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ARS Home Research Annual Report on Science Accomplishments FY 2021





- Advancing Human Nutrition Research
- Advancing Sustainable Aquaculture Production
- Advancing Sustainable Livestock Production
- Combating AMR
- Combating Citrus Greening
- Controlling Insect Pests
- Developing New Crop Varieties
- Expanding Public Access to Agricultural Information
- Improving Pasture and Rangeland Management
- Improving Rural Economies
- Monitoring and Mitigating Plant Disease
- Optimizing Agricultural Management to Mitigate Climate
- Optimizing Water Use Management
- Protecting Animal Health Disease Detection
- Protecting Human and Animal Health
- Protecting Pollinator Health
- Reducing Labor and Advancing Precision Agriculture
- Safeguarding the Food Supply

**Developing New Crop Varieties with Enhanced Traits and Disease Resistance** DOWNLOAD TWO-PAGER PDF  **ARS scientists are developing new crop varieties, including specialty crops (e.g., vegetables, fruits, and nuts), by exploiting the underutilized genetic diversity contained in ARS crop genebanks,**In FY2021 plant releases included two improved carrot lines, two Pinto dry bean varieties (‘USDA Diamondback’and ‘USDA Basin’), two pea varieties (‘USDA Dint Winter’ and ‘USDA Mica Winter’), the ‘Rainier Russet’potato variety, two peach cultivars (‘May Joy’ and ‘Flavor Joy’) and varieties of many other crops. Thefollowing accomplishments are examples of ARS advances in crop breeding for resistance to diseasesand pests, tolerance to environmental stresses, superior yield, and trait enhancement in 2021. **New grass and wildrye cultivars improve rangeland use and restoration.**On western rangelands,native grasses are planted for livestock grazing, rangeland revegetation, wildlife habitat, and soilconservation. For many of these grasses, seedshattering makes it difficult for suppliers to harvestseed that is needed for these uses. Furthermore, manyranchers are using less productive private lands forpasture as an alternative to grazing public lands. Thesemarginal areas are often dry, salty, low in soil nutrients,and receive little irrigation, all of which makes plantestablishment and growth difficult. ARS researchers inLogan, Utah, developed ‘HighWest’, a new meadowbromegrass with improved seedling establishment,protein and energy, and forage growth. HighWest totalforage production was 23 percent greater than othercultivars and had up to 6 percent more protein and22 percent more energy; regrowth also doubled aftercutting. All these improvements make it an excellentgrass for grazing on marginal lands. ARS researchersalso developed ‘L-74X’, a new basin wildrye that hadup to 167 percent more harvestable seed and 20percent improved seed germination. This new basinwildrye is now being used as a parent by plant breeders to develop commercial varieties of basin wildrye.These developments are providing critical tools needed for rangeland revegetation, conservation, andcattle production. **‘Yorizane’, a new self-fertile almond cultivar.**Eighty percent of the world’s almonds are grown inCalifornia, and the majority of the 1.5 million acres are planted with cultivars that require bees to transferpollen between different trees to produce nuts. Self-fertile varieties require fewer pollinators in the orchardbecause the pollen moves only a short distance within the flower or within the tree to produce nuts.The California almond industry wants new self-fertile cultivars to reduce the need for honeybees andpollinators. ARS researchers in Parlier, California, developed the new self-fertile ‘Yorizane’ cultivar, whichyielded well in regional trials throughout the San Joaquin Valley for five commercial harvests. Yorizane nutshave been rated highly by the almond industry in marketing potential and kernel appearance and it hasgreat potential for adoption by almond growers. **Modifying plant traits without modifying plant genes****.** Insect-vectored plant disease can be extremelydifficult to control, especially in long-lived trees, because a single piercing-sucking insect can inject adose of a disease pathogen. ARS researchers in Fort Pierce, Florida, in collaboration with ARS researchers in Ithaca, New York, and a small agribusiness in Florida, developed a novel Agrobacterium-based method of creating a host plant cell that can produce its own growth regulating molecules and can be grown assymbionts attached to crop plants. This method was first demonstrated in tomato and sunflower plantsand results showed that symbionts engineered to produce Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins killed 100percent of caterpillar larvae after 3 days of feeding on an artificial diet supplemented with engineeredsymbiont tissue. Insects with chewing mouthparts, such as caterpillars, were specifically chosen toprove that the symbiont produces a lethal amount of Bt toxin. The next steps of the study will be to testthe engineered symbiont tissue on piercing-sucking insects, such as the Asian citrus psyllid, which isa vector of citrus greening disease. Implementing this pest-insect control strategy will enable a rapidresponse to emerging pest-insect threats and will more easily deliver therapeutic technologies to diversegermplasms. Researchers are also planning to test if engineered symbiont tissues can be used as abiofactory of harvestable biological insecticide molecules or therapeutics that could potentially createnew cropping systems. Results of this study will show that symbiont technology has the potential to bringtransformational advancements to plant disease management and the mass production of biomolecules. **Model predicts threat of zebra chip potato disease.**In the U.S. Pacific Northwest, where most of the U.S.potato crop is grown, zebra chip has become a widespread and economically devastating potato disease.The zebra chip pathogen is a bacterium that is spread by the potato psyllid and proper pathogeniccontrol can be accomplished only by controlling the insect vector. U.S. potato farmers have had difficultycontrolling zebra chip because they lack the tools to estimate potato psyllids populations, which canfluctuate greatly from year to year. ARS scientists in Wapato, Washington, and Washington State Universitycollaborators determined that the weed matrimony vine is an important host plant for potato psyllids inearly spring. Matrimony vine was not found to be susceptible to the zebra chip pathogen, and is thereforenot the source of infected psyllids, but ARS scientists found that psyllid numbers on matrimony vines in thespring can be used as an indicator of psyllid populations in potatoes in late August. This novel forecastingmethod for psyllid populations will allow growers to take action to protect their crops and associatedrevenues in years when psyllid outbreaks are expected. Strough, Kirsten. A field of red beets grow on Rick and Robyn Purdum's farm. Fruitland, Idaho. 2012. USDA Photo. https://flic.kr/p/2kLgkSS


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