Optimization of detection methods for Cassava brown streak virus

4 February 2010

In a recent article published in the Journal of Virological Methods (Abarshi et al., 2010, doi:10.1016/j.jviromet.2009.10.023), researchers from NRI have described the most cost-effective and highly reliable diagnostic protocols for detection of Cassava brown streak virus (CBSV) disease.

Cassava brown streak disease used to be confined mainly to coastal areas of eastern and southern Africa, but in the past few years it has become substantially more virulent and begun spreading across the continent. The disease has invaded Uganda, moved around the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya and Tanzania, and now entered DR Congo from where it seems poised to move right across sub-Saharan Africa. It is highly damaging, causing up to 70% loss in root weight of infected plants and rotting of tubers, and thus severely affecting root quality (see picture below) for both domestic use and marketing. The disease is a real threat to the livelihoods of the millions of poor people in sub-Saharan Africa.

Cassava roots affected by CBSV © University of Greenwich 2010

Research conducted elsewhere and also at NRI has revealed the existence of two strains/species of CBSV in eastern Africa, for which additional novel protocols are being developed at NRI. Testing for the disease is critical in many ways: for identifying and supplying clean healthy planting material to farmers; for monitoring disease spread; and for facilitating breeding programmes for the rapid development of virus-resistant cassava, which is urgently needed in affected regions.

In this research, the conventional cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) method was optimized to obtain maximum yields of viral nucleic acids from cassava leaf tissue. The CTAB method when used together with a two-step reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was at least five times cheaper (~£2 per sample) than commercial kits (~£10 per sample) but was highly sensitive, being over 300 times more sensitive than the existing CBSV diagnostic protocols. Mathematical formulae were applied to estimate the probability of virus detection in order to achieve a balance between the numbers of samples to be tested per field versus the levels of accuracy required in virus diagnosis. It was estimated, for example, that a 100-plant sample gives a 99.9% chance of detecting 6.7% incidence, but a 400-plant sample gives the same chance of detecting an even lower incidence of 1.7%. This information will help those who are in the field (technicians, researchers, extension workers) to make informed decisions on the number of samples to be tested in a given field without compromising on the accuracies required to prevent the movement of virus-infected planting material.

This new and on-going research at NRI proposes highly reliable diagnostic protocols for CBSV that could be performed easily in typical African laboratories. They are alternatives to highly expensive and less sensitive commercial kits.

For more information about NRI's work on cassava brown streak disease, please contact Dr M N Maruthi or Dr Rory Hillocks (m.n.maruthi@gre.ac.uk or r.j.hillocks@gre.ac.uk).

Why No Thought for Food?

27 January 2010

The Report of a UK Parliamentary Inquiry into Global Food Security has been published and presented to the UK Parliament on 27 January 2010. Discussants at the launch event, in the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Room, included Olivier De Schutter (UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food) and Geoff Tansey (Joseph Rowntree Visionary and Author). The Report brings together – and draws critical conclusions from – the key issues in oral and written evidence presented to the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Agriculture and Food for Development during the Inquiry.  The Report was published for the APPG by the Natural Resources Institute of the University of Greenwich, and financial support for the Inquiry was provided by Action Aid, CAZS-NR Bangor University, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide UK, Farm Africa, Find your Feet, International Agri-Technology Centre, John Innes Centre, Natural Resources Institute at University of Greenwich, Rothamsted Research and the UK Food Group. The Inquiry received some 130 written submissions and took oral evidence directly from 29 of the most experienced and authoritative experts on agricultural development and food security from the UK, developing countries and international organizations.

The APPG Inquiry addressed the question, “Why has the UK cut back on its international commitments on food and agriculture when the Millennium Development Goal 1 [MDG1 – to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger] is so far off track?” The Report – entitled “Why No Thought for Food?” – provides a wide-ranging critique of the dramatic decline in the UK government’s contribution to international agricultural development over the past three decades, and analyses both the impact that this has had on the international expertise available in this sector and the contradiction between this decreased investment and the stated commitment of DFID to MDG1.

© University of Greenwich 2010

NRI’s Director, Dr Guy Poulter, who was one of the oral witnesses to the Inquiry, says “I very much welcome the publication of this Report. I hope that it will act to focus cross-party and wider public attention on the key issues of agricultural development and global food security at a time when the effects of the economic downturn are inevitably being felt hardest by the poorest of the poor in the developing world.” He adds, “Agriculture is a driver for lifting people out of poverty yet it has been, and indeed continues to be, very low on the list of DFID’s priorities despite over 1 billion people worldwide suffering from chronic hunger every day. While multilateral institutions and donors in other countries are now starting to recognize the consequences of the decreased investment in agricultural development, DFID has been slow to act in spite of repeated calls for action and for a renewed UK leadership in this area from the developing world itself. The UK has neglected the 1.3 billion people who work in the agriculture sector and the 1.2 billion people worldwide who live in a household reliant on agriculture – this cannot go on.”

