Tag Archives: germplasm conservation

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They’re changing the guard at Buckingham Palace . . .

A letter in the mail – The Queen’s New Year’s Honours
On a bright, sunny day last November (my birthday, actually) I was outside cleaning the car, when the postman passed by. He handed me several envelopes and my immediate reaction was that this was another load of the usual junk mail. So you can imagine my surprise when I came across one that seemed rather official looking. And I was even more surprised when I read what it had to say – that I had been nominated to become an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, or OBE, for services to international food science. Well, I was gob-smacked, quite emotional really. I rushed inside to tell Steph – who was equally stunned, and we set to ponder how on earth this had come about. I did some Google detective work, and was able to find out a little more about the nomination process, and how successful nominees are chosen. But beyond that, I had no idea. Subsequently (in early January 2012), there was a press release from the British Embassy in the Philippines. There is some more information about the British honours system on the BBC website.

And then began six weeks of purgatory – nominees are sworn to secrecy until the honours list is published officially in The London Gazette, scheduled for 31 December! Anyway, on the 31st I came down for breakfast, and went to the website to see my name in print. And I couldn’t find it! I began to wonder if I had ticked the right box when I sent the form back. But then I found it (page N24) – under the Diplomatic Service and Overseas list. And looking down the list, it was then that I discovered that my good friend and former colleague at IRRI, John Sheehy, had also been made an OBE. A great day for IRRI!

Going to the Palace – next steps
Not long after the New Year, I received a package of information from the Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood, with the date of the investiture: 29 February. I applied for tickets – for Steph, daughter Philippa, and my closest colleague in the DPPC at IRRI, Corinta Guerta.

Not long afterwards, the tickets arrived in the mail.

Corinta arrived to the UK on 26 February, and after her meeting at DfID in London on the Monday morning, came up to Bromsgrove to spend a couple of nights with us, and to join us for the investiture. We agreed to meet Philippa in London.

One other issue for me was what to wear: morning dress (top hat and tails) or lounge suit (and even which tie to choose).* I finally settled on my lounge suit and pink tie.

Investiture day
It was an early start on the 29th: up at 5 am, and off to Solihull to catch the 7:41 am Chiltern Railways service from Solihull (about 25 minutes from Bromsgrove by car) to London Marylebone. The train eventually was very crowded, with some passengers standing all the way from Banbury to London; but we had good seats. We met up with Philippa at Marylebone, had a quick cup of coffee, and then took a taxi to the Palace.

Security was extremely tight, and we had to show photo IDs and our tickets for access. It’s quite some feeling walking through the gates of the Palace (made in Bromsgrove), past the guards, and through into the inner quadrangle. At the main entrance, under a glass canopy, our tickets were again checked, and we headed inside. What a spectacle: guardsmen in their metal breastplates and equerries in morning suits; everyone was very polite and friendly. After a quick comfort stop, Steph, Philippa, and Corinta headed for the Ballroom, and I headed off in another direction to meet the other honours recipients. The recipients of knighthoods and CBEs were together in one room, the OBEs and MBEs in another. Mineral water and juices were provided – in bottles with The Queen’s crest, and little goblets with EIIR engraved (not to be left on a mantelpiece next to a priceless ceramic vase). We waited in a long gallery full of the most incredible pieces of art – goodness knows what their value was.

One of the Officers on Duty gave a briefing about the ceremony, that it would be held by HRH The Prince of Wales (not HM The Queen, much to my initial disappointment). It began precisely at 11 am, and the first batch of recipients was called away. I was in the second batch. Click on the image below to read the investiture program.

I guess I must have been called to receive my OBE at around 11:15; and afterwards the recipients returned to the back of the ballroom and took their seats to watch the rest of the proceedings. Immediately after the presentation, the insignia was removed and placed in a special case.

I was intrigued to see that the insignia was made by a company based in Bromsgrove, the Worcestershire Medal Service Ltd.

The medals are actually manufactured at a site in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, but the head office is a small shop on one of my daily walk routes!

Anyway, to get back to the ceremony. Each batch of recipients crossed the ballroom at the rear, to enter a corridor on the other side. And it was from there that each recipient was called forward, to wait beside one of the Officers on Duty, and then move forward again as the surname was announced (and the reason for the honour). Turning towards HRH, men gave a small bow from the neck and women a curtsy. The insignia was pinned on, and a few words exchanged.

Receiving my medal from HRH The Prince of Wales (screenshot from The British Monarch website)

HRH asked if I was still working in the Philippines – he had been well briefed, and then we spoke briefly about different varieties of rice. Then, after some words of thanks from HRH and a warm handshake that was it – my moment of glory all over, and I exited through a door on the opposite side from where I had entered. The ballroom itself was quite dimly lit, from several huge chandeliers. On the video footage I have seen, and on the close circuit TV that was broadcast to waiting recipients, the ballroom look very bright indeed.

