1. Rajendra S Paroda Genebank, ICRISAT
Germplasm Management for Enhanced Genetic Gains
Hari D Upadhyaya
Rajendra S Paroda Genebank, ICRISAT
1st International Agrobiodiversity Congress, Nov. 6-9, 2016, New Delhi, India

2. Challenges to global agriculture
9.3 billion people to feed by 2050
Global warming results in
depletion of natural resources
biodiversity loss
natural calamities
change in pest and pathogen dynamics
food contamination, etc.
South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are the most affected regions
Risk absorbing capacity of the people in these regions is low
Therefore, developing climate-resilient technologies together with judicious management of natural resources is the way forward to address food and nutritional security

3. Yield increase and genetic gains
Productivity of maize, rice and wheat has been drastically increased
No such increase was observed in coarse grains and legumes
Of recent, the yield in many crops either stagnated, declined or showing only marginal increase
Trends in productivity of important cereals and legume crops during

4. Genetic gains ∆G = Genetic gain h2 = Heritability of trait
i = Selection intensity
σp = Phenotypic standard deviation
gi = Generation interval (cycles/year)

5. Yield increase and genetic gains
Genetic gain is defined as the annual increase in yield realized through crop breeding
<1.0 year-1 genetic gains through breeding in many crops
Wheat
0.65% year-1 to 0.74% year-1 in wheat (Zhou et al. 2007, Sharma et al. 2012)
Genetic gains varied with environment, stress conditions and with controls Attila or local checks (Crespo-Herrera et al 2016)
Overall1.67% year-1 relative to Attila and 0.53% year-1 to local
Irrigated optimum environment: 1.63% year-1 relative to Attila and 0.72% local check
Drought stressed: 2.7% year-1 relative to Attila and 0.41% local check
Heat stressed: 0.31% year-1 relative to Attila and 1.0% relative to local checks
0.92% in Brazilian wheat (Eduardo et al 2014)

6. Yield increase and genetic gains
Sorghum: 0.85% year-1 in sorghum (Woldesemayat et al. 2015)
Groundnut: 0.43% year-1 to 1.89% year-1 in groundnut (Hagos et al. 2012, Haro et al. 2013)
Soybean: 22.8 kg ha-1 (Carolyn et al 2013)
Maize (Masuka et al 2016): varied in different conditions
109.4 kg ha-1 yr-1 in maize under optimum conditions
32.5 kg ha-1 yr-1 under managed drought conditions
22.7 kg ha-1 yr-1 under random drought conditions
20.9 kg ha-1 yr-1 under low N conditions
141.3 kg ha-1 yr-1 maize streak virus stress conditions
There is a need to double the genetic gains for food and nutritional security

7. Plant Genetic Resources (PGR) for enhanced genetic gains
Global Status of Plant Genetic Resources
7.4 million accessions
>1750 genebanks
25-30% unique
10% wild crop relatives
11% in CGIAR genebanks

8. Plant Genetic Resources (PGR) for enhanced genetic gains
PGR conservation at ICRISAT’s RS Paroda genebank
Crop Accessions Countries (no.)
Sorghum ,
Pearl millet ,
Chickpea ,
Pigeonpea ,
Groundnut ,
Finger millet ,
Small millets ,
Total ,
Conserved as
Active collection (at 4°C temperature and 30% relative humidity in medium-term storage) and
Base collection (at -20°C temperature in long-term storage) collections

9. Germplasm distribution
Crop
Samples
Countries (no.)
Sorghum
509,661
110
Pearl millet
155,534 81
Chickpea
347186 88
Pigeonpea
161,453
113
Groundnut
200,576 96
Finger millet
43,713 54
Small millets (5)
33,464 55
Total
1,451,587
148

10. Safety backup at Svalbard Global Seed Vault
ICRISAT committed to deposit 111,000 samples
110,818 deposited by 2016
Total at Svalbard – 851,596 samples of 5,253 species from 233 countries and 66 institutes

11. Germplasm restoration
Restored 55,181 germplasm accessions to nine countries
Botswana: Sorghum
Cameroon: 1, Sorghum and 922 Pearl millet
Ethiopia: , Sorghum and 931 Chickpea
Kenya: Sorghum
Nigeria: , Sorghum
Somalia: Sorghum
Sudan: Sorghum and 594 Pearl millet

12. Germplasm restoration
Sri Lanka: Pigeonpea
India: ,615 Sorghum
7,189 Pearl millet
7,488 Chickpea
5,977 Pigeonpea
6,049 Groundnut
3,405 Small millets

