Easy molecular breeding tools for accelerating sorghum improvement in West Africa

This project aims at rendering sorghum improvement in West Africa more efficiently via the estab­lishment of an easy-to-use molecular breeding platform. Such a molecular breeding platform would enable sorghum breeders in the region to use polymorphic markers in order to pyramid favorable alleles or genomic regions of priority traits in farmer-preferred genetic background, without having own lab facilities. This innovation would largely increase genetic gain per selection cycle and re­duce the time to deliver improved crop cultivars to farmers. To achieve this goal, ICRISAT-Mali in cooperation with University of Hohenheim (Germany) and other partners will build on available backcross nested association mapping (BCNAM) populations (approx. 2000 sorghum lines adap­ted to West Africa) that are presently being phenotyped in a preliminary manner and genotyped using 384 SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) markers within the Generation Challenge Program (GCP). The target traits range from grain yield, farmer-preferred panicle and plant architecture to phosphorus efficiency, and aluminum tolerance. The main activities in this small grant project will be complementary phenotyping for other priority traits, especially grain micronutrient content, data analysis and publication, detection of marker-trait associations and conversion of the identified molecular markers to an easy-to-use and cheap marker platform. A training course will also be conducted to enable NARS and other sorghum breeding programs in the region to fully exploit this platform and accelerate their breeding programs. Concrete project outputs will include:

1. Superior genotypes and genetic markers identified for agronomic, architectural and micronutrient traits in sorghum adapted to the Sudanian-zone of Mali and Burkina Faso.
2. Marker platform developed, which is simple to use and highly efficient for transfer of target traits in farmer-preferred germplasm by local breeding programs.
3. Capacity of NARS partners strengthened on how to use the marker platform