous, such as its capacity to grow in extreme environmental conditions by being able to tolerate both drought and waterlogging. Its seeds are rich in proteins and amino acids and can be also stored for long time without being attacked by storage pests. Furthermore, tef does not contain gluten, which is a desirable trait for those allergic to gluten in wheat.

However, tef's yield leaves much to be desired. In fact, the plants are often victims of lodging, a weakness of the stem that causes the plant to fall over resulting in considerable harvest losses, both in terms of quality and quantity. The FAO estimates the losses to be about 17%. In order to counteract this weakness, research started in 2006 at the University of Bern, thanks to the support of the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture. Zerihun Tadele, an Ethiopian researcher in Professor Cris Kuhlemeier's laboratory, is hoping to develop dwarf tef varieties that will be resistant to lodging, especially after fertiliser applications.

He is using a genetic technique called TILLING that has been successful on maize, wheat and barley. This method consists of identifying the genes responsible for the trait that one wishes to modify, which in this case is plant height. A plant, whose genome is completely deciphered, such as rice, is used to obtain the gene controlling the desired characteristic and then finding the corresponding gene for tef. After one year of research, Zerihun Tadele has already managed to produce candidate dwarf lines. However, it is still too early to know if they are capable of developing properly and producing fertile seeds, two conditions that are needed to arouse the farmers' interest. The final results concerning dwarf tef's performance are expected for June 2008.

Orphan crops

Tef belongs to the group of orphan crops, which also includes variety of millets, as well as some pea species (cow pea, grass pea, bambara groundnut), and roots (cassava, sweet potato). Even though they represent a vital source of income for millions of Africans and are part of their daily diet, these crops have generated little interest in the scientific community, which prefers to concentrate its efforts on wheat, maize or rice. This is one of the reasons why Zerihun Tadele and Cris Kuhlemeier were interested in organising the conference that will take place in Bern from September 19th to the 21st.

More than sixty specialists will talk about ways to improve the production of these abandoned plants, either by improving traditional methods or by making use of biotechnology. A major focus of the conference will be on advanced non-GMO plant improvement techniques, such as the above-mentioned TILLING. As special guest, Ingo Potrykus will talk about his adventure with Golden Rice, a transgenic rice that he developed in 1999 at the ETH Zurich and used to make up for the Vitamin A deficiency which affects several million people worldwide.

Link to Conference website: http://www.botany.unibe.ch/deve/orphancrops/index.htm

more info:

New approaches to plant breeding of orphan crops in Africa