Considering the number of honours recipients and that HRH spoke to each person individually, the investiture was over just after 12 noon. Then we were able to meet up with our guests. Steph, Philippa, and Corinta had found seats at the back of the ballroom. We then made our way outside for picture taking.

Here are just a few, but click on the image immediately below and a web album of the best photographs will open.

Unfortunately we were not able to stay long in London, since Corinta was due to fly back to the Philippines from Birmingham Airport (BHX) at 8:30 pm. So, once we had taken all the photographs we wanted, I hailed a taxi (much easier outside the Palace than I had envisaged) and we set off for Marylebone and the train. We had a quick bite to eat at the station, and our train to Solihull departed at 2:37 pm, arriving in Solihull on time just after 4 pm. Corinta had plenty of time to get changed, complete some last minute packing, and even enjoy a cup of tea and some home-made Victoria sponge before heading off to BHX in an Emirates Airlines limo.

Reflections
Originally we thought about driving to London for the investiture. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I would have been stupid to have attempted this trip by car, even though we could have parked right inside Buckingham Palace. On the afternoon of 29 February there were serious traffic incidents on one of the main motorways (M40) into London that we would have used, and there were holdups for several hours. So instead of an anticipated stressed journey by car, we let the train take the strain.

As Steph and I reflected on the day over dinner and a cup of tea that same evening, it was quite surreal to think we had been inside Buckingham Palace just a few hours before. But what a privilege it was, and what a fantastic honour to have received in recognition of the work I did in agricultural research, especially the conservation and use of crop genetic resources.

My former staff in the International Rice Genebank at IRRI sent me this photo – a very thoughtful touch.

Warrant of Appointment
On 22 May I received my Warrant of Appointment as an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. This is printed on parchment, has an embossed Seal of the Order in the top left corner, and measures 11.5 x 16.5 inches approx.

* Over the past year since I first posted this story, lots of other recipients of awards have also worried about what to wear to an investiture, and their web searches have often led to my blog. I hope my advice has been useful. I know in at least one case that it has been, since there are a couple of comments to that effect.

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Potatoes – the real treasure of the Incas . . .

Home of the potato
The Andes of South America are the home of the potato that has supported indigenous civilizations for thousands of years. As many as 4,000 native potato varieties are still grown. The region around Lake Titicaca in southern Peru and northern Bolivia is particularly rich in genetic diversity, and the wild potatoes from here are valuable for their disease and pest resistance [1].

For three years, from 1973-1975 I had the privilege of living and working in Peru (fulfilling an ambition I’d had since I was a boy) and studying the potato in its homeland. My work took me all over the mountains to collect potato varieties (for conservation in the germplasm collection of the International Potato Center (CIP), and to carry out studies of potato cultivation that I hoped would throw some light on different aspects of potato evolution [2].

I joined CIP in January 1973 as Associate Taxonomist, charged with the task of collecting potato varieties and helping them to maintain the large germplasm collection, that grew to at least 15,000 separate entries (or clonal accessions), but was reduced to a more manageable number through the elimination of duplicate samples. The germplasm collection was planted each year from October through April, coinciding with the most abundant rains, in the field in Huancayo, central Peru at an altitude of more than 3,100 meters.

Potato collection at CIP, grown in the field at Huancayo, central Peru, at 3100 m. Taken around mid 1980s.

When CIP was founded in 1971, several germplasm collections from various institutes in Peru and elsewhere were donated to the new collection, but from 1973 CIP organized a program of collecting throughout Peru – and I was fortunate to be part of that endeavour. In May 1973 I joined my colleague Zosimo Huaman to collect potatoes in the Departments of Ancash and La Libertad, to the north of Lima. The highest mountains in Peru are found in Ancash, and our route took us through into the Callejón de Huaylas (between two ranges of the highest mountains in Peru, the Cordillera Blanca on the east, and Cordillera Negra on the west), and over the mountains to valleys on the eastern flanks. This was my first experience of collecting germplasm, and it was exhilarating. I think we did quite well in terms of the varieties collected, and the photograph below illustrates some of  their  immense genetic diversity.

Genetic diversity in cultivated potatoes

The following year I traveled with just a driver, Octavio (who was unfortunately killed in a road accident a couple of years later) further north into the Department of Cajamarca during April-May 1974. The photograph below shows the view, in the early morning sun, south towards Cajamarca city. The mist hanging over the city comes from hot springs that were utilized centuries ago by the Incas to build bath houses.

