Blog

Introduction

NARO on its journey towards digitisation of all research activities for excellence in data management, utilisation and data driven decision making and investment cases is currently championing the use of data management databases in the different existing breeding programs such as the Breeding Management System (BMS) for Maize, Rice, Sorghum, Finger Millet, Groundnut and Green gram, Cassavabase and Sweetpotatobase.

The Enterprise Breeding System (EBS) has been developed by the Excellence in Breeding (EiB) to support breeders to connect, merge and sustainably build on the existing breeding softwares (such as the BMS, Cassavabase and Sweetpotatobase) and effectively and efficiently offer the breeders opportunities to manage their breeding data work-flows and utilise breeding data for improved breeding efficiency.

The one-day NARO EBS training was facilitated by Dreher Kate, Data Coordinator for the EBS who is based at CIMMYT, Mexico on Monday 18^th September, 2023 at the Root Crops Conference Hall, NaCRRI, Namulonge. Internet support was adequately provided by Mr. Johnathan, ICT Specialist based at NaCRRI, Namulonge.

Objectives of the EBS

To enhance predictive breeding

To enhance crossing and advancement of genotypes

To enhance sustainable selection decisions and

To enhance better outputs

Brief Report of the Training

There are currently 05 specific institutions which has fully adopted the EBS namely; IITA (Maize), CIMMYT (Maize), AfricaRice (Rice) and IRRI (Rice). the next crops to be incorporated in the EBS are soy-beans and cow-pea.

Participants were taken through the entire primary functionalities of the EBS such as the Breeding Trial, Cross Parent Nursery, Generation Nursery, Intentional Crossing Nursery and Observation.

However, because of time, the participants were given deeper understanding of the core functionalities of the EBS such as, Experiment Creation (Intentional Crossing Nursery for making crosses and Breeding Trials for yield trials and NPTs).

For participants to comfortably run the EBS, its recommended to use Chrome as the web browser. The EBS is regularly updated monthly with new features and also refreshed periodically with additionally new user-friendly data.

With the EBS, users are able to navigate between different programs using the filter icon on the main header (also able to apply additional headers).

However, phenotypic data is currently not available to users of the different programs but the data can be shared by the core EBS administrators with programs and or individuals upon requests.

Upcoming EBS service management tools

Request Manager: for requesting for genotyping services

Genotyping Service Manager: Processing genotyping requests

GIGWA: for storage of genotyping result data

Shipment Manager: for receiving incoming seeds, sending shipments to internal and external collaborators.

Agreed Action Points during the EBS Training

1. Lead breeders and their team for each crop to select ten (10) elite breeding materials to be used as set of germplasm for making crosses in the Enterprise Breeding System (EBS).
2. There is need for dedicated internet for the smooth usage of all the data management databases being championed at the different NARO institutes such as the Cassavabase, Sweetpotatobase, Breeding Management System (BMS) and the new Enterprise Breeding System (EBS).
3. The core data management personnel should be supported with high end computers capable of handling data management in the EBS cloud.
4. For sustainable data quality control, selected personnel with positive minds and willingness should be trained on the management of the core functionalities available in the EBS such as; inventory and data management at crop and institute level. These trained personnel shall be headed by an assigned team lead for the given institute.
5. Plan for continuous improvement and knowledge sharing should be designed across the NARS such as regular meetings (quality control) to share experiences between different NARS, conducting EBS support training, sharing relevant videos and providing on-ground supports to the EBS management team

Visit the EBS website on https://ebs.excellenceinbreeding.org/ for more