Davis, California, USA and India
November 23, 2012

An Indo-US consortium from the University of California Davis, Arcadia Biosciences, ICRISAT, and Krishidhan Seeds announced today that they will develop heat and drought tolerant technology solutions in pearl millet. The public-private consortium will bring together expertise and technologies spanning breeding and molecular biology to develop climate resilient elite inbreds and hybrids. Lead by UC Davis, the consortium is funded by a four year grant from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Feed the Future initiative for food security.

The team will harness breakthroughs enabled by a deeper understanding of plant responses to stress with modern genetic tools. UC Davis’s expertise in the identification of metabolic and genetic pathways for plant stress tolerance will be combined with ICRISAT’s expertise in field and drought tolerance trait assessment, and germplasm resources which will enable such breakthroughs. Arcadia Biosciences and Krishidhan Seeds will make technology available and support commercialization through public and private partners. This partnership will pyramid traits that will substantially increase yields over current elite hybrids and non-hybrid varieties grown by small resource poor farmers.

The consortium will introduce genes and gene combinations that have been shown to play key roles in conferring crops with the ability to grow and yield under the adverse environmental conditions (drought, salinity, high temperatures) that are typical of Africa and Asia. The USAID grant recognises the research potential of each partner in addressing agriculture productivity challenges especially in millets with sustainable solution, said Anup Karwa, Director of Krishidhan Seeds. Our efforts will lead to development of indigenous drought tolerant trait in pearl millet which will benefit Indian growers to tackle changing environmental constrains and usher higher productivity, Krishidhan believes.
 

Website: http://www.ucdavis.edu

Published: November 23, 2012