Project Details|Project Marginal Region Agriculture

Development of crop husbandry technology in marginal rainfed environment using dryland plant resources
– Toward sustainable improvement in global marginal regions –

More than 20% of people in the world lives in dryland. Their life highly affected by the natural environment is fragile and they are facing to various problems as poverty and food shortage. In this project we will challenge to create an agricultural technology package that enables sustainable production in the regions with about 300 mm annual rainfall, by combination between the crop improvements by advanced molecular biological techniques and conservation husbandry management techniques.

Academic impact: Demonstration of the effectiveness of the agricultural technology package by field tests
Social impact: International contributions by the improvement of dryland’s inhabitant and development/utilization of desert
Improvement impact: Creation of the agricultural technology package by molecular biology and conservation husbandry management techniques

This project consists of three groups; 1) Breeding Research Group (BRG), 2) Husbandry Research Group (HRG), and 3) Laboratory of Arid Land Plant Resources (ALPR).

In BRG we improves tolerance for wheat and oil/energy crops such as Jatropha for drought, heat and other stresses occurring in dryland. In addition, a stress enhancement by plant hormone control and a development of efficient tolerance screening method are also involved in the scope of BRG.

In HRG we develop efficient water harvesting irrigation and soil conservation systems, a sustainable grassland management protocol, and an adequate cultivation system by plant growth modeling. In addition, stress enhancement by plant-endophytes/mycorrhiza interaction is the scope of HRG.

ALPR maintains plant strains bred in this project and collect stress tolerant plant resources in collaboration with genebanks abroad.

Furthermore, by integrating these techniques, we will create an agricultural technology package for the sustainable production in drylands. These studies will be carried out in collaboration with leading institutions such as ICARDA, Agricultural Research Corporation - Sudan, Lanzhou University, and INIFAP-Mexico.