© University of Greenwich 2010

The Report concludes that “This is the time for action and, while Parliamentarians have often been neglected as the vehicle for change in terms of food security, there is much that can be done in the Parliaments of the developed and developing worlds to remedy this situation. Rising food prices at home and abroad have created a level of public awareness and understanding not seen since the mid-1980s, which in turn has created a unique opportunity for action in 2010. The cost of further inaction, however, does not bear thinking about.”

The evidence presented to the APPG Inquiry was truly international and from an exceptionally high calibre of witnesses – the oral witnesses included, among several senior international experts in food security: Dr Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization; Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme; and Joachim von Braun, Director-General of the International Food Policy Research Institute. As well as analysing past failures, the Report examines the prospects of achieving global food security by 2050 and evaluates what the UK should be doing in the future to help halt, and then reverse, the global slide towards hunger. Improved food security can underpin economic growth, health, social cohesion and many other aspects of development. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon stated at the June 2008 World Food Security Summit, “Nothing is more degrading than hunger, especially when man-made. It breeds anger, social disintegration, ill-health and economic decline ... Today’s problems will only grow larger tomorrow unless we act now.” – it is hoped that this APPG Report will inspire the action the UK urgently needs to take in order to contribute to this international challenge.

Why No Thought for Food? - A UK Parliamentary Inquiry into Global Food Security (Jan 2010) [pdf 4Mb]

Inaugural Professorial Lecture by Professor Jerry Cross - 11 February 2010

18 January 2010

An Inaugural Professorial Lecture entitled “To Spray, or not to Spray: That is the Question – Horticultural Entomology in the 21st Century” will be given by Professor Jerry Cross in the Pilkington Lecture Theatre, University of Greenwich at Medway, Chatham, on Thursday 11 February 2010 at 6 p.m.

Jerry Cross is the University of Greenwich’s Visiting Professor of Horticultural Entomology at NRI. He was awarded the professorship in 2007 for his contribution to horticultural entomology and for his close collaboration with the chemical ecology team at NRI on the identification of sex pheromones and other semiochemicals of UK fruit pests and the development of methods of exploiting them for monitoring and control.

Professor Cross is leader of the Entomology and Plant Pathology Science Team at East Malling Research, where he leads research projects on integrated pest management and spray application to fruit crops, with the aim of finding new solutions to pest problems faced by UK fruit growers. Jerry Cross is at the forefront of developing non-pesticidal methods for management of pests of UK fruit crops and incorporating them into integrated pest and disease management programmes, with a focus on minimizing the occurrence of pesticide residues. Another important area of his research is the optimization of sprayer use according to orchard structure, taking account of the distribution of spray deposits and their biological efficacy.

To book a place, or for further information, please download the promotional flyer [PDF 407Kb]

The Closing Date for booking a place is Wednesday 3 February 2010.

‘Science Should Be Fun’ – Inaugural Professorial Lecture

23 June 2009

Over 130 people at the University of Greenwich’s Medway Campus, ranging in age from primary school children to pensioners, were urged to have fun while exploring science – by a man whose long scientific career has been characterized by “never growing up at heart”.  Delivering an Inaugural Professorial Lecture, Prof. Glyn Vale OBE – who is Visiting Professor of Insect Behaviour at the University’s Natural Resources Institute – spoke about how his youthful wonder at the natural world had remained with him over a 44-year career.  He has dedicated his career, spent mostly in Zimbabwe, to researching the tsetse fly, an insect pest that spreads the fatal disease trypanosomiasis, known as sleeping sickness in humans and nagana in cattle.  As a result of his research, a method for tsetse eradication has been developed and is in widespread use.

Prof. Glyn Vale (centre) after delivering his lecture, with Dr Guy Poulter (left), NRI Director, and Prof. Tom Barnes (right), Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research & Enterprise) © 2009 University of Greenwich

Dismissing the idea that science is just for the cleverest students, Prof. Vale instead told the audience at the Pilkington Lecture Theatre on 23 June that it suited adventurous minds.  Prof. Vale said: “You do not have to be particularly clever or scholarly – just set aside some quality thinking time and think a bit longer than most.  Good luck is encouraged by not always being committed to formal hypotheses – try doing any strange thing and then keep your eyes open for surprises.  More fun means more dedication, greater achievement and so yet more fun.”

