25 January 2011: iPlant Collaborative has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Generation Challenge Programme (GCP) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) for the development of the GCP’s Integrated Breeding Platform.

The collaboration will increase the deployment of technologies to track samples and coordinate breeding logistics and data management. The use of the iPlant cyberinfrastructure will provide a platform to deploy an “Integrated Breeding Workflow,” and will improve the ability of breeders from the CGIAR institutions around the world to access a variety of resources. The relationship will give iPlant the opportunity to increase interactions with the international breeders and researchers at the CGIAR member institutions. The relationship will also result in some of the products of the CGIAR institutions, such as the International Crop Information System and fieldbook system for maize breeding, being updated and merged for compatibility with iPlant’s cyberinfrastructure. iPlant and the GCP have identified priority tools to be developed related to a breeding management system, field trial management system, molecular breeding design, cross prediction, and marker-assisted recurrent selection.

The Generation Challenge Programme aims to use genetic diversity and plant science to improve crops by working through a network of over 200 partner organizations. Phase I from 2004-2008 worked on 18 crops, while Phase II is focusing on improving seven crops for drought tolerance. [CGIAR Press Release][iPlant Website][Generation Challenge Programme Website]