We collected potatoes in the field at the time of harvest, but also in markets (here is shown the market of Bambamarca), and from farmers’ own potato stores. Incidentally, the tall straw hats are very typical Cajamarca, as are the russet-colored ponchos.

Collecting potatoes in Cajamarca, northern Peru in May 1974.

In January 1974 I made a trip south, with Dr Peter Gibbs, a taxonomist from the University of St Andrews, Scotland, who was interested in the tri-styly pollination of a minor Andean tuber crop called oca (Oxalis tuberosa). We went to the village of Cuyo Cuyo, more than 100 km north of Puno in southern Peru. Dropping down from the altiplano, the road hugs the sides of the valley, and is often blocked by landslides (a very common occurrence throughout Peru in the rainy season). Along the way – and due to the warmer air rising from the selva (jungle) to the east – the vegetation is quite luxurious in places, as the white begonia below shows (the flowers were about 8 cm in diameter). Eventually the valley opens out, with terraces on all sides. These terraces (or andenes) are ancient structures constructed by the Incas to make the valley more productive.

In Cuyo Cuyo, I studied the varieties growing in farmers’ fields, and their uses [3].

Getting to some locations by four-wheel drive vehicle was often difficult. Then it was either ‘shanks’ pony’, or real pony. I do remember that I became very sore after many hours in the saddle. Incidentally, I still have that straw hat and it’s as good as the day I bought it in January 1973.

But studying potato systems, and working with farmers was fascinating. Here I am collecting flower buds, and preserving them in alcohol ready to make chromosome counts in the laboratory, back in Lima.

The next photograph shows a community we visited close to Chincheros, near Cuzco in southern Peru. While farmers grew commercial varieties to send to market in Cuzco – the large plantings of potatoes in the distance -closer to their dwellings they grew complex mixtures of varieties, with different cooking and eating qualities.

Most farmers do not have access to mechanization, apart from manual labor and oxen to pull ploughs. In any case, much of the land in these steep valleys is unsuitable for mechanization. For centuries, farmers use the chakitaqlla or foot plough illustrated by Peruvian chronicler Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala in the early 17th century. There are many different foot ploughs in used throughout Peru. The foot plough shown below in one of Poma de Ayala’s illustrations is the same as that used by farmers in Cuyo Cuyo. The photograph underneath shows farmers near Huanuco in central Peru.

I never collected wild potatoes as such, but it was fun on two occasions to accompany my thesis supervisor and mentor, Jack Hawkes (a world-renowned expert on the taxonomy and evolution of potatoes, and one of the founders of the genetic resources movement in the 1960s) on short trips. In January 1973 we visited Cuzco, and Jack found Solanum raphanifolium growing among the ruins of the Inca fortress of Sacsayhuaman.

Sacsayhuaman at Cuzco

Early 1975 (during one of his annual trips to CIP)  Jack, Juan Landeo (then a research assistant, who later became one of CIP’s potato breeders), and I traveled over four days through the central Andes just north and east of Lima, in the Departments of Cerro de Pasco, Huanuco, and Lima. It was fascinating watching an expert at work, especially someone so familiar with the wild potatoes and their ecology. We’d be driving along, and suddenly Jack would say “Stop the car! I can smell potatoes”. And more than nine times out of ten we’d find clumps of wild potatoes after just a few minutes of searching. Here we are (looking rather younger) about to make a herbarium collection just south of Cerro de Pasco (I don’t remember which wild species, however).

Markets are always fascinating places to collect germplasm of many different crops. The next two photographs show colorful diversity in maize and peppers.

Among the many you can find in the market is chuño, a type of freeze-dried potato, made from several varieties of so-called bitter potatoes, which have a high concentration of alkaloids which must be removed before eating. This is done by first leaving the tubers on the ground on frosty nights to freeze, and then thaw the following morning. After several cycles of freezing and thawing the tubers are then soaked for several weeks in fast-flowing streams to leach out the bitter compounds. Afterwards, they are left to dry in the sun, and in this preserved state will last for months. This photograph was taken in the Sunday market at Pisac, near Cuzco.

Clearly the potato is an ancient crop in Peru (and other countries of the South American Andes), and domesticated several thousand years ago. It was revered by ancient civilizations, as these anthropomorphic potato pots (or huacos) show. The national anthropological museum in Lima has a fine collection of these pots showing a vast array of different crop plants. It also holds an extensive collection of erotic ceramics for which the Incas, Moche, and other coastal civilizations were equally famous.

After the conquest of the Incan empire by Francisco Pizarro González in the 16th century, the Spanish plundered all the gold and other precious items they could find, and sent everything back to Spain. It’s often said, however, that the value of all this gold fades into insignificance compared to the value of the potato crop today worldwide. The real treasure of the Incas has certainly been put to better use.

