Traits and technologies to boost North African protein self-sufficiency (BEANS4N.AFRICA)

蚕豆是一种谷物豆类，其营养价值，特别是其高蛋白含量，为其赢得了“穷人的肉”的绰号，对北非、尼罗河谷和中东的数亿居民来说，蚕豆是主要膳食蛋白质的主要来源。此外，在可持续农业生产力比以往任何时候都更加重要的时代，蚕豆作为一种谷物豆类脱颖而出，它具有极高的产量潜力，由于其根瘤中自身氮肥的固定能力而对环境的影响很小，营养价值高，并被广泛的文化接受。不幸的是，北非的蚕豆产量经历了长期的下降，仅仅是因为它的种植面积比几十年前少得多。以前种植蚕豆的地区出现这种令人担忧的荒废现象，主要原因不是需求下降，而是一种被称为蚕豆（Orobanche）的寄生杂草的蔓延。帚菜花不能进行光合作用，必须附着在寄主根系上才能发育和繁殖。无法从受感染的土壤中根除它的原因是，它每个花头产生多达20万颗微小的种子，这些种子可以在土壤中休眠数十年，直到检测到附近寄主根的化学特征时才开始发芽和附着。幸运的是，有一些可研究的解决方案可以使蚕豆在Orobanche种子的存在下生存和茁壮成长，但要在地面战斗中取得成功，需要在几个方面采取行动。该项目认识到蚕豆是支撑北非最基本粮食安全的关键作物，并提出了一个综合的多学科研究计划，从三个不同的层面解决蚕豆自给自足问题。首先，我们建议立即投资于高通量基因图谱技术，我们将用于创建蚕豆基因组的六条染色体图谱，这比目前任何可用的图谱都要详细得多。这一技术进步将意味着许多以前未解决的问题将变得可行，例如寻找对一系列害虫、疾病和压力具有抵抗力或耐受性的基因。然而，就其本身而言，这项技术对发展中国家的营养和经济福利的意义有限。因此，我们的第二阶段活动是与北非一些最好的育种家和遗传学家合作，利用这种新的制图技术来定位基因，这些基因赋予了在扫帚花存在的情况下茁壮成长的两种不同机制：一种机制涉及去除触发寄生虫发芽的化学信号，第二种机制涉及在寄生虫附着在根部后提高与寄生虫竞争的能力。我们将利用已经可以有效选择的两个性状进行能力建设工作，以补充这种基因搜寻（这将改善在这两种机制下加速培育高度耐扫帚油菜的前景）——一个是新的蚕豆抗除草剂能力，允许用杀死扫帚油菜而不杀死作物的除草剂处理；去除一种叫做疫苗的抗营养因子，这种因子会在占人口5-10%的易感人群中引起严重的溶血性疾病。第三，由于没有新品种的广泛采用，育种成果就不会真正发挥作用，因此我们在这里整合了一项全面的社会经济研究，该研究将向项目参与者提出建议，说明如何以及如何提供育种和农艺创新，以最大限度地提高采用率，并更广泛地向政府和外援界提出建议，以突出新品种推广和农艺建议中的瓶颈和潜在解决方案

Faba bean is a grain legume whose nutritional value, particularly its high protein content, has earned it the nickname "poor man's meat" and for hundreds of millions of inhabitants of North Africa, the Nile Valley and the Middle East, it is the dominant source of staple dietary protein. Furthermore, in times when sustainable agricultural productivity is more important than ever, faba bean stands out as THE grain legume that combines very high yield potential, low environmental impact due its ability to fix its own nitrogen fertilizer in its root nodules, high nutritional value and widespread cultural acceptance.Unfortunately, production of faba bean in North Africa has undergone a long-term decrease, simply because it is grown on far less land than just a few decades ago. The major reason for this alarming abandonment of areas previously planted to faba bean is not the result of a fall in demand but due to the spread of a parasitic weed known as broomrape (Orobanche). Broomrape is unable to photosynthesize and must attach itself to a host root system in order to develop and reproduce. The inability to eradicate it from infested soil arises from the fact that it produces up to two hundred thousand tiny seed per flowering head that can lie dormant for decades in the soil until triggered to germinate and attach when the chemical signature of a nearby host root is detected. Fortunately, there are researchable solutions to equip the faba bean to live and thrive in the presence of Orobanche seed, but to succeed in the battle on the ground, there is a need to take action on several fronts. This project recognises faba bean as a key crop underpinning the most basic level of food security in North Africa and puts forward an integrated, multi-disciplinary programme of research that addresses the faba bean self-sufficiency issue at three different levels.Firstly, we propose immediate investment in high throughput genetic profiling technology, which we will put to use in creating a map of the six chromosomes of the faba bean genome that is orders of magnitude more detailed than any currently available. This technological step change will mean many previously untackled problems such as finding genes that confer resistance or tolerance to a range of pests, diseases and stresses will become feasible. However, on its own, this technology would have limited relevance to the nutritional and economic welfare of the developing world. Therefore, our second level of activity is to deploy this new mapping technology in partnership with some of North Africa's best breeders and geneticists to locate genes that confer two distinct mechanisms for thriving in the presence of broomrape: one mechanism involves removing the chemical signals that trigger parasite germination, the second mechanism involves improved ability to compete with the parasite after it has attached to the root. We will complement this gene hunt (which will improve future prospects for accelerated breeding of highly broomrape-tolerant faba bean protected by both mechanisms) with capacity-building work using two traits which can be efficiently selected for already - one a novel faba bean herbicide resistance that will permit treatment of the crop with herbicides that kill the broomrape and not the crop, and the second, removal of an anti-nutritional factor called vicine that causes a serious hemolytic disorder called favism in predisposed individuals constituting 5-10% of the population.Thirdly, because no breeding achievements actually make a difference without widespread uptake of new varieties, we integrate here a thorough socio-economic study that will produce recommendations to the project participants on what and how to deliver their breeding and agronomy innovations to maximise uptake and more generally to governments and the foreign aid community to highlight bottlenecks and potential solutions in the rollout of new varieties and agronomy advice