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IBP Team demonstrates the Breeding Management System (BMS) at CIMMYT workshop

July 11, 2014

IBP staff is demonstrating how to apply the BMS to the maize and the wheat breeding seasons, as well as the various tools that it provides for genotyping, in CIMMYT’s Breeding Information System (IS) Workshop being held in its offices in Mexico (9-11 July 2014).

“Our objective is to assess if the BMS can serve the needs of CIMMYT’s Maize, Wheat and Molecular Breeding programmes, and to explore with them what could be modified to be better adapted to their requirements. So far, it is going extremely well. We have been well received by the people of the Maize programme yesterday and they gave us good suggestions. Today we are having a constructive interaction with people from the Wheat programme as well”, says Graham McLaren, IBP Leader of the BMS Implementation Team.

Graham McLaren (front) and
Jan Erik Backlund

CIMMYT’s Breeding IS Workshop has been organised to give an overview of different technological solutions for the management of the breeding cycle, among which the IBP’s Breeding Management System (BMS). For the IBP team, it is an opportunity to assess the users’ level of interest for the tools, which functions are most useful to them, as well as potential paths for improvement. 

“We are getting many suggestions and positive feedback on how the genomics applications of the BMS could integrate to their activities such as the management of high-density markers, for example”, shares Shawn Yarnes, IBP Genotyping Support Scientist. Jan Erik Backlund, IBP Deployment Consultant, adds: “Applications such as the GDMS, MBDT and OptiMAS provide functionality that they do not currently have and that they could benefit from right away”. 

Shawn Yarnes

In the context where CIMMYT has been confirmed as the Host Institution for Phase II of the Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP), this workshop is but one instance to help cement our partnership with a renewed commitment to one another’s development efforts.

The feedback collected here this week should help greatly in the continued development and deployment of the BMS. Dr Enrique Autrique, a wheat breeder participating in the workshop, explains: “I have seen the BMS evolve greatly over the past two years. What we have been shown today seems much easier to use; it is a comprehensive system with all the different tools that a breeder needs, including functionality for genotyping. Hopefully it can keep improving with the comments we gave today”.

Dr Enrique Autrique,
CIMMYT wheat breeder

 

See also:

Quick View on some applications of the BMS (fact sheets)

More photos of the workshop

 

 

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