Nepali agro-scientists bag US award

NEW YORK, SEP 01 -
The Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI), a US-based organisation, has decided to confer BGRI Gene Stewardship Award 2012 on a group of agriculture scientists of Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC).
Sarala Sharma, Deepak Bhandari, Dhruba B Thapa, Madan Bhatta and Nutan Gautam are the recipients of this award, which will be given away amid a ceremony in Beijing on September 2.
Established in memory of Noble Laureate Norman Borlaug, who fought against world hunger, the award recognises a researcher or a team of researchers serving a national breedingprogramme or other nationally based institutions.

Nepali research team was awarded for developing a variety of Ug99, which is resistant to rusts and yields better than existing varieties. The project is being conducted by Cornell University with the financial support of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
It takes much longer for breeders to develop and test new varieties than it does for Ug99 to mutate, so breeders are encouraged to release new varieties that do not rely on single major genes for resistance.
Combinations of major and minor resistance genes can slow down Ug99’s predations. “Thanks to the Nepali team’s work, Nepal is fully prepared to face the possible arrival of stem rust IJg99 because the resistant varieties are already in farmers’ fields,” said Niranjan Prasad Adhikari, director at the Nepal Agricultural Research Institute.
By releasing varieties that minimize losses caused by major wheat diseases, the NARC wheat team has significantly increased Nepal’s wheat yields.
In the past five years, overall wheat yield has increased from 1.442 metric tons to 1.745 metric tons, and productivity has risen from 2.07 tons per hectare to 2.27.
BGRI officials say that the NARC wheat research team works to release Ug99 resistant varieties of wheat and disseminate thenew varieties to resource poor farmers. By the end of the FY 2011-12,  Ug99 resistant seed they have released is expected to cover approximately 5.4 percent of the wheat cultivation area in Nepal.
“The team has also increased awareness for resistant varieties and pre-release seed multiplication among farmers, seed industry, planners and national agriculture system”, said Dr Sarah Evanega, associate director of the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project, and adjunct professor of plant breeding at Cornell University.
Source: http://kantipuronline.com/2012/09/01/capital/nepali-agro-scientists-bag-us-award/359591.html