All news and blogs

Dawn of a pan-African method for designing varieties with impact

EiB news | Sam Storr | 20/2/2020

Market and crop development specialists in Africa are making important steps towards embedding customer- and product-driven breeding practices in the region in 2020.One the chief obstacles to agricultural development in Africa is the low rate at which...

Plant breeders assess tools and services to accelerate breeding with genotypic data

EiB news | Sam Storr | 7/2/2020

On January 15, the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform (EiB) held a one-day workshop with users of its genotyping and data analytics services at the 2020 International Plant and Animal Genome (PAG) conference,...

Toward a unified breeding data management system

EiB news | Sam Storr | 28/1/2020

Members of the Enterprise Breeding System (EBS) advisory committee are lending expertise to make progress on the development of a full-spectrum breeding data management software.CGIAR plant breeders currently rely on a suite of different software projects to make use...

EiB Annual Meeting 2019 Highlights

EiB news | Sam Storr | 16/12/2019

A common vision for CGIAR breeding backed by funders, with a view to One CGIARAt its 2019 annual meeting, the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform outlined an ambitious vision for breeding program modernization designed to deliver on the two key metrics demanded by the donors behind Crops to End...

CGIAR and NARS cassava and yam breeders visit Brazil

EiB news | Sam Storr | 2/12/2019

During the week of 12 August 2019, cassava and yam breeders from CGIAR and national agricultural research centers in Colombia, Nigeria, Uganda and Tanzania participated in an EiB-sponsored visit to Brazil.After carrying out assessments at 13 CGIAR centers, the trip...

Enterprise Breeding System hackathon

EiB news | Sam Storr | 22/11/2019

First steps taken to unify CGIAR-NARS breeding softwarePhoto credit: CIMMYT / Eleusis Llanderal ArangoFrom 21 October to 1 November, software developers and administrators from several breeding software projects met at the headquarters of the International Maize & Wheat Improvement Center (...

How much does it cost to develop and deliver improved maize varieties in Africa?

EiB news | Sam Storr | 3/10/2019

By Jerome Bossuet From 10-12 September, members of the Global Maize Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) team met with breeders, seed system specialists, research associates,...

Digitization survey results announced

EiB news | Sam Storr | 28/8/2019

In March 2019, EiB surveyed its members to identify the models of equipment currently used to digitize breeding operations.These include package printers, label printers, barcode readers, electronic data collectors and seed counters that can be used to speed up, standardize and introduce efficiency...

Applying advanced genomics and data tools to complex polyploid crops

EiB news | Sam Storr | 4/6/2019

CGIAR and public sector experts met at the International Potato Center (CIP, Peru), May 8-10, 2019 to evaluate genomics resource needs and demonstrate new tools and methods for polyploid crop breeding. ...

Groundnut breeders in Malawi learn how to link product profiles and genotyping for faster variety turnover

EiB news | Sam Storr | 15/3/2019

A rich source of protein, oils and other nutrients that requires few inputs to produce, groundnut is considered both an important contributor to household nutrition and a...