The CGIAR’s Generation Challenge Programme (GCP) recently held their annual Integrated Breeding Platform (IBP) meeting in Montpellier, France. Dr John Becker, who is also represented on the Consortium Committee, attended the meeting from 17-20 June 2013.
The IBP is conceived as a web-based, consolidated vehicle for dissemination of knowledge, tools and services, enabling broad access to and proactive distribution of crop information and breeding material; molecular, genomics and informatics technology; cost-effective high-throughput genotyping services; and capacity-building programmes to design and carry out crop breeding projects. IBP is particularly intended to boost crop productivity and resilience for smallholders in marginal environments by facilitating access to cutting-edge breeding technologies and informatics tools hitherto unavailable to developing-country breeders. The development of the Platform is a project bringing together numerous partnersand several key funders.
The meeting brought together IBP users and developers, and included sessions for crop data managers, developers, the scientific and management advisory committee as well as a two-day hands-on trial of the workflow system by participants. The meeting was therefore a fitting forum for the release of Version 1 of the Integrated Breeding Workflow System (IBWS). The IBWS is the heart and arteries of the IBP. The IBWS is a package of software applications for crop breeders to plan, conduct, analyse and assess the outcomes of their work. Over the coming months, the GCP will improve this first version to optimise usability and functionality, based on the feedback they get from users. As they analyse and incorporate this feedback, the plan is to release IBWS Version 2 by the end of 2013. The IWBS can be accessed at the following link: www.integratedbreeding.net.
A guided tour of the IBP portal is available at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myOKBb3b1WM&feature=c4-overview&list=UUq17cWfE2u7A3IbIniJ4amw&noredirect=1