“Now, I can design my nursery and trials in BMS, print the layout and use barcodes for seed inventory. They trained on the BMS and received some basic equipment from the Feed the Future project, including laptop computers, barcode printers, internet routers and tablets to manage the data collection in the field. He recently hosted plant breeders and their technicians from the four African countries in Kampala. Okello is the lead scientist on the project for the Innovation Lab. Learn more about the commissioned project with the Innovation Lab that provides a way for breeders to utilize BMS. The efficiency can make their jobs easier and get improved varieties to farmers more quickly. By implementing BMS through a commissioned project with the Innovation Lab, these breeders in Uganda, Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia will all have access to modern data management and analytic tools in a centralized system.

A small group of groundnut breeders affiliated with the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut already collaborate to share germplasm and knowledge to deliver better varieties to local farmers. Software developed by Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP) helps them to do that.ĭavid Okello, the head of the groundnut improvement program for Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO), began using IBP’s Breeding Management System (BMS) six years ago and helped shape and adapt the current version for his breeding program in Uganda.īuilding on NARO’s success with the BMS - which helped keep track of more than 100 disease- and pest-resistant breeding lines developed by the program - Okello is helping to pass the technology to colleagues in national programs across East and Southern Africa. These types of challenges are the reason that plant breeders systematically create new varieties, targeting the genetic traits that carry resistance or improve yield. But groundnut producers face challenges in the field, from unpredictable rainfall to acidic soils to a particularly difficult menace: groundnut rosette disease. Groundnuts are an important crop in Uganda, both as a cash crop for farmers and an economical source of protein for consumers.

Plant breeding software