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[1] Jackson, M.T., J.G. Hawkes, B.S. Male-Kayiwa & N.W.M. Wanyera, 1988. The importance of the Bolivian wild potato species in breeding for Globodera pallida resistance. Plant Breeding 101, 261-268.

[2] Jackson, M.T., J.G. Hawkes & P.R. Rowe, 1977. The nature of Solanum x chaucha Juz. et Buk., a triploid cultivated potato of the South American Andes. Euphytica 26, 775-783.

[3] Jackson, M.T., J.G. Hawkes & P.R. Rowe, 1980. An ethnobotanical field study of primitive potato varieties in Peru. Euphytica 29, 107-113.


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Dumbing down science . . . only in The Sun

A sweet crisp
During the late 1980s, when I was on the faculty of the University of Birmingham, my colleague, Brian Ford-Lloyd (now Emeritus Professor of Conservation Genetics) and I had a research grant from United Biscuits to work on somaclonal variation in potatoes. Whatever is that? I hear you cry. Well, it’s technique to grow plants from small pieces of plant tissue on sterile nutrient agar (a jelly-like substance), and try and bring about genetic changes which are primarily due to disorganized tissue growth and chromosome changes. The plants thus produced are called somaclones. And our aim was to produce a somaclonal variant of the potato variety Record, which was at that time, one of the most important varieties for producing potato crisps (chips in American parlance).

Now, the main crop of potatoes is harvested in the autumn in the UK, and they are stored at low temperature over many months while stocks last. But this leads to a problem that is significant for producing good crisps. And that is, low temperature sweetening that is due to the conversion of starch to sugars, such as glucose and fructose. In itself this would not be a particular problem, but when potato slices are deep fried to produce crisps, any that have a relatively high sugar content will caramelize and the crisps themselves will be much darker in colour – even some ‘black bits (although some of these are due to use of diseased potatoes) – which the consumer does not like. The ideal potato crisp should be a light golden colour.

Anyway, our aim was to try and produce a non-sweetening variant of Record. I left Birmingham before the project was completed, but by that time we had sent a number of clones for field testing. I don’t know if any of these ever went into commercial production.

Susan Juned joined the project as a research associate, and successfully went on to complete a PhD based on this work. Since leaving Birmingham, Susan has had a distinguished career in local politics, as a Liberal Democrat councillor for Stratford-on-Avon and Warwickshire County Council. She unsuccessfully contested three parliamentary elections for the Stratford constituency.

Publish and be damned
Since the research was funded by a commercial company, we had to seek approval before we were permitted to publish any of our work. But after a couple of years, everyone agreed that a small story in the university bulletin would be appropriate (in November 1987)  and that’s when some of our headaches began, although in hindsight rather humorous. The story was picked up in the local media, and one afternoon I received a phone call from someone at the BBC asking if I’d like to appear on the breakfast show on national TV the following morning to discuss our work. The editorial assistant wanted some more details, and when it became apparent to her that I was talking about a serious piece of research – and not a wind-up about ‘black crisps’, the BBC dropped the story like the proverbial hot potato.

But it was picked up by the tabloid newspaper, The Sun, one of Murdoch’s publications, notorious for its Page Three girl, always half naked! And that’s where our story was published – just check out the tiny item at the bottom of the page (Crunch time for boffins) right next to Suzanne, who’s apparently ‘a bite of alright‘!

A proper scientific outcome
But the research did have some implications for the tissue culture of plants like potatoes that are produced vegetatively through tubers, and also for their genetic conservation in vitro. We showed that the ability to produce somaclones was not the same in all of the cv. Record tubers we started the research project with, and that the whole process of multiplication of disease-free stocks might be leading to a certain level of genetic change and selection. We published this work in the Annals of Botany [1].

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[1] Juned, S.A., M.T. Jackson & B.V. Ford-Lloyd, 1991. Genetic variation in potato cv. Record: evidence from in vitro “regeneration ability”. Annals of Botany 67, 199-203.

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‘Thank you, Margaret Thatcher’ – my Pioneer Interview with Gene Hettel

The head of IRRI’s Communication and Publications Services (CPS), Gene Hettel, is compiling a set of Pioneer Interviews with IRRI staff, past and present. These have been published in IRRI’s in house magazine for the past decade, Rice Today. In addition he usually also makes a video.

In mid-February 2010, just over two months before I retired from the institute, Gene and I found a time for my Pioneer Interview. If you want to know about many of the things I did at IRRI, and elsewhere – and some of my opinions about international agricultural research and how it’s organized, just watch the videos.