One-week Course on Genetic Analysis and Plant Breeding held in Mexico

Drs. Jiankang Wang and Huihui Li ran the One-week Course on Genetic Analysis and Plant Breeding in CIMMYT headquarter in Mexico, 21 - 25 January 2013. The course was organized by the Genetic Resources Program, CIMMYT and was funded by the Generation Challenge Program. Contents of the course included plant breeding methodology, applied population and quantitative genetics, estimation of recombination between two linked loci, construction of genetic linkage maps, principles of QTL mapping and statistical comparison of different mapping methods, identification of quantitative trait genes with additive (and dominance) effects, identification of quantitative trait genes with epistasis effects, QTL by environment analysis, modeling of plant breeding, comparison and optimization of plant breeding strategies, integration of known gene information into conventional plant breeding.

 

There were 54 participants from China, Colombia, Cuba, Ethiopia, Georgia, Germany, India, Iran, Italy, Kazakstan, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria, Peru, South Africa, Spain, Tuisia, Turkey, United States, and Zimbabwe. For each morning/afternoon, two 50-minute lectures were firstly given, followed by practical and exercise. The opening lecture titled CIMMYT’s Wheat and Maize Breeding Achievements and Perspectives was kindly delivered by Dr. Marianne Banziger, DDG, CIMMYT. Most other lectures were delivered by Dr. Jiankang Wang, and most practicals and exercises were led by Dr. Huihui Li. A closing session was given at 4:00pm on the last day, where the participants gave their highly positive feedbacks to the course. The similar course may be held in the next two years.