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Accruing genetic gain in pro-vitamin A enrichment from harnessing diverse maize germplasm

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Abstract

Maize has been targeted as one of the major crops for provitamin enrichment and delivery because it is an inexpensive and easily available source of food for millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa. Although tropical-adapted yellow maize contains provitamin-A carotenoids that can be converted into vitamin A in the human body, they represent less than 25% of the total carotenoids in most widely grown and consumed maize cultivars in Africa. Novel genes conditioning high concentration of β-carotene and other carotenoids were then continually introduced from the temperate zone and tropics to boost provitamin A in tropical-adapted maize. Several promising inbred lines developed from backcrosses involving diverse exotic donor lines displayed provitamin A concentrations that match or surpass the current breeding target of 15 μg g−1. Some of these lines attained high provitamin A content by accumulating mainly high β-carotene while others contained high provitamin A by promoting accumulation of high levels of both carotenes and xanthophylls. Several inbred lines with intermediate to high levels of provitamin A have already been used to develop hybrids and synthetics without compromising grain yield and other adaptive traits that are required to profitably cultivate maize by farmers in West and Central Africa.

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Acknowledgements

This work on provitamin A enrichment was carried out at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and financed by the HarvestPlus Challenge Program. The authors appreciate the contributions of all staffs during planting and managing of trials and nurseries and at the time of harvesting and processing of seed samples for carotenoid analyses.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Oyo Road, PMB 5320, Ibadan, Nigeria

    Abebe Menkir, Bussie Maziya-Dixon, Wende Mengesha & Emmanuel Oladeji Alamu

  2. Departments of Agronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA

    Torbert Rocheford

  3. IITALtdCarolyn House, 26 Dingwall Road, Croydon, CR9 3EE, UK

    Abebe Menkir

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  1. Abebe Menkir
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  2. Bussie Maziya-Dixon
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Correspondence to Abebe Menkir.

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Menkir, A., Maziya-Dixon, B., Mengesha, W. et al. Accruing genetic gain in pro-vitamin A enrichment from harnessing diverse maize germplasm. Euphytica 213, 105 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10681-017-1890-8

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