Improving Quinoa

Improving plants refers to techniques used, such as breeding, to improve the characteristics of a plant. Main objective of these approaches are to improve yield, quality, resistance to pest and disease and environmental conditions. These approaches can be beneficial for the farmer, the environment and the food market, if they are used in appropriate way. Therefore I would like to discuss in the following post, which actions are taken in Bolivia to improve characteristics of the Quinoa plant. As the demand for Quinoa is growing, these approaches are from high importance to assure a consistent supply of the crop.

Quinoa is usually self- pollinating but cross pollination does occur at rates of up to 10 to 15 percent. The difference between self - pollinating and cross- pollinating plants is that self- pollinating plants have perfect flowers and are mainly a pure breed and hybrid variety. The plant is able to pollinate itself by transferring the pollen grain from the anther to the stigma of the same plant.  Self- pollinating plants are usually genetically homozygous, meaning that the plant has identical alleles for a single trait (gene). In contrast to this, cross- pollinating plants are monocy, dioecy, self- incompatible or from heterogeneous population, so not a pure line.  In this case, the transfer of pollen grains goes from the anther of a flower to the stigma of another flower of a different plant but from the same species. The actual transfer is taking place by wind, insects, water animals or others. Visual differences of self-pollinating or cross- pollinating plants can very often be identified by having a closer look  at the flowers, because self-  pollinating plants have smaller flowers and perfect flower.  Where on the other side cross-pollinating plants have brightly colored petals, nector and scent, as well as long stamen pistils. (Diffen, n.d )

To get back to the Quinoa production in Bolivia, we can see that there are several plant breeding programs which are aiming to improve characteristics of Quinoa. Plant breeding in general is the art and science of changing the traits of plants in order to produce desires characteristics. The actual breeding of Quinoa already took place thousands of year ago, when people started to select seeds and plants in order to alter the genotypic and phenotypic traits in the Andean region area. Today the trait improvement is visible in the seed through natural or human selection. In the 1960s to the 1970s, breeding programs were mainly focused on yield, a larger grain size, single stems of no- branches stems, disease resistance and good cooking qualities. Later in the 1980 to the 1990s other objectives such as early maturity, black and red grains and mildew resistance became more importance. Not long time ago from 2000 to 2010, breeders created hail and drought resistance, with a better industrial and nutritional quality, meaning that the crop was more suitable for mechanized harvesting techniques, which was part of new agricultural management approaches. At last, hybrid breeding became special attention with the aim to quickly combine favorable straights from several genotypes, into a single genotype to only produce uniform varieties. (bonifacio, n.d )

These breeding approaches had an effect on yield and quality of Quinoa. The higher yield which can be obtained through the improvement of the plant characteristics depends greatly on the degree and type of the genetic variation and the genotype- by environment interaction. As there are many different varieties of Quinoa and the environment changes depending on the region, the interaction of the genotype and the environment greatly determine whether the genotype will be the same at the end. Therefore breeding programs have to consider the different environments in the region to evaluation strategies to measure the effect of these interactions. However these are real case examples where the yield improved from 700 kg, to 1,2 tonnes per hectare. At last breeding objectives enable the plant to withstand pests such as mildew and environmental factors which enable the plant to adapt to climate change which brings for example delayed rainfall. The improvement of plant architecture also enables farmers to make harvesting techniques more efficient. At last the improvement of grain size is very much appreciated by the export market, providing farmers with larger opportunities to export their products. (bonifacio, n.d )

As we already touched quickly the subject of genes, the use of transgenic plants is another issue which has to be discussed at this point. Even though, Bolivia does not produce GMO Quinoa, it is important to pay some attention to this topic as it is from high relevance in the subject of crop production. Transgenic plants are plant from which the DNA has been modified by using genetic engineering techniques, meaning that a new straight is introduced in the species that does not occur naturally. The inserted gene is than called transgene that might come from a complete different species or an unrelated plant. The overall objective of the use of transgenic plants it to improve the overall production and to improve shelf life, drought and cold resistance, pest resistance, yield and quality. However there is a lot of concern about the use of transgenic plants mainly associated with human and environmental health. I my humble opinion, I can say that as far as my knowledge enables me to judge, that I am not in favor of the use of transgenic plants. The reason for this is that I do not like to accept the fact that this process in interfering with nature, which makes me feel uncomfortable when eating products which are produced through such a manner. In relation to this there is not enough scientific research available that really proves that the use of transgenic plants does not have any effects on the biodiversity and ecosystems, as genes from modified organism can be spread to unmodified relatives. I am not claiming that the use of these crops are not favorable for farmers and their yield but I believe that agricultural production systems which are more in-line with nature and the whole ecosystem will have a triple win solution by having the least impact on the environment and  at the same time providing healthy products to the people

References

bonifacio, A. (n.d ). Quinoa Breeding and modern variety development . Date accessed: December 2016 from FAO : http://www.fao.org/3/a-i4042e/i4042e12.pdf

Diffen. (n.d ). Cross Pollination vs Self Pollination . Date accessed: December 2016 from Botany : http://www.diffen.com/difference/Cross_Pollination_vs_Self_Pollination