All news and blogs
New pricing plan for genotyping services from April 2022
EiB news | Adam Hunt | 8/2/2022
Over the last year, global supply chains and service providers have been affected by rising inflation, costs and challenges. Genotyping services and inputs in particular are affected by rising demand due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.The CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB) has been...
New study shows impact of systematizing crop breeding schemes
EiB news | Adam Hunt | 26/1/2022
IITA researchers inspect cassava field trials. Source: IITA A new study finds tremendous potential for continuous improvement and mathematical methods to improve breeding schemes, leading to better crops for farmers.The Frontiers in Plant Science paper — authored by the...
Crop breeders in eastern Africa modernize to end regional hunger
Impact | Sam Storr | 14/1/2022
Maize cobs are weighed at the KALRO research station in Kakamega. Credit: CIMMYT/ Peter Lowe.A quiet transformation is underway at the Kenya Agriculture & Livestock Research Organisation (KALRO). New facilities are being developed, flows of digital data are coming online, ways of...
2021 was the year of collaboration in breeding informatics
EiB news | Sam Storr | 10/1/2022
In March 2021, a new network of specialists, the Breeding Informatics Network (BrIN) was established to standardize and modernize breeding data storage, access, curation, analysis, visualization, and decision support. The ultimate goal of BrIN is to improve quality and efficiency in delivering improved...
Digital phenotyping technologies set to take off across CGIAR
EiB news | Adam Hunt | 7/12/2021
CGIAR drone team in a maize field in India (Source: ICRISAT) New and more accessible digital phenotyping technologies and methods can help breeding programs collect data faster and better. EiB is partnering across CGIAR to expand, accelerate and streamline adoption.In the last few years, there...
New costing tool helps sharpen crop breeding investments
EiB news | Adam Hunt | 2/12/2021
Maize breeders visit a KALRO research station in Kiboko, Kenya (Source: KALRO) Traditionally, many public national breeding programs have not prioritized the costing of their operations. But as the pressure ...
To meet breeding targets, we must be willing to change: EiB’s 2021 Virtual Meeting
EiB news | Misha Nicholas | 2/12/2021
As the CGIAR and NARES breeding community push towards increased genetic gains and reducing the weighted average age of varieties, the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding’s (EiB) 2021 Virtual Meeting allowed participants to...
Breeding’s African food security contribution is a numbers game: EiB at APBA
EiB news | Misha Nicholas | 4/11/2021
Photo Credit: IRRI. CGIAR Excellence in Breeding (EiB) informatics lead Young Wha Lee understands that breeding "has always been — and still is — a numbers game." Lee and her EiB colleagues recently demonstrated to African Plant Breeders...
National breeding institutes deliver initial program costing at in-person training course
EiB news | Adam Hunt | 6/10/2021
NARES course participants cost out aspects of their program using the UQ costing tool. A new costing tool is helping national breeding programs get the financial data needed to improve their...
Access to genetic analysis accelerates banana breeding in East Africa
Impact | Sam Storr | 30/9/2021
This story is also available in Amharic: View it here.Research at the Musa sp. nursery at IITA-Kampala (Brigitte Uwimama). Banana producers face many pests and diseases that affect their crop, such as Panama disease caused by soil fungi, leaf spot disease, bacterial wilt,...