Food and nutrition security in dry areas: ICARDA 2012 report and research-for-development obstacles

ICARDA_2012_Annual Report ICARDA – the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas http://www.icarda.org – is an international organization targeting crops for these critical regions. It’s annual report for 2012 has just been published and highlights their genetic, breeding and agronomy research. Their headquarters in Aleppo, Syria, was taken over – there are shocking YouTube…

Water stress and spring wheat – genetics and Pakistan

TS. Noorka IR, Schwarzacher T. 2013. Water a response factor to screen suitable genotypes to fight and traverse periodic onslaughts of water scarcity in spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). International Journal of Water Resources and Arid Environments 3(1): 37-44. ISSN 2079-7079 Pakistan lies in a semi arid to arid region with neither sufficient nor reliable rainfall….

Haploid callus from a diploid Musa accession for genome analysis

303. Nair AS, Heslop-Harrison P, Schwarzacher T. 2013. Production of haploid tissues and SNP analysis of the genome in Musa acuminata cv.‘Matti’ (AA). Plant Mutation Reports 3(1): 18-24.   Haploid and doubled haploid plants are of considerable value in genetic studies, genomics and plant breeding, allowing characterization and exploitation of genes where only one allele is present. Inbred banana…

Faisal Nouroz : Collaborator from Hazara University, Pakistan on genome organization

Dr Faisal Nouroz completed his PhD at the University of Leicester in 2012, working on mobile element evolution in two contrasting crop groups, Musa and Brassica. Dr. Faisal Nouroz held a Ph.D scholarship from the Higher Education Commission and Hazara University Mansehra, Pakistan and joined the Molecular Cytogenetics Lab, Department of Biology, University of Leicester…