Award details

UK - CIAT Joint Centre on Forage Grasses for Africa

Reference	BBS/OS/NW/000009
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Jon Moorby
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	Aberystwyth University
Department	IBERS
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	250,000
Status	Completed
Type	Research Grant
Start date	11/02/2015
End date	31/08/2018
Duration	42 months

Abstract

The main objectives of this project are to: • Foster collaborative links in tropical grass breeding between CIAT (Colombia) and IBERS. • Develop breeding programmes for improved forage crops for use in sub-Saharan east African countries for sustainable intensification of smallholder ruminant livestock productivity. • Investigate water stress tolerance traits in key Brachiaria breeding lines using the BBSRC National Plant Phenomics Centre at IBERS. • Facilitate capacity building with CIAT (Cali), CIAT (Nairobi), ILRI (Kenya) and other sub-Saharan east African countries by personnel exchange. • Develop high throughput analysis of Brachiaria material for nutritional characteristics using Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. • Generate Pacific Biosciences long-read sequencing data to enable assembly of a complete reference genome of diploid Brachiaria ruziziensis. • Establish low cost techniques for measuring methane emissions from small ruminants in Colombia and African countries through a knowledge transfer network. • Develop research grant proposals to further establish collaboration between IBERS, CIAT and relevant third party organisations.

Summary

This project has focussed on the use and improvement of forages for the sustainable intensification of ruminant livestock production in sub-Saharan east Africa, through a partnership between IBERS and CIAT (Cali, Colombia), with links to third parties in African countries including CIAT (Nairobi) and ILRI (Nairobi). The project has used the existing plant breeding programmes and facilities at CIAT Colombia and IBERS to extend our understanding of the African tropical forage grass Brachiaria. This grass is used extensively in South America, and has potential to improve livestock production in various regions of sub-Saharan Africa. The genetic material of samples of this grass was sequenced by the Earlham Institute to help facilitate the breeding programmes at CIAT and other organisations. The National Plant Phenomics Centre at IBERS was used to investigate the effects of water stress on a number of Brachiaria breeding lines (varieties), and this was done partly by staff exchange from Colombia. A significant component of this programme has been devoted to the assessment of forage resource needs of smallholder livestock farmers and to capacity building early career research students and staff in Africa and Colombia. To enable this, workshops and meetings have taken place in Aberystwyth, Colombia, Kenya and Uganda. A workshop on measuring methane emissions from livestock was held in May 2016 in Aberystwyth, and was repeated in Nairobi in March 2017 for people who were unable to obtain a UK entry visa. Delegates from research organisations and universities in Colombia and 6 sub-Saharan east African countries attended these workshops. The project has facilitated the development of a number of collaborative research proposals that have been submitted to funding opportunities such as the Newton Fund and the Global Challenges Research Fund, administered by Research Councils UK, British Council and the Royal Society.

Committee	Not funded via Committee
Research Topics	Crop Science, Plant Science
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	Newton Fund - Initial Awards (NFIA) [2017]
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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