Thirty-five years after barley's introduction to Uganda, its largely brewery-based value chain continues to face several challenges. An underdeveloped seed system, poor agronomic and post-harvest handling practices, and infrastructure and mechanization gaps are among the key challenges hindering local barley production, resulting in Uganda's brewing industry being heavily reliant on imported barley grain to meet its raw material needs. Enhanced national budget allocations to agricultural research and extension, accelerated infrastructure development, subsidized mechanization financing, and the promotion of farmer cooperatives could help the value chain realize its full potential. Implementing these solutions could lead to higher incomes for local barley farmers, increased employment opportunities in the value chain, reduced brewery production costs, and a broader tax base for Uganda. Key words: Barley, brewery, seed system, Uganda, value chain.

Gray leaf spot (GLS) caused by Cercospora zeae maydis is one of the major biotic constraints limiting maize (Zea mays L.) production and productivity in Kenya. The objective of this study was to evaluate inbred lines and select lines resistance to GLS from a diverse collection of genotypes and develop GLS resistant maize varieties. Forty-two diverse genotypes were evaluated for GLS resistance at two disease hotspot sites (KALRO-Kakamega and Egerton Njoro, Field 7) for two seasons in Kenya. Data on mean disease severity on leafs, area under disease progress curve (AUDPC), stalk lodging (SL), root lodging (RL), ear height (EH), ear aspect (EA), ears per plant (EPP), plant aspect (PA), and grain yield (GY) were collected. Data was subjected to analysis of variance. The genotype × environment interaction (G x E) had significant (P < 0.001) effect on all agronomic traits except RL and EPP. This is evidence of the presence of significant variation among screened inbred lines in GLS resistance across the screened sites. Maize inbred lines including CKDHL 120312, KTLN 10123, CKL 05022 and CKDHL 153502 exhibited lower values of GLS severity and AUDPC which are useful genetic resources for future GLS resistance breeding programs. Inbred lines CKDHL 153502 provided a mean grain yield of 4.3 ton/ha followed by CKDHL 120312, also (4.3 ton/ha) and CKL 05022 (4.2 ton/ha). Strong and negative correlation was found between AUDPC and GY (r = -0.65) revealing the effect of GLS. Therefore, GLS resistant and high yielding lines are ideal candidates for selection and advancement in many breeding programs. Key words: Inbred lines, disease severity, gray leaf spot (GLS), resistance, area under disease progress curve (AUDPC).

Upland rice (Oryza sativa) is affected by several biotic and abiotic factors that limit the yield potential of cultivars. In relation to water deficiency, the development of drought tolerant and water efficient cultivars is a priority in breeding programs. With this study aimed to evaluate the agronomic behavior of upland rice lines subjected to different irrigations depths aiming for the selection of genotypes that are tolerant and responsive to water deficiency. Thirty-four recombinant inbreeded lines were evaluated in an experiment using supplementary sprinkling and in a dry test without additional irrigation during the 2015/2016 season. The characteristics evaluated were grain yield, water use efficiency, days for flowering, plant height, and occurrence of rice panicle blast, spikelets number per panicle and spikelet sterility. It was concluded that there were different behaviors of the lines in relation to the level of water that were submitted being possible the selection of genotypes responsive and tolerant to water deficit. Drought tolerance is a complex trait that involves several features in the plant development, being grain yield a good feature to be used by breeding experts to select genotypes, with a view to tolerance to water deficiency. Key words:  Oryza sativa, irrigations depths, drought tolerance, water deficiency, inbreed lines.

Brown blotch disease caused by Colletotrichum capsici, is one of the most important disease affecting cowpea production in Burkna Faso. Every year the disease can cause yield losses as high as 42 to 100% on farmer’s fileds. This study aimed to understand the inheritance of its resistance in cowpea and also identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with the resistance. Seedlings of parents and F1, F2 and BC1F1 progenies from crosses involving four susceptible and four resistant parents were screened in greenhouse conditions for brown blotch disease reaction. The inheritance studies indicated that different genes action were involved in the resistance of brown blotch resistance disease. In KN-1 variety, two or several genes associated to brown blotch were suggested. In Donsin local, a partially dominant gene, Rcc1, would be associated with the resistance. In Moussa local, a single major dominant gene, Rcc2, was identified. A single major recessive gene, rcc2, was found to control resistance with brown blotch in the cowpea resistant variety IT93K-503/46-13. The research of gene or QTL associated with brown blotch in cowpea variety KN-1 has been investigated. Polymorphic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) markers and QTL associated to brown blotch resistance were discovered from 63 F2 individuals from a cross involving the susceptible variety Tiligre and the resistant KN-1. More than 11800 polymorphic SNP markers covered 1019.3 cM of the whole genome of cowpea were identified. A single dominant QTL, nomed qBBDR2 and 102 individual SNP markers tightly associated with the resistance of C. capsici were identified on chromosome 2 (Phytozome) of the cowpea genome. Key word: Cowpea, Colletotrichum capsici, resistance, inheritance, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) marker, QTL.

The experiment was conducted to assess associations between root yield and yield- related traits of orange-fleshed sweetpotato genotypes to identify traits that have maximum effect on root yield of sweetpotato to make possible selection. Twenty-four Orange Fleshed Sweetpotato genotypes were evaluated in 2017 main cropping season at Hawassa Agricultural Research Center using a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Data were collected from 12 traits, and then subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA), correlations and path coefficient analysis. The estimation of characters associated revealed that storage root yield was positively and significantly associated with roots number per plant, root length, root girth, harvest index at both genotypic and phenotypic levels. