BYU Faculty Research: The Quinoa Project

Four BYU professors research the genetic quality of quinoa in order to improve nutrition in the Bolivian High Plains.

By Eric N. Jellen

Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) is a local staple crop in the Andean region of South America, where it was first domesticated thousands of years ago. It is classified by botanists as a pseudo cereal, or false cereal, since the plant is not a grass like wheat, corn, rice, and the other true cereals. When compared to these other crops, quinoa is superior with respect to its protein content and quality. Quinoa also has a unique ability to thrive under drought and cold temperature stress conditions, such as are encountered at high altitudes in the high plains (Altiplano) of Peru and Bolivia. Unlike the others, however, quinoa is essentially a 15th century crop because its genetic improvement was hindered by cultural stigmas imposed by the Spanish conquest, stigmas which persisted into the latter part of the 20th century.

From left to right—Mikel Stevens, Alejandro Bonifacio, and Eric Jellen examine quinoa plants growing in the Bolivian Altiplano.

The quinoa genetics project at Brigham Young University has a 12-year history that began with genetic studies of Dan Fairbanks and Laren Robison. The interest in quinoa of professors at BYU arose due to a combination of its superb nutritional qualities, its unique ability to survive in harsh climates, a lack of research interest elsewhere in the developed world, and the crop’s potential to alleviate malnutrition among indigenous peoples of the Andes and other mountainous regions of the world. During the fall of 1999, four plant genetics faculty members from BYU—Dan Fairbanks, Craig Coleman, Mikel Stevens, and myself—decided to revive the project and make a concerted effort in bringing the latest technology to bear on quinoa improvement. The primary goal of our genetics project is to provide technical and educational assistance to Bolivian scientists in their efforts to increase quinoa productivity and conserve quinoa genetic resources.

Our first tactical objective is to develop a genetic map for quinoa based on molecular genetic (DNA) markers. As the first step toward achieving this objective, last year the Benson Institute awarded us funding for a National Merit undergraduate scholar, Brian Gardunia, to begin a research project aimed at isolating and mapping simple sequence repeat (SSR), or micro satellite, genetic markers. Gardunia has continued with this project as a Master’s student since his graduation in August. Genetic markers have been adopted by breeders of all the world’s major crops as tools to facilitate the transfer of desirable genes, such as disease resistance, from old varieties and wild species into varieties with higher yields. Microsatellites are an especially powerful type of genetic marker, whose effectiveness has been demonstrated in all of the major crop species. Unfortunately, the technology necessary to use these and other DNA markers is either unavailable in the developing world or, in the case of Bolivia, the protocols cannot be performed at high altitudes due to the decreased atmospheric pressure.

Over the past 10 months, Gardunia has isolated a collection of quinoa DNA fragments containing potentially thousands of SSRs, from which he has identified approximately 300 unique SSRs by DNA sequencing. As a part of this project, Professor Alejandro Bonifacio, a Bolivian quinoa breeder and geneticist with the PROINPA foundation and faculty member of the University of San Andrés (UMSA) and Catholic University in Bolivia, will come to BYU next summer to complete his Ph.D. dissertation research by combining the SSR map with a map he will construct based on amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers. We will then use the genetic markers to assist Professor Bonifacio in breeding improved quinoa varieties, in characterizing the genetic diversity of his quinoa collection, in determining the ancestry of quinoa, and in isolating genes controlling various traits of interest.

We in the plant genetics group at BYU, with the Benson Institute’s assistance, and in collaboration with our colleagues in Bolivia, have identified quinoa as a singular opportunity to exploit modern genetic technological tools to improve a neglected, indigenous staple crop. It is our hope that in the process of improving quinoa genetically, we can also promote the increased utilization of this valuable crop, not only in the Andes but also in other high-altitude regions of the world where malnutrition and hunger detrimentally affect the quality of life.