Southern Africa soybean breeders train on Breeding Management System
A recent training workshop held and hosted by the IITA Southern Africa Research and Administration Hub (SARAH) in Lusaka, Zambia on 21-24 March, on Breeding Management System resulted in shared enthusiasm by participants – mainly soybean breeders from national programs in the region – to use and adopt Breeding Management System (BMS) in their respective soybean breeding programs.
Breeding Management System training participants in Zambia.
The participants, which included researchers from Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia from the public and private sectors, had the opportunity for hands-on training using their own data from their breeding programs in the use and implementation of BMS. The training was co-facilitated by Trushar Shah, Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP) Hub Manager, IITA, and Akinnola Akintunde, ISS Consultant, Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP).
BMS is a suite of database management software applications that can be used to efficiently manage plant breeding data across all phases of the crop improvement cycle from seed inventory to nurseries, trials, and trial data statistical analyses.
“BMS is an amazing plant breeding toolbox that brings the whole breeding cycle and processes to your fingertips that facilitate data sharing within and among breeding groups .This greatly increases scientists’ breeding efficiency and data storage,” says Godfree Chigeza, Soybean Breeder based at IITA-SARAH, who organized the BMS workshop and also participated in the training.
