1142. Opportunities and Challenges of Genetic Resources for Resilient Crop Development

Climate change is projected to pose a significant threat to the production of major crops by increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events and expanding their spatial spread and duration. For example, the increasing incidence of heat waves, droughts, and floods negatively affects the yield of cereals such as wheat and corn.

For food security, it is necessary to accelerate the development of resilient crops. Here are the contents of the review article published in 2021.

By integrating technologies and approaches that have been rapidly evolving in recent years and increasing the accuracy of trait selection, we have the potential to significantly improve the breeding of resilient crops. In fact, the adoption of high-throughput precision phenotyping, rapid breeding, genomic selection and gene editing, and the application of digital technologies to generate high-quality data have successfully bred crops that are resistant to heat waves and droughts.

At the same time, significant efforts are being made to protect genetic diversity globally, including traditional landraces and wild relatives, in order to identify traits that have been affected by artificial selection through domestication.

Underutilized non-major crops often adapt to arid and semi-arid regions where major crops are less likely to grow, and have the potential to provide alternative solutions to the world in the fight against climate change. Cereal legumes such as chickpeas, pigeon peas, and cowpeas are well adapted to tropical and subtropical environments, with the added benefit of being able to grow in nutrient-poor soils due to their nitrogen-fixing capacity. While these crops occupy a niche as "insurance crops" in the field, they have not been sufficiently invested in research, compared to major crops, and the molecular mechanisms of stress tolerance in these crops have not yet been fully elucidated.

Gene banks around the world protect a diverse crop sample, including cultivars and native species of major crops, as well as underutilized crops and wild relatives. However, only a small part of them are used in breeding programs, and even less in the development of stress-resistant crops. There is an urgent need for information such as phenotypic, physiological, and agronomic data, or links to other databases that compile this information, so that breeders can take advantage of genetic diversity.

On November 22, 2024, the JIRCAS International Symposium 2024 will discuss the role of resilient genetic resources in the age of global boiling.

JIRCAS International Symposium 2024 : Resilient Genetic Resources for Food Security in the Era of Global Boiling –Opportunities and Challenges for Conservation and Utilization–
Date: 2024-11-22(Fri) 13:30～17:30 (13:00 Admission)(JST)
Place: U Thant International Conference Hall + Online  (United Nations University 3F, 5-53-70 Jingu-mae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-8925)
Registration Site: https://www.jircas.go.jp/ja/symposium/2024/e20241122_jircas

Reference
Rosa M. Rivero et al. 2021 Developing climate-resilient crops: improving plant tolerance to stress combination. The Plant Journal. https://doi.org/10.1111/tpj.15483　

Yoselin Benitez-Alfonso, et al. Enhancing climate change resilience in agricultural crops, Current Biology, Volume 33, Issue 23, 2023, Pages R1246-R1261, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.10.028

Contributor: IIYAMA Miyuki, Information Program