It was considered a comparative advantage for IITA to invest more in cowpea marker development as there are not many research activities by other institutions for this crop.
For striga, mapping population is available. Presently phenotyping is being done outside IITA. This needs to be clarified.
Markers are available that are race specific for some races. Therefore, the short-medium term plan will include development of markers for the remaining races of striga. Eventually, these markers will be used to pyramid the race-specific R genes
It is anticipated that the ongoing TL1 project will produce some genomic resources not only for striga MAS but also for drought tolerance and resistance to thrips. Even though there is an ongoing research to develop MAS for drought tolerance, this can be targeted as long-term plan.
Bacterial blight
The mapping population for bacterial blight (both parents were germplasm) is already phenotyped and DNA taken to Wageningen for genotyping. The mapping population developed by Christian Fatokun is the same population used for drought resistance QTL work in Warganingen Univ. Also the population is included in the TL1 genotyping work and developed SNP will be available for this population.
Collection, validation and development of geo-reference map of Striga gesnerioides and Alectra vogelii.
Identification of SNP markers associated with resistance and validation in mapping population. Note: SNPs developed under TL1 (200 materials for association analysis for drought resistance is available in Kano.
Conversion of identified SNP markers linked with Striga and Alectra race specific resistance to SSR/SCAR markers which are available in PCR based MAS/MAB.
Tthe development of race-specific molecular marker to determine the predominant striga race in each region (better done by the diagnostic research group).
J-M Ribaut, MC de Vicente and X Delannay Published in Current Opinion in Plant Biology 2010, 13:1-6 Molecular breeding (MB) holds great promise for developingcountries. However, the
(Taken from R4D Review, issue #2, March 2009 http://r4dreview.org/ ) The genomic boom in the past few decades has opened a new avenue of research for agricultural scientists. Conventional breeding
Yunbi Xu and Jonathan H. Crouch Crop Sci (2008) 48:391-407 ABSTRACT The volume of publications on the development and to a lesser extent the application of molecular markers in plant
Collard and Mackill Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2008) 363:557-572 The application of MAS in plant breeding: evaluation of breeding material (cultivar identity; genetic diversity; heterosis;