13. Utilization of germplasm collections
Very large gap between availability and actual use of germplasm
<1% of conserved germplasm used in crop improvement (Upadhyaya et al 2006)
50% of wheat, 75% of potato, 50% of soybean cultivars grown in USA trace back to 9, 4 and 6 genotypes in their pedigrees, respectively (World Conservation Monitoring Centre, 1992)

14. Needs of plant breeder for genetic gains
Trait specific genetically diverse parents for trait enhancement
Agronomically superior or similar preferable to avoid setbacks to the breeding programs
This would avoid unpredictable epistatic and dominance deviation variances

15. Reasons for low use of germplasm
Large size of collections
Lack of reliable data on traits of economic importance, which show high genotype x environment interaction (Upadhyaya et al 2013)
Means to overcome
Core collection: 10 % entire collection – Sir Otto Frankel
Due to reduced size core collection can be evaluated extensively
Parents identified for use by breeders

16. Core collections of germplasm at ICRISAT
Crop
Number of accessions used
Number of traits involved
Number of accessions in core
Reference
Sorghum
22,474 2
2,247
Crop Science 41:
Pearl millet
16,063
20844 11 22
1,600
2,094
Euphytica 155:35-45
Crop Science 49:
Chickpea
16,991 13
1,956
Crop Science 41:
Pigeonpea
12,153 14
1,290
Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 52:
Groundnut
14,310
1,704
Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 50:
Finger millet
5,940
622
Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 53:
Foxtail millet
1,474 23
155
PGR 7:
Proso millet
833 20
106
Crop & Pasture Sci. 62:
Barnyard millet
736 21 89
PGR (submitted)

17. Does it help to develop core collections?
Not really…..
Reasons - size of core, if number of accessions in entire collection is large, is still unwieldy for convenient exploitation by the breeders (2247 in sorghum, 2094 in pearl millet, 1956 in chickpea, 1704 in groundnut)
What is the remedy…..?
Mini core (Upadhyaya and Ortiz 2001)
- 10 % accessions of the core collection
(1% of the entire collection)

18. Mini core collections of germplasm
Crop
Entire collection
Mini core number
% of entire
Traits used
Reference
Chickpea
16,991
211
1.24 16
Upadhyaya and Ortiz 2001; TAG 102:
Groundnut
14,310
184
1.28 34
Upadhyaya et al. 2002; Crop Sci. 42:
Pigeonpea
12,153
146
1.20
Upadhyaya et al. 2006; Crop Sci. 46:
Sorghum
22,473
242
1.08 21
Upadhyaya et al. 2009; Crop Sci. 49:
Pearl millet
20,844
238
1.14 12
Upadhyaya et al. 2011; Crop Sci. 51:
Finger millet
5,940 80
1.34 18
Upadhyaya et al. 2010; Crop Sci. 50:
Foxtail millet
1,474 35
2.37
Upadhyaya et al. 2011; Field Crops Res 124(3):

19. Identifying new sources of variation using mini core collections
Examples are
Multiple stress resistance in chickpea (Upadhyaya et al., 2013)
Multiple stress resistance and nutrient dense (oil, protein, Fe, Zn, Oleic acid) in groundnut (Upadhyaya et al., 2014a)
High sugar stalk sorghum germplasm (Upadhyaya et al., 2014b)
Downy mildew resistant pearl millet (Sharma et al., 2015)
Nutrient dense finger and foxtail millets (Upadhyaya et al 2011 a. b)
Pennisetum pedicellatum, a source for downy mildew resistance

20. Groundnut mini core as a source of multiple traits germplasm
28 abiotic stresses tolerant
3 of them yield 2-33% more than best control
30 biotic stresses resistant
3 of them yield 4-9% more than best control
16 nutritional quality traits
2 of them yield 2-27% more than best control
18 agronomic traits
7 of them yield 1-13% more than best control
9 multiple traits (biotic, abiotic, agronomic and nutritional traits
4 of them yield 3-33% more than best control
(Upadhyaya et al., 2014; Crop Sci. 54: )

21. Groundnut mini core as a source of multiple traits germplasm in superior agronomic background
Identity
Resistances
Yield (kg ha-1)
(3R+6PR pooled)
ICG 1668
Heat, LLS, PBND, BW
1626
ICG 2381
Rust, A. flavus, O/L
1677
ICG 2925
Heat, LLS, Rust
1468
ICG 5475
Drought, Low temperature, Oil, O/L, Fe
1422
ICG 8285
Drought, Heat, Salinity
2083
ICG 11088
Drought, Low temperature
2506
ICG 12625
Drought, Low temperature, LLS, A. flavus, BW, Oil, O/L
1953
ICG 14482
PBND, Fe, Oil
1830
ICG 11426
ELS, LLS, Rust
2034
Upadhyaya et al., 2014; Crop Sci. 54:

