Dataset Information

Foundational and Translational Research Opportunities to Improve Plant Health.

ABSTRACT: Reader Comments | Submit a Comment The white paper reports the deliberations of a workshop focused on biotic challenges to plant health held in Washington, D.C. in September 2016. Ensuring health of food plants is critical to maintaining the quality and productivity of crops and for sustenance of the rapidly growing human population. There is a close linkage between food security and societal stability; however, global food security is threatened by the vulnerability of our agricultural systems to numerous pests, pathogens, weeds, and environmental stresses. These threats are aggravated by climate change, the globalization of agriculture, and an over-reliance on nonsustainable inputs. New analytical and computational technologies are providing unprecedented resolution at a variety of molecular, cellular, organismal, and population scales for crop plants as well as pathogens, pests, beneficial microbes, and weeds. It is now possible to both characterize useful or deleterious variation as well as precisely manipulate it. Data-driven, informed decisions based on knowledge of the variation of biotic challenges and of natural and synthetic variation in crop plants will enable deployment of durable interventions throughout the world. These should be integral, dynamic components of agricultural strategies for sustainable agriculture.

SUBMITTER: Michelmore R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5810936 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Foundational and Translational Research Opportunities to Improve Plant Health.

Michelmore Richard R Coaker Gitta G Bart Rebecca R Beattie Gwyn G Bent Andrew A Bruce Toby T Cameron Duncan D Dangl Jeffery J Dinesh-Kumar Savithramma S Edwards Rob R Eves-van den Akker Sebastian S Gassmann Walter W Greenberg Jean T JT Hanley-Bowdoin Linda L Harrison Richard J RJ Harvey Jagger J He Ping P Huffaker Alisa A Hulbert Scot S Innes Roger R Jones Jonathan D G JDG Kaloshian Isgouhi I Kamoun Sophien S Katagiri Fumiaki F Leach Jan J Ma Wenbo W McDowell John J Medford June J Meyers Blake B Nelson Rebecca R Oliver Richard R Qi Yiping Y Saunders Diane D Shaw Michael M Smart Christine C Subudhi Prasanta P Torrance Lesley L Tyler Bret B Valent Barbara B Walsh John J

Molecular plant-microbe interactions : MPMI 20170612 7

Reader Comments | Submit a Comment The white paper reports the deliberations of a workshop focused on biotic challenges to plant health held in Washington, D.C. in September 2016. Ensuring health of food plants is critical to maintaining the quality and productivity of crops and for sustenance of the rapidly growing human population. There is a close linkage between food security and societal stability; however, global food security is threatened by the vulnerability of our agricultural systems ...[more]

PMID: 28398839

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Project description:The American tropics are hotspots of wild and domesticated plant biodiversity, which is still underutilized by breeding programs despite being conserved at regional gene banks. The improvement of those programs depends on long-term public funds and the maintenance of specialized staff. Unfortunately, financial ups and downs complicate staff connectivity and their research impact. Between 2000 and 2010, Agrosavia (Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria) dramatically decreased its public financial support. In 2017, we surveyed all 52 researchers from Agrosavia involved in plant breeding and plant genetic resource programs to examine the effect of decimating funds in the last ten years. We hypothesized that the staff dedicated to plant breeding still suffer a strong fragmentation and low connectivity. As we expected, the social network among researchers is weak. The top ten central leaders are predominantly males with an M.Sc. degree but have significant experience in the area. The staff has experience in 31 tropical crops, and 17 are on the list of underutilized species. Moreover, although 26 of these crops are in the national germplasm bank, this has not been the primary source for their breeding programs. We proposed five principles to improve connectivity among teams and research impact: (1) The promotion of internal discussion about gender gaps and generation shifts to design indicators to monitor and decrease this disparity over time. (2) The construction of long-term initiatives and synergies with the Colombian government to support the local production of food security crops independent of market trends. (3) Better collaboration between the National Plant Germplasm Bank and plant breeding researchers. (4) A concerted priority list of species (especially those neglected or underutilized) and external institutions to better focus the collaborative efforts in research using public funds. (5) Better spaces for the design of projects among researchers and training programs in new technologies. These principles could also apply in other tropical countries with public plant breeding research programs facing similar challenges.

Dataset Information

Foundational and Translational Research Opportunities to Improve Plant Health.

Publications

Foundational and Translational Research Opportunities to Improve Plant Health.

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