Second meeting of the NEPAD/NABNet Barley initiative

 Project title: " Genetic Improvement of Nutrition Quality and Drought and Salinity Tolerance of North African Barely"

8-10 September 2008, Cairo , Egypt

The meeting was planned for the period 28-30 July 08 (Message1, the messages flow below after the text of the report itself), but it was not possible to have the meeting at that date (Message2). Therefore the meeting was postponed for the period 8-10 Sept. The agenda of the meeting was communicated in two complementary versions (Messages1&3). Dr Saker (Message4) and Dr Ben Naceur (Message4) apologized and planned for arrangements to be replaced so the consequences of their absence could be minimized.

The meeting was Held in : National Research Center during 8 and 10 September 2008, & in

Agricultural Genetic Engineering Research Institute/ARC during 9 September 2008

The participants are as follows: Prof Chedly Abdely, Mrs Dalila Ramla, Dr Ahmad Nada, Mr Mohamed Yussuf Hazman, Ms Mai Allam, Prof Mohamed Elarbi Aouani

1)Venue of the meeting and contacts with structures

During January 8 th the meeting started at NRC.

Prof Dr Nihad Chazly Vice president of NRC welcomed the participants to the meeting in NRC and emphasized on the commitment of NRC to support the NEPAD projects and its efficient contribution to sustain NABNet activity in the North African region.

Prof Osama El Shabrawy Contact representative of NRC with NEPAD stressed on the fact that NABNet is now an established regional body with clear original and unique mandate and well targeted projects. His hope is that this network will be a regional efficient tool for establishing links with Africa , Mediterranean region and Europe , through its selected research regional groups. Prof El Shabrawy elaborated on the approach adopted by NRC to support NABNet initiatives, consisting of backstopping the projects of the network by for example purchasing equipments or dedicating consistent complementary support in various items to the team involved in the regional consortium. He insisted that the NEPAD teams encourage the adhesion of young fellows, those who will carry the torch of the collaboration in the region

During January 9 th the meeting was held in AGERI

Prof Ahmed Bahieldin Director General of this research institute welcomed the participants and expressed his agreement to the approach of NABNet which add value to what is developed by the countries and the institutions. He encouraged the participants to the meeting to use the opportunity of the NEPAD support to create a regional consortium and launch a long term regional initiative. To this end he expressed the deep commitment of AGERI to support this long term effort including using of its platforms and valorizing and continuing the research about acquiring and creating drought tolerant cereal cultivars

During their visits in Cairo , the Barley scientists visited the facilities available to the barley teams in NRC as well as in AGERI. Moreover they visited many other research structures in NRC like those laboratories from the Centre of Excellence for Advanced Sciences and in AGERI like the genomic platform and culture facilities.

The Barley group has also visited the National Gene Bank and where they have been welcomed by the Director General Prof Hania Al Itriby who gave them the strategy of this organization and elaborated on the opportunities to develop a regional collaboration with NEPAD for the conservation and management of the genetic resources in the region

In NRC and in AGERI the ND thanked on behalf of NEPAD the responsibles in these two organizations for their support to the already selected initiatives by strengthening the involved teams to fulfill their commitment in the regional programs. The ND Thanked also NRC and AGERI for their synergistic interaction in implementing NABNet projects and their adhesion to NABNet vision and strategy by providing a regional leadership in North Africa and through proposing to share facilities and competencies in the continent

2)Presentation of the progress achieved in implementing the planned work in the barley project

The presentations will be made available in the website and will be updated with any acquired improvements and obtained results. Four power point presentations have been made for AGERI by Mohamed Yussuf, for CBBC by Chedly Abdelly, for INRAT by Chedly Abdelly on behalf of Mbarek Bennaceur, for INRAA by Dalila Ramla. Regarding NRC activities Ahmed Nada presented on behalf of Mahmoud Saker oral comments where Mai Allam PhD student in NRC team brought some contributions.

3)Discussion of the progress

Many issues have been raised during the meeting. They will be presented and the various attitudes and propositions expressed

 3-1)Reporting and planning the future

The participants recognized the important progress achieved by each team. However, in the time of the meeting it will not be possible for them to draw the adequate conclusions and to identify the strategy as well as the detailed adjustments and suggestions for the coming activity. Then, they see it necessary to go beyond description of the activity of each group and come up with suggestions on the approach to be used and adjusted, the material to be included and to be shared and the time line of the work plan adopted.

A better figure should have been exchanging the report before the meeting is held and an integrated and structured analytical report should have been made available. This overall comprehensive report should have synthesized the progress of the whole project. To cope with this issue two suggestions have been made:

1)Ask the coordinators of the project, Mahmoud Saker & Mbarek Bennaceur, to prepare this comprehensive synthetic report. They will be provided with any element lacking to them by each one to help them accomplishing this task

2)These two colleagues need to have some time to analyze the elements provided during this meeting. Since the colleagues present had the opportunity to look together to the results and to discuss they should make a progress and make decisions without waiting. The ND (Network Director) will later on ask Dr Saker and Dr Bennaceur for their involvement to take over the work.

