NEWS
Buffelgrass: Broadening the fron-
tier of genetic resources conser-
vation, research & utilization
Current Address: INIFAP, Mexico & ILRI, Ethiopia
E-mail Address: [email protected] & [email protected]
Ricardo A. Sánchez Gutiérrez &
Alemayehu Teressa Negawo
B
uffelgrass (Cenchrus ciliaris L.) is an
important forage grass particularly
in the semi-arid areas of the sub-
tropics and tropics. Originating in Afri-
ca, Arabia, the Middle-East and India, it
is also widely cultivated in Australia, and
the Americas. The International Live-
stock Research institute (ILRI) maintains
over 200 accessions, collected from
19 African countries, in its forage gen-
ebank. The collection offers a valuable
resource for the selection and develop-
ment of new varieties and, with this in
mind, ILRI and the Instituto Nacional
de Investigaciones Forestales, Agríco-
las y Pecuarias (INIFAP) in Mexico have
been working together to evaluate the
performance of these materials. This
project ‘Conservation, Characterization
and use of forage genetic resources
for priority grazing land ecosystems of
Mexico’ (2013-2016) was also about ca-
pacity building. Genotyping
Characterization in Ethiopia Genesys – Plant Genetic Resources por-
tal (Genesys PGR).
Heuze V, Tran G, Baumont R, Lebas F.
2016. Buffelgrass (Cenchrus ciliaris).
Feedipedia, a programme by INRA,
CIRAD, AFZ and FAO. (Online; last up-
dated 1 April 2016).
Sánchez-Gutiérrez R, Morales-Nieto C,
Hanson J, Santellano-Estrada E, Jurado-
Guerra P, Villanueva-Avalos J, Melgoza-
Castillo A. 2017. Forage characteriza-
tion of ecotypes of buffel grass under
temporary conditions in Debre Zeit,
Ethiopia. Revista Mexicana De Ciencias
Agrícolas 8(1):13-26.
Sánchez-Gutiérrez R, Hanson J, Jones
C, Jurado-Guerra P, Santellano-Estrada
E, Melgoza-Castillo A, Morales-Nieto C.
n.d. Phenotypic variation of Buffelgrass
[Pennisetum ciliare (L.) Link] and acces-
sions with potential for forage and seed
production. Revista Fitotecnia Mexica-
na (submitted in 2018)
The first study was carried out at ILRI’s
experimental station in Bishoftu, Ethio-
pia on a vertisol soil, at 1850 metres
above sea level (asl.), with average
annual maximum and minimum tem-
peratures (Tmax/Tmin) of 25 and 11°C,
respectively, and an average annual
rainfall of 850 mm. Significant diversity
in agronomic, morphological and nu-
tritional characteristics was identified in
the collection with one group consisting
of eight accessions being more produc-
tive than all others. This group included
11 commercial cultivars, with which they
were compared. In a second study per-
formed at ILRI’s Zwai Experimental Sta-
tion (loamy sand at 1,640 m asl., Tmax/
Tmin 26/20°C, and with 600 mm annual
rainfall), which included 10 commercial
cultivars, four clusters of accessions
were identified with one group, con-
sisting of six accessions, having excep-
tional characteristics in both forage and
seed production.
29
More recently, ILRI has started a geno-
typing-by-sequencing initiative on its
collection to complement the agro-
morphological data and investigate the
possibility of initiating marker-assisted
selection in this species. So far, we have
genotyped 185 accessions collected
from across the origin countries and
identified over 200,000 molecular mark-
ers, which were mapped to the genome
of Foxtail millet (Setaria italica), a closely
related species. Using a subset of 1,000
of these markers distributed across the
S. italica genome, we have sorted the
accessions into two main groups with
up to 8 sub-groups in the collection at
ILRI, none of which align with the geo-
graphic origin or cluster based on agro-
nomic traits so far.
Figure 1: Cluster analysis of 185 Buf-
felgrass accessions based on 1000 SNP
markers. Photo: R Sánchez-Gutiérrez
References & Publications
Figure 2: Contrasting accessions from
the experiment in Bishoftu, Ethiopia.
Photo: R Sánchez-Gutiérrez
Figure 3: Harvesting the Buffelgrass
trial in Bishoftu, Ethiopia. Photo: R
Sánchez-Gutiérrez
Grassroots
Vol 19
No 4
November 2019