Fifth Annual Review and Project Closer Meeting (2024)

The Fifth Annual Review and Project Closure Meeting took place on August 20-21, 2024, in Bhairahawa, Nepal. A total of 55 participants from partner countries attended the meeting, comprising 51 men and 4 women. The program commenced with the inaugural session themed “Maize for Climate-Vulnerable Agro-Ecologies of the Tropics.” B. M. Prasanna delivered a presentation titled “Climate-Resilient Maize for Asia: Are We on the Right Track?” In his talk, he addressed key topics such as whether South Asia’s maize sector can be effectively supported solely by multinational corporations, the need to shorten, widen, and improve the breeding funnel, responses to the fall armyworm challenge in Africa and Asia, the impact on local seed companies in Nepal, and community-based seed production in Bhutan. Infographics of Heat Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) Technical Know-How, Outputs, Outcomes & Learning (TOOLs) uncover by dignitaries on dice.

Dr. P. H. Zaidi, the project leader, presented “Heat Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA): From Dissecting the Trait to Improved Seed Delivery,” highlighting a new opportunity for maize in biofuel production, as demand for maize for ethanol is expected to increase. He discussed how global warming is leading to global drying due to an increase in vapor pressure deficit (VPD), CIMMYT-Asia’s product profiles for maize in South Asia, and the science and innovation-based breeding strategies for developing high-yielding, heat-tolerant maize hybrids. Zaidi also shared insights on VPD-based data analysis and selection, and the release and registration of high-yielding, heat- and drought-tolerant hybrids for commercialization. Socio-economist Atul Kulkarni presented a socioeconomic analysis of stress-resilient maize hybrids and farmers’ perceptions, followed by Dr. Sudha’s talk on trait haplotype-based and genomic selection for more efficient breeding for heat and drought tolerance. Dr. Vinayan then discussed rapid cycle genomic selection for accelerating genetic gains in heat and drought tolerance breeding pipelines. The technical session concluded with progress updates from country-leads.  Recognition of the leading seed scaling partner awards given among the partner counties and the event officially closed with a wrap-up by B. M. Prasanna.