The participants agreed on the second suggestion and accordingly, discussions have been made and led to come up with adjustments to the material used and the approaches to be followed and the interactions to be established.

The participants saw it appropriate that the preparation of the workshop 28-30 Nov should be used as context to make some progress that may help the group preparing its comprehensive report. To cope with this vision Ahmed Nada was suggested to prepare the progress report of the group that should be the general document in the proceeding of the workshop. To this end he will make use of the various progress reports as well as the original text of the proposal. Chedly Abdelly was suggested to prepare the presentation of the group in the workshop he will prepare elements and use individual reports data.

Regarding reporting in relation with the various phases of the project, the ND stressed on the fact that at half way around January 2009, the progress will be evaluated by referees. Then it is important that since now we should prepare ourselves.

Regarding the workshop each one should also send his specific file to be included in the proceedings.

3-2)The plant material

The issues raised were relating to:

1)Which material should we use for continuing the project. The participants agreed about the fact each team has to represent in his program germplasm of the three countries. However the number will vary according to the approach. For transformation, mutagenesis, biochemical assessment NRC, INRAA and AGERI will handle limited samples. But for diversity studies, physiological NRC, INRAT and CBBC will handle at least ten accessions per country.

2)It was recognized that the accessions are not distributed initially with enough quantity. Then the issue raised was how can the participants have access to enough seeds? Should each provider continue to send seeds to the beneficial team? The participants agreed that the first samples are exchanged but later on each one should multiply him self the accessions to follow up with the experiments. Then each team is supposed to maintain the regional collection it is handling and able to plan with the partners for a long term program

3)The teams should provide new accessions to each others. This exchange is destined to provide more choice so at least ten accessions per country in the collection will be analyzed, and to provide seeds from some specific accessions that proved necessary to be included in urgent experiments of transformation and mutagenesis. All the participants agreed to exchange seeds with urgency starting from the remaining time of meeting and the latest by sending to each other next days by post or through the ND.

4)The material exchange and preparation is to be considered so at the autumn-winter 2009 the group will have at field trials in the three countries. Then, each one should have the accessions to be considered and should multiply them and so his experiments done.

5)MTA not yet done should be finished as soon as possible so during the workshop we can say that the group is working using IPR properly

3-3)Coherence and integration of the program

The issues raised relates to

1)Is each one working separately from the others?

Due to the fact that each one has his own specific area of action, it is normal that he should continue to deepen his action based on his competency. This was the reason (they cover complementary areas) that the participants have been selected to work together. They are complementing each other through sharing results acquired by each one in his specific area and by exchanging material to deepen analysis and improve accessions.

2)How to focus on more common material to get the best from it?

Through each one following his program and deepening analyzes, and through exchange of well characterized accessions we can find that some material needs more attention and then many of us we will focus more on it. However due to the various features we are targeting and the various approaches we are adopting it is understandable that we can be interested in continuing analyzes of different accessions. The fact that barley can be used in various ecological niches, for feed and food… means that we may continue to use a large genetic background. We are following a process in which there is no special need to focus but the important is to have germplasm useful for the society

To approach by steps including new cultivars for his transformation approach a tentative example was given by Ahmad to explain the way of thinking: He will continue with Giza 130 while omitting Giza 126 that he will replace by Tozeur from Tunisia, and he will use an Algerian accession based on the the phytase analysis from Mahmoud. Giza2000 or others Tunisian or Algerian accessions can be included in the coming years.

4)Mains conclusions

1)The program of work is always valid. The team leaders have to solve the consequences of the delay of the last year and not cumulate new delays

2)At this stage there are enough results so the teams begin valorizing the acquired results separately and preferably jointly: communications, papers, diploma under progress…

3)The proposal should be updated as agreed earlier especially by improving the regional state of the art, the regional situation. Hopefully this will be done through the participation of all the team leaders to the preparation of the workshop that will produce material to feed the update

4)Prepare ideas for contribution to the proposal of regional cereal initiative (barley + wheat)

5)Identify who can join for extending the barley project so we can invite him to the workshop

6)the ND suggested that Barley project fund support some attendants to the workshop especially Directors of organizations involved in the project.

7)Finalize the concept note to be prepared as starting idea of the long term initiative with deadline Nov 2008. The note needs to include others partners. The general report to the workshop will feed the concept note.

8)ICARDA Barley meeting in 2008 has been missed by the group. We should be present in the coming ICARDA Wheat meeting. Ahmad will follow up on that.

Mohamed Elarbi Aouani, 20 September 2008