Accelerated Cassava Breeding Coming Via OHV Technology Collaboration
November 16 2016 - 8:00AM
Business Wire
Dow AgroSciences, Boyce Thompson Institute,
Cornell University and Agriculture Victoria Working Together on
Essential African Root Crop
More productive cassava plants, a root crop that is foundational
for food security in Africa, will be made possible by an agreement
between Dow AgroSciences, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow
Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW), and Agriculture Victoria, Australia,
Cornell University and the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI).
Dow AgroSciences has collaborated with Agriculture Victoria
through its commercial arm, Agriculture Victoria Services Pty Ltd.
(AVS), to develop Optimum Haploid Value™ (OHV) technology that can
select the optimal parent varieties for plant breeding. This
technology is being granted to BTI and Cornell University via a
non-exclusive, royalty-free license for non-profit use to support
cassava improvement. The OHV technology will be implemented in the
Cassavabase database (https://www.cassavabase.org), maintained at
BTI, as part of the NextGeneration Cassava Breeding (NextGen)
project.
NextGen is an international partnership that benefits the
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the
National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI) breeding centers in
Nigeria, the National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI)
in Uganda, and the Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI).
The Cornell-led project is funded by a $25 million, five-year grant
from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Department for
International Development of the United Kingdom.
“Making the best use of agricultural technology is essential to
feed the growing world, and sharing the OHV technology to improve
cassava’s genetic gains is a great example of our desire to provide
solutions for farmers around the world,” said Steve Webb, External
Technology and Intellectual Property Portfolio Development Leader,
Dow AgroSciences.
No other continent depends on cassava to feed as many people as
does Africa, where each day, 500 million people consume this
starchy, calorie-rich root as a major part of their diet.
Accelerating cassava breeding holds great promise for Sub-Saharan
Africa, since breeders typically require almost a decade to develop
a new cassava variety.
“We are grateful to Dow AgroSciences for making OHV available to
us so we can share it with cassava breeders in Africa who would not
otherwise have access to this technology," said Lukas Mueller,
Associate Professor at BTI. “Breeders and farmers will benefit from
the use of OHV to accelerate the development of higher-yield,
disease-resistant cassava varieties.”
The OHV technology is an extension of genomic selection, an
approach that uses genetic information and physical characteristics
from plant varieties to predict the most productive parental lines,
thereby leading to accelerated crop improvement. OHV can shorten
breeding cycles, provide accurate evaluation of plant performance
at the seedling stage and give plant breeders the ability to
evaluate a much larger number of plants without the need to grow
them in the target environment. This approach requires fewer
resources, making it more sustainable and more efficient. Using OHV
and genomic selection, new releases of cassava could be available
in nearly half the time.
“Optimal Haploid Value, an improvement over genomic selection,
provides the basis for accelerated breeding in crops, thus
contributing to global food security,” said Professor German
Spangenberg, Agriculture Victoria’s Executive Director Biosciences
Research.
About Agriculture Victoria and AVS
Agriculture Victoria works with industry, primary producers,
urban and regional communities to improve livability and drive
sustainable economic growth in the food and fiber sectors in
Victoria, Australia. Dow AgroSciences works with Agriculture
Victoria through its commercial arm, Agriculture Victoria Services
Pty Ltd.
About Boyce Thomson Institute
Boyce Thompson Institute is a premier life sciences research
institution located in Ithaca, New York on the Cornell University
campus. BTI scientists conduct investigations into fundamental
plant and life sciences research with the goals of increasing food
security, improving environmental sustainability in agriculture and
making basic discoveries that will enhance human health. For more
information, visit http://www.bti.cornell.edu.
About Dow AgroSciences
Dow AgroSciences discovers, develops and brings to market crop
protection and plant biotechnology solutions for the growing world.
Based in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, Dow AgroSciences is a wholly
owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company and had annual global
sales of $6.4 billion in 2015. Learn more at www.dowagro.com.
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®™Trademark of The Dow Chemical Company (“Dow”) or affiliated
companies.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161116005160/en/
Dow AgroSciencesKenda Resler
Friend317-337-4742kresler@dow.comorBoyce Thompson InstitutePatricia
Waldron607-254-7476pjw85@cornell.edu
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