Quinoa genome unveiled in search for hardy crop to feed world … – The Guardian

Quinoa is harvested in the highlands in Puno region, south-eastern Peru. The crop could help improve global food security. Photograph: ICT/Tomas Munita

The near-complete genome of quinoa was unveiled on Wednesday by scientists who say the grain cultivated centuries ago by Incas in the Andes could help feed a hungry world.

Quinoa is incredibly resilient, and can grow in poor or salty soils, said Mark Tester, a professor at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia and leader of the consortium of scholars that decoded the plants genome.

It could provide a healthy, nutritious food source for the world using land and water that currently cannot be used.

Other major crop plants have been bred for centuries or, more recently, genetically modified to combine optimal traits to boost yield and bolster resistance to pests and climate change. Now, scientists can delve into the quinoa genome as well.

Quinoa has great potential to enhance global food security, Tester said.

The grain thrives at any altitude up to 4,000 metres (13,000 feet) above sea level, in conditions that would leave most food plants struggling. Some strains grow well at temperatures up to 38 degrees.

Best known outside its native region as a health food, quinoa is gluten-free and contains essential amino acids, fibre, vitamins and minerals.

It also scores lower than other crops on the glycaemic index, a measure of how quickly foods raise blood sugar levels a major concern for those with diabetes.

Yet global consumption remains incidental compared with wheat, rice, barley or corn less than 100,000 tonnes a year compared with hundreds of millions of tonnes for each of the other major grains and cereals.

One problem with quinoa is that the plant naturally produces bitter-tasting seeds, Tester explained. The bitterness a natural defence against birds and other pests comes from chemical compounds called saponins. The process for removing these chemicals is labour-intensive and costly, and requires ample use of water.

Another constraint is that quinoa plants tends to have small seed heads and long stalks that can collapse in strong wind or heavy rain.

Despite its agronomic potential, quinoa is still an underutilised crop, with relatively few active breeding programmes, Tester and three dozen colleagues wrote in the journal Nature.

First grown by humans thousands of years ago in the high plateau around Lake Titicaca in the Andes, quinoa is still barely domesticated, the researchers said.

Testers team has already pinpointed genes, including one that controls the production of saponins, that could be altered through breeding or gene editing to enhance quality and yields.

With this new knowledge of quinoa DNA, we can quickly and easily select plants that do not produce bitter substances in the breeding process, said co-author Robert van Loo, a scientist at Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands. South American varieties could probably be made sweeter with a single gene change, he added.

Most quinoa is grown in three Andean countries: Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia.

The United States and Canada account for nearly 70% of exports, followed by France, the Netherlands and Germany. The price of quinoa has nearly tripled in recent years due to increased demand.

If printed, the sequence of letters corresponding to the quinoa genome comprised of 1.3bn molecular building blocks would take up 500,000 pages.

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Quinoa genome unveiled in search for hardy crop to feed world ... - The Guardian