22. Do parents identified from mini core results in trait enhancement drastically?
Yes— Exceptionally high oil lines.
Used high oil parents from mini core collection (Upadhyaya et al 2012)
Normal x High oil and High oil x High oil crosses
>80 lines with exceptionally high oil (up to 63%) identified
Multi-location evaluation is in progress
Do you loose yield and/or protein to gain oil?
Not really, r between pod yield-oil content (-0.233*) and oil- protein (0.072)
(Upadhyaya et al 2016)

23. Does mini core approach enhances use of germplasm in crop improvement?
Yes
In chickpea 30% stress tolerant accession during from mini core, while in , 17% for yield and nutrition.
In groundnut , , 37% from mini core, during , emphasis on stress tolerance (54%) and yield and quality (52%).

24. Enhancing the utilization of germplasm
Due to reduced size and representativeness of species diversity, the mini core collections are an ideal genetic resources for an in depth characterization of its biological diversity and use in crop improvement programs (Upadhyaya and Ortiz, 2001)
Mini core collections developed at ICRISAT genebank are now International Public Goods and serves as a gateway to access the species diversity.
Already provided 280 sets of mini core collections of different crops to scientists in 36 countries and 114 sets to scientists at ICRISAT

25. Crop Wild Relatives (CWR) for enhancing cultigen genepools
CWR harbour genes for stress tolerance, seed yield and nutritional traits (Upadhyaya, 2008).
ICRISAT genebank conserves a total of 2,876 accessions of wild relatives
Several promising sources were identified for agronomic and nutritional traits and abiotic and biotic stress resistances in all mandate crops
ICRISAT made systematic efforts to infuse diversity from wild relatives to enhance resistance to pod borer in chickpea and pigeonpea, and to rust and leaf spots in groundnut (Upadhyaya, 2015)
In groundnut wild species through amphidiploid has been successfully used to enhance 100-seed weight, pod yield (Upadhyaya, 2008) and traits related to drought tolerance
C. platicarpus, a source for extra early maturity and phytophthora blight, pod borer, podfly and bruchids resistance
A. cardinasii, a source for resistance to late leaf spot and rust
TMV ICGV TxAG6

26. Wild Arachis for improving seed size and yield

27. Wild Cicer for drought tolerance traits
Allelic variation in wild Cicer used for enhancing root traits

28. Wild Arachis species for improving root length in groundnut BC2F1 progenies
Amphidiploid
JUG 26
BC2F2

29. High seed protein lines developed through wide hybridization
ICPL selected from cultivated x C. scarabaeoides cross
Seed protein: 32%
Source: Reddy et al. 1997
High seed protein (27-32%) interspecific derivatives HPL# 2, 7, 40, and 51
Source: Saxena et al. 1977

30. Germplasm released as cultivars
To date, 109 germplasm lines supplied by ICRISAT Genebank were directly released as 146 cultivars in 51 countries, few lines in more than three countries. For example,
ICC a chickpea landrace was released in eight Mediterranean countries
ICP 7035 a vegetable type pigeonpea landrace in Fiji, India, China, Nepal and Philippines
ICG 7827 a groundnut accession in nine countries
Over 800 cultivars were released in 79 countries utilizing germplasm and breeding lines from ICRISAT genebank

31. Economic impact of using PGR in cultivar development
The PGR contribute to development of breeding populations or direct release of germplasm as cultivars
PGR has been particularly useful in adding disease resistance through hybridization or when a resistant PGR has been released as cultivar
PGR utilization has significant economic impact on farmers
For example,
ICP 8863 a wilt resistant pigeonpea landrace released as Maruti in India in 1986 benefited US$ 75 million by 1996.
PI , a groundnut germplasm line resistant to tomato spotted wilt virus has contributed >200 million US $ annually in the USA

32. Key messages
Of the large collection a very small part has been used in crop improvement- most crop cultivars have a narrow genetic base
Greater genetic gain (double of current ~1%) is required to feed 9.3 billion by 2015.
PGR can drive such gains genetic gains through fulfilling needs of plant breeders by providing diverse multi-trait germplasm
Mini core collection is an ideal source to identify traits and mine the variation to develop climate resilient cultivars with a broad genetic base– it is already happening
To me, more I know germplasm, more it becomes unknown to me (or I want to know more)

33. Thank You