The project “Dissemination of Interspecific ICARDA Varieties and Elites through Participatory Research” is being carried out by a team consisting of ICARDA, the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, the Lebanon Agricultural Research Institute, Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricol, Institute National de la Recherche Agronomique, and ANGRAU. The project is expected to take place between 2018 and 2020.
This project aims at using wide crosses for durum wheat, barley, and lentil to achieve the following goals: Evaluate and fix inbreeding germplasm developed during pre-breeding phase 1 projects (barley and durum) and evaluate and fix to inbreeding CWR-derived germplasm (lentil); Conduct multi-locations testing in dryland research stations of Morocco assessing the performances of the lines issued from wide crosses against the best commercial checks (durum, barley, and lentil); Assess the nutritional and industrial quality of the produced grains to determine health and economic benefits of CWR (durum, barley, and lentil); Conduct on-farm participatory selection of the best candidate varieties (durum, barley, and lentil). Record farmers needs via targeted interviews and use these to develop selection indexes for better targeting the evaluation of material indicated at point ‘i’ (durum, barley, and lentil);Deploy a novel fast-track purification and pre-multiplication system to submit the best CWR candidates for variety release in Morocco (durum, barley, and lentil); Deploy a novel fast-track purification and pre-multiplication system to submit the best CWR candidates for variety release in Lebanon (durum, barley, and lentil); Assess the most promising candidates identified for Morocco in Ethiopia (durum, barley, and lentil); Assess the best wide crosses derived lines for adaptation to heat stress in Senegal (durum, and lentil); and Share the best material containing CWR introgressions with more than 100 breeders worldwide via the International Nursery of ICARDA (durum, barley, and lentil), a targeted workshop (durum), and via a scientific article (durum, barley, and lentil).
The crop wild relatives that will be utilized in this project are Aegilops speltoides, Triticum dicoccoides, Triticum araraticum, T. timopheevii, Th. bessarabicum, Ae. mutica, Th. intermedium, Ae. ventricosa, Ae. caudata, Hordeum vulgare subsp spontaneum, Hordeum bulbosum , Lens orientalis.
