Combining cassava species could lead to better crops

It is not just to say this chimera will not be adopted by farmers. What is right and more logical is what Maria Tereza said: judging from the photo of chimera root size compared to roots of the wild and roots of common cassava, it is very promising , and worthy of informing other scientists so that they try to do the same. Really it needs confirming the quality of starch through systematic study. This is exactly what my Ph.D. student does now.

Producing chimera cost almost nothing, nothing at all!

I am co-author of the above article on synthesizing chimera. I wish to clarify some points a chimera is different of a sexual hybrid, popularly known only as hybrid, as mentioned in the text.  Second it didn't cost us nothing to obtain a chimera. My supervisor Prof. Nassar produced it through his hobby of grafting and propagating cassava. I studied its cytogenetic and anatomic behaviour through my Ph.D scholarship offered by coordenation of Brazilian Graduates (CAPES) and the National Council for Scientific Development (CNPq) and no any cent more.

The chimera has not been propagated yet. We did not claim it distributed to farmers. It needs time for propagation and evaluation as Maria Tereza said. It need also extention system to take it to farmers. What is important in this history is to say to scientists all over the world: try to graft two Manihot species followed by cutting the graft and activation of the callus, and a new plant may arise!!! It will acquire advantages that were not found in any of the two species alone . Something new, very new and extremely innovative.

I am a Ph.D. student working on cassava plant breeding supervised by prof Nagib Nassar. My work is to polyploidize some hybrids and cultivars and examine their apomictic behaviour. I almost finished my lab work and I am preparing to write my thesis. However, I was so fascinated by chimera developed by my Professor to the point of thinking having it for my post doctoral study. It was fascinating to dig the ground and discover this huge edible root that I never imagined to see even in my dreams !!

During the last 8 years working with Professor Nassar as an undergraduate student , Master degree and Ph.D. student too, I have had pleasure to accompany him in distributing our germplasm to small farmers in Federal District and lived beautiful moments of seeing his varieties embraced by small farmers and praized by extentionists. In spite of the university lacks to sophisticated extention apparatus as the case of other especialized institutions we could reached small farmers, by the help of National Counsel of research development- CNPq, Brasilia, and have amazing results. See for example acknowledgement of Extention director of Federal District saying the hybrid developed by Prof Nassar resulting in increasing fat in milk up to 30%.
Saying synthesizing chimera is expensive is really very much funny. It seems to me this person is joking or has never studied horticulture. I find nothing referred to him as cassava authority or published any paper on this crop.

I am agromist and trainee with Cassava program led by Prof. Nagib Nassar at the Universidade de Brasilia. I am all equipe members are proud by the impact of our program, not only in Brazil but outside the country. Not any word will be more impresive than report of the Canadian International Development Research Center, IDRC on how much hybrids developed by Prof Nassar improved life conditions of millions of small farmers in West and East Africa , see this link http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-158433-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html and http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Resources/Publications/Pages/ArticleDetails.aspx?PublicationID=163

I am a Bolivian Agronomist and I’m studying Wild relatives of cassava species, with emphasis in Taxonomy and exploring the high different potential value that each species may offer through interspecific hybridization, for example tolerance to drought, resistance to pathogens, and more.

I think the Chimera technique developed by Prof. Nassar is one of the most discoveries in horticulture and plant breeding in the last decades. And it can be used easily to combine in one structure tissues of different species, transfer of wild species value proprieties to cassava cultivar, which is more important to produce new phenotypes which were not found in parent species or cultivar. It sooner will be most potential method ever tried in cassava breeding. One of its advantages but not all is being cheap and quickly. I am fortune by seeing it and be close day by day with these plants in the Biological station of Brasilia.

These new knowledge and techniques are advantageous for being safe for human since not strange genes of bacteria or virus are introduced. This innovative work of Professor Nassar I think has opened a new era in plant breeding of cassava and can be woody crops which can be grafted manually and subjected to enhancing callus tissue consequently.

J. Moises Mendoza F.

The varieties and hybrids of Professor Nassar improved the lives of millions of small farmers!!!
I wish to present this article of the International Development Research Center (IDRC), without any additional word from me. Please see: http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-158433-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html;
http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Resources/Publications/Pages/ArticleDetails.aspx?PublicationID=163

Hybrids developed by Professor Nassar produced the greatest impect ever seen in cassava history of cassava. They not only reached and influenced millions and millions of small farmers, but they ultrapassed border of Brasil and south America to Africa and its poor people . Please see report of of the International Development Research Center - IDRC - http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-158433-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html;
http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Resources/Publications/Pages/ArticleDetails.aspx?PublicationID=163

It is an interesting research subject, congratulations to Dr. Nassar and team. Also, I would like to refer that Dr. Takahashi, which is a colleague of mine at IAPAR, is a highly qualified researcher in cassava. He has his MSC and Doctoral degrees working with cassava. As a applied researcher, he has led and collaborated to offer improved varieties of cassava to farmers in Parana state, an important area of both technified and traditional production of cassava. It also is informed in his curriculum (CV Lattes) the following relevant activities (I will not translate into English) related to cassava. Therefore, I trust it is not appropriated to desqualify his opinion, based on a broad field experience and close work to producers and industry.
1. Apoio financeiro recebido pelo Programa Nacional de Agricultura Familiar-PRONAF para a realização do projeto "Ampliação da base genética e melhoria do manejo da cultura da mandioca no Estado do Paraná;
2. Apoio financeiro pelo fundo Paraná 12 meses, financiado pelo Banco Mundial, para realização de projeto intitulado "Melhoria da produção de mandioca através da introdução de cultivares e de novos processos culturais nas regiões Noroeste e oeste do Paraná;
3. Presidente da Sociedade Brasileira da Mandioca para o bienio 2007/2009;
4. Representante do Instituto Agronomico do Paraná junto as Camaras Setoriais da Mandioca Nacional e Estadual (PR).
5. Apoio financeiro recebido junto ao CNPq para execução do projeto intitulado "MELHORIAS DOS SISTEMAS DE PRODUÇÃO E DA BASE GENÉTICA DA CULTURA DA MANDIOCA NO PARANÁ" de 2009 a 2011.
6. Lider do Programa Culturas Diversas no Instituto Agronomico do Paraná, a partir de novembro de 2010.

It would be useful to see the link to the publication and make it available to the community before publicizing it. One would wonder whether the authors have had special connection to scidev editorial board to get such a "publicity". It is a long way to dignity and qualification in academia for developing and emerging countries.

Journalists have responsibility beyond writing stories and putting them online. I maintain that giving such a publicity to work that is not available online (Hortscience paper mentioned in this article) for critical evaluation represents an ethical and deontology issue. The prominence you have given to this work by maintaining it on the scidev frontpage and publishing unjustified comments from the authors is also unprofessional. I doubt that agencies supporting your work agree on your publication and moderation policies.

I have been looking for this paper in Hortscience. Can someone put the link?

There is still no link to the publication. Can the journalist indicate whether this was fake scientific results as previously reported on other cassava issues? It would be good and professional to have a follow-up at sciedev. Thank you.

This is a link of publishing the article in GMR (impact factor 1.4 against 0.7 in Hortscience. It also does not charge any payment for publishing photos) ... here is the link  and here is the pdf 

WE have available cuttings of 3 - three different chimeras -all are productive - very productive. WE will be happy to provide cuttings in begining of new rainfall season. Last season cuttings were provided to ESALQ (c/o prof paulo kageyama) + 12 assentamentos in federal district, states of Goias and Minas Gerais.

I am pleased to receive anybody for training him how to synthesize chimera in cassava, best, nagib nassar www.geneconserve.pro.br