2018 Africa-wide Breeding Task Force Trials for Irrigated Lowland

In 2010, the Africa-wide Rice Breeding Task Force was launched by AfricaRice involving National Agricultural Research System (NARS) from about 30 countries. The objectives of the network are to evaluate the stability of traits incorporated in breeding processes and to identify varieties best fit to growth conditions in target regions and to markets. The Task Force also accumulates data on the performance of new elite lines, thereby facilitating varietal release procedures. Furthermore, by exposing breeders from NARS and farmers to these elite lines during the testing phase, dissemination will be facilitated. The activities conducted by the Task Force consists of a series of consecutive trials. Promising breeding lines developed by AfricaRice or by national and international partners, such as IRRI, CIAT and the NARS are nominated for evaluation in one or several rice cultivation environments: rainfed lowland, irrigated lowland, rainfed upland, high elevation and mangrove. All nominated lines should be fixed and accompanied by supporting data on traits incorporated during the breeding process and with information on yield performance. These characteristics are checked at AfricaRice before incorporation into the network. Further details are in the “2018-Irrigated Lowland-protocol.pdf”