cassava breeding Archives

NEXTGEN Cassava breeder receives Cornell Africa Fund Fellowship

A member of the Next Generation Cassava Breeding Project (NextGen Cassava), Moshood Agba Bakare, has been awarded the Cornell Africa Fund Fellowship for his PhD program at Cornell University. The plant breeding and genetics researcher went to Cornell from IITA, Ibadan, where he worked with Peter Kulakow, head of Cassava Breeding. Bakare is researching to…

New insights to help advance cassava breeding worldwide

Researchers at IITA, along with partners from the NextGen Cassava Breeding Project, have uncovered new details about the genetic architecture of cassava, which is one of Africa’s most vital crops. The findings will make it easier for breeders to identify traits for crop breeding. The scientists carried out a genome-wide association study (GWAS) and outlined…

IITA scientist among AAS and the Royal Society recipients of 2020 FLAIR fellowships

The African Academy of Sciences (AAS) and the Royal Society of London, supported by the UK’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), have announced the second cohort of the Future Leaders – African Independent Research (FLAIR) fellowships. Thirty outstanding early-career African scientists, whose research focuses on the needs of the continent, will receive support from the…

Picture of Moses Nyine (second from left), who received his PhD from Palacky University Olomouc in the Czech Republic, with his IITA supervisors

IITA capacity building on banana and cassava breeding helps three students graduate

Recently, three students supported by IITA’s breeding program graduated—two with the banana breeding program and one with cassava molecular breeding team.

Picture of Margaret Mangheni of Makerere University in Uganda and Hale Tufan of Cornell University co-lead the GREAT training course in Uganda. Photo by D. Torrington, Cornell.

Training agricultural researchers to be more gender-responsive

Peter Kulakow, IITA breeder and Elizabeth Parkes, HarvestPlus breeder are part of a 16-person training panel for 11 teams of 33 researchers from four continents participating in a training on “Gender Responsive Root, Tuber, and Banana Breeding,” 12-21 September in Kampala, Uganda.

Picture of Cassava breeders in East Africa hub.

IITA cassava breeders mull new strategy to step up efforts and embrace technology for quicker delivery

All the IITA cassava breeders convened at the Institute’s Eastern Africa hub in Dar es Salaam to develop a strategy to guide and shape IITA’s efforts to develop improved cassava varieties suited to mechanized production that are high yielding and resistant to the major diseases and pests affecting the crop’s production in sub-Saharan Africa in…