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    Baobab among first orphaned crops to un­dergo ge­netic map­ping

    Baobab, pop­ularly known as the iconic tree of Africa will be the first of the 100 orphaned crops that will be ge­net­ic­ally mapped by the Africa orphan crops academy, in a bid to cre­ate bet­ter and high qual­ity seeds for a crop that has been faced by ex­tinc­tion.

    The baobab tree, which is found across sub-Saha­ran Africa, is high in Vit­amin C and other nu­tri­ents. Its leaves are eaten as ve­get­ables in West Africa, while its pulp is in­cor­por­ated into por­ridge, juices, and other food products across the con­tin­ent. The pulp can also be used by food pro­cessors for cook­ing oil, ice cream, sodas, en­ergy bars, cook­ies, jams and even cos­metic products.

    But the tree has been faced with im­min­ent threat of ex­tinc­tion due to il­legal log­ging. "In­di­gen­ous crop re­search has lagged be­hind in Africa with both in­ter­na­tional and local in­sti­tu­tions phas­ing in maize, wheat, and a small range of pulses. Seed com­pan­ies have also con­cen­trated on the same crops, which have high turnover both in volume and sales. This has res­ul­ted in im­proved in­di­gen­ous crops not being avail­able to farm­ing com­munit­ies," Kenya's Ag­ri­cul­ture Sec­ret­ary Felix Ko­skei said dur­ing a speech at the World Agro­forestry Cen­ter, a global CGIAR re­search cen­ters.

    Once the baobab has been se­quenced, plant breed­ers will be able se­lect baobab lines that have high nu­tri­tional value and grow well.

    Allen Van Deynze, Dir­ector of Re­search at the Uni­versity of Cali­for­nia–Davis Seed Bi­o­tech­no­logy Cen­ter said that crops take six to nine months to se­quence de­pend­ing on the com­plex­ity of the plant. Each crop in the pro­gram will have 100 dif­fer­ent lines se­quenced to give breed­ers in­form­a­tion on the di­verse char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the crop. “The di­versity [of the baobab] is in­cred­ible,” said Van Deynze. “I’ve seen tiny pods to very large pods […] and the nu­tri­tional con­tent is quite dif­fer­ent between those.”

    Breed­ers will be able to se­lect baobab lines that have high nu­tri­tional value and grow well. The baobab pro­duces dur­ing droughts while other crops fail. However,  Se­quen­cing of the baobab began in July; the first few lines are already com­plete, while se­quen­cing of fin­ger mil­let and the African egg­plant has also begun.

    The in­form­a­tion will be put into a ge­netic bank with the Na­tional Cen­ter for Bi­o­tech­no­logy In­form­a­tion and backed up by both the Beijing Ge­n­om­ics In­sti­tute and the World Agro­forestry Cen­ter. Once the gen­ome is com­plete, in­ter­ested breed­ers can cre­ate an ac­count with the vir­tual or­gan­iz­a­tion iPlant Col­lab­or­at­ive and search the data­base for cer­tain traits.

    The in­form­a­tion is provided freely to be­ne­fit as many African breed­ers as pos­sible who would not ac­cess it if a cost was placed on the gen­er­ated in­form­a­tion. Other crops to be se­quenced in­clude fin­ger mil­let, the African egg­plant, okra, am­ar­anth, guava, taro, jack­fruit, aca­cia, chocol­ate ber­ries, shea but­ter, sweet bush mango and ground­nut.

    The African Orphan Crops Con­sor­tium is also be heav­ily in­volved in train­ing African plant breed­ers, many whom work for na­tional re­search in­sti­tutes, in ge­n­om­ics and marker-as­sisted se­lec­tion for crop im­prove­ment.

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