Prof. Glyn Vale enjoying the fun of practical scientific research in the field © 2009 University of Greenwich

Prof. Vale has served on committees of several international organizations concerned with trypanosomiasis, including the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization.  He was awarded an OBE in June 2008 for his services in “controlling and eradicating tsetse flies in Africa”.

For further information about Prof. Vale and his work, download a copy of his Inaugural Professorial Lecture handout [PDF 647Kb]

International Award for Implementation of IPM

March 2009

A successful partnership (including NRI) between donor-funded research, promotion and commercial marketing for sustainable adoption of eggplant IPM in South Asia, has been chosen to receive an International Award of Recognition from the awards programme of the 6th International IPM Symposium, to be held in Portland, Oregon, USA, on 24-26 March 2009. The nine Award winners in three Award categories were selected because they displayed notable contributions to: 1) improving economic benefits related to IPM adoption; 2) reducing potential human health risks; and 3) minimizing adverse environmental effects.

Practical brochures on eggplant IPM for farmers © 2009 AVRDC

The award-winning nomination described an example of synergy between researchers and SMEs to deliver sustainable development by the transfer of a scientifically validated and locally adapted IPM package for the management of key pests and diseases in a major vegetable crop, eggplant, in South Asia. After the IPM component technologies had been developed and validated in South Asian locations, a technology package composed of mass-trapping and crop hygiene was promoted by ten partner organizations, using an imaginative blend of farmer demonstrations, meetings, leaflets, multi-media videos and puppeteers, in many locations in India and Bangladesh. In parallel, projects were undertaken to transfer technical knowledge to commercial companies in India and Bangladesh to encourage local production of pheromone lures and traps. More recently, yields in Bangladesh have been further improved by incorporating the use of root stock resistant to bacterial wilt and commercially-produced parasitoids of major pests into the IPM package. Recent surveys have found that the eggplant IPM package has been widely adopted in the region, with its sustainability confirmed by commercial production of the IPM materials without government interventions or subsidies.

Postal delivery of promotional materials	Roadside promotion
© 2009 AVRDC

The twelve team members from ten institutions named in the application are: S N Alam (Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, Bangladesh); K Baral (Viswa Bharati University, India); A Cork (University of Greenwich, UK); R C Jhala (Anand Agricultural University, India); M G Patel (Anand Agricultural University, India); L K Rath (Orissa University of Agriculture & Technology, India); S Satpathy (Indian Institute of Vegetable Research, India); A Sengupta (Rama Krishna Mission, India); T M Shivalingaswamy (Indian Institute of Vegetable Research, India); A N Shylesha (ICAR Complex for North Eastern Hill Region, India); I Wahundeniya (Horticultural Crop Research and Development Insitute, Sri Lanka); and N S Talekar (AVRDC World Vegetable Center, Taiwan). In addition, team member Alan Cork – NRI’s Professor of Bio-Rational Pest Management – says, “This was a very complex programme that involved many projects from a number of donors (especially the European Commission and the UK’s DFID) over several years and different countries, so the actual number of people involved was in reality much greater than the named team members.”

In her message to Alan Cork telling him of the team’s success, Dr Sherry Glick, Chair of the International Awards Committee, indicated that, while there were many applications with great merit, the NRI-led submission stood out among the select few as deserving an Award of Recognition. On behalf of the team, Alan will attend the Awards Luncheon in Portland on 24 March, and has also been invited to give a lecture on the eggplant IPM programme in order to set the scene for an open discussion on ‘IPM Adoption: Keys to Implementing IPM and Gaining its Full Benefits’ during the Symposium.

For further information about the development and adoption of eggplant IPM in South Asia, contact Alan Cork.

Capturing Value from Intellectual Property

February 2009

A new initiative, which aims to raise awareness of the importance of developing and implementing intellectual property (IP) business strategies to secure and increase export incomes in a global marketplace, has been launched by NRI in partnership with Light Years IP, a US-based NGO, with funding from DFID in the UK. The project will be working initially in five locations in Africa, including Mozambique, Zambia, Kenya and a regional West African focus on the specific IP challenges and opportunities for West African textile producers.

© 2009 Light Years IP. Reproduced by kind permission

Ben Bennett, the agricultural marketing economist who is NRI’s leader in the project, says, “Our main brief for this project in each targeted country is: to raise awareness of what IP is, and how to identify and quantify its value; to increase knowledge about the basic IP tools available; and to share experiences of how to set about capturing higher and more secure revenues from exported products by using IP business strategies.”

A key component of the project activities will be in-country interactive workshops led by IP business experts, for participants from producer associations, export organizations, trade promotion agencies, and NGOs supporting small and medium enterprises. More information about the project and the workshops can be found on the Light Years IP project website