The project “Sorghum breeding with Wild Relatives: Evaluating pre-breeding material with farmers in Mali” is being carried out by the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), in conjunction with the Institut d’Economie Rurale (IER, Mali), and Union des Agriculteurs du Cercle de Tominian (UACT, Mali). The project is scheduled to take place from 2018 to 2020.
This project aims to diversify sorghum breeding material for drought prone areas in Mali and Kenya, as well as to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the sorghum breeding efforts in Western Kenya and central Mali to address climate change using farmer participatory approaches. The project activities will build on already existing introgressed sorghum populations based on varieties that enjoy wide farmer appreciation and adoption. Tools for farmer participatory engagement in breeding will rely on previously developed and documented techniques. The research partners have established collaborative relationships with farmer organizations and are capable and interested to strengthen these interactions and their ability to effectively breed new, climate-responsive, varieties.
The wild relative of Sorghum that will be focused on in this project is Sorghum bicolor, ssp verticilliforum race arundinaceum (Sagnard et al 2011).
