AgriLife’s Simpson awarded the 2015 Calvin Sperling Memorial Biodiversity Lectureship

Writer: Kay Ledbetter, 806-677-5608, skledbetter@ag.tamu.edu
Contact: Dr. David Stelly, 979-845-2745, stelly@tamu.edu
Dr. Charles Simpson, c-simpson@tamu.edu

COLLEGE STATION – Dr. Charles Simpson, peanut germplasm explorer and breeder and Texas A&M AgriLife Research emeritus, has been selected as the awardee and speaker for the Crop Science Society of America 2015 Calvin Sperling Biodiversity Lectureship on Nov. 17 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The purpose of the Calvin Sperling Memorial Biodiversity Lectureship is to bring in renowned biodiversity lecturers to share their research experiences, knowledge and views on biodiversity as they interface with crop agriculture and the interests of the Crop Science Society of America.

Dr. David Stelly, a Texas A&M University soil and crop sciences professor and chair of the award’s international committee, said Simpson was selected because of decades of significant contributions to peanut germplasm exploration, collection, introgression and usage in crop improvement.

“These parallel beautifully the sorts of contributions by Calvin Sperling before his untimely passing,” Stelly said. “The Lectureship Committee and Crop Science Society of America are honored to highlight Dr. Simpson and his contributions, which will be of enduring benefit to science and society.”

Sperling was an economic botanist from the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Maryland. He was known for his consistent excellence in field research and his extensive work to conserve biological biodiversity and improve crop plants worldwide. The lectureship was created in 1998 and recognizes outstanding contributions of scientists in the field of plant genetic resources.

Simpson’s lecture, “Biodiversity in the Genus Arachis: Its Collection, Preservation, Distribution, Evaluation and Utilization,” is about the peanut genus and how it has evolved to thrive in vastly different environments.

Simpson is well known in peanut breeding circles for his extensive germplasm gathering forays in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. His work revolves around transferring desirable genes from wild peanuts for improvement of cultivated varieties.

His introduction of resistance genes from wild species collected in east central Bolivia in 1980 made possible the recent release of three peanut varieties resistant to root-knot nematode, a serious threat to peanut production in parts of Texas.

Germplasm he collected also played a role in the 2014 release of the first peanut genome sequences to the public by the International Peanut Genome Initiative.

The peanut species, Arachis hypogaea L., has a narrow genetic base. With the morphological characteristics of the six different botanical varieties, Simpson said one would think there would be significant genetic or molecular diversity. However, that is not the case.

“Until molecular techniques became more sophisticated, almost no diversity could be detected in the peanut,” he said. “With more advanced techniques now available, differences are apparent, but nothing like in other crops.”

But the wild relatives paint a different picture, Simpson said. Even without molecular analyses, the richness of the diversity within the wild relatives can be seen in the vastly different environments where they have evolved.

At least three species grow in the extremely dry part of Northeast Brazil, he said. The rainy season there consists of very short rain events, usually only a few times each year, and yet these species are perennial or semi-perennial and survive from year to year, only producing seed when the rain events extend into a few weeks.

Other species have evolved to survive in well-drained schist rock hillsides, wet in the rainy season, but quite dry during the dry season, Simpson said. Still other species have evolved to survive in the Pantanal, a very large swamp.

“Another species that we are using as a bridge species in the introgression program grows in an inundated swamp with tufts of grass growing 1 meter high and in 15 centimeters of water,” he said. “These Arachis plants grow on top of the grass, branching from the main axis, flowering and making fruit that grow on a long hollow peg down into the muddy clay, black soil. This diversity is aiding in the improvement of the plant selections.”

Wild relatives of crop species are often the place of discovery for new traits and rare or unique genes, Stelly said. In most cases, the benefits are discovered long after the time of plant discovery and placement into a formal germplasm collection.

The benefits to society can be wide-ranging, including reducing requirements for land, water, fertilizers, fungicides and insecticides, thus improving livelihoods, the environment, producer health and consumer safety, he said.

 

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