CropsThe new lines, CML661A to CML665B, are offered to breeding programmes as parents for hybrids; one already parents hybrids released in India, Nepal, Pakistan and China.
AgribusinessMeeting Canada's minister of state for international development, Randeep Sarai, Prime Minister Tarique Rahman set out plans to supply fertiliser and seed through farmer cards, and the two sides discussed pulses, oilseeds and CIMMYT's work on food security.
CropsUK crop science body Niab will lead a three-year BBSRC-funded project, the first under the second phase of the International Wheat Yield Partnership, to put novel traits into elite European winter wheat and test them with eight commercial breeders.
AgrotechA first-of-its-kind workshop in Hyderabad took 33 breeders from ICAR institutes, state universities, CIMMYT and BISA through data collection, drone phenotyping, data management and AI-assisted analysis.
CropsA multi-year study at more than 600 sites across Ethiopia's wheat belts found the zinc-efficient variety Melka, combined with targeted fertiliser, improves the odds of high yields and high grain zinc even on zinc-poor soils.
More than 500 people from 17 wards gathered for the Mbire Good Food and Seed Festival, where over twenty local crop varieties were displayed and exchanged and farmers voiced concern that fewer landraces leave them exposed to drought.
Pakistan's biofortified zinc wheat programme grew from 64,000 hectares in 2019 to more than 3.1 million in 2023, reaching 3.3 million farming households, after the province of Punjab paid for breeder seed and cleared the certification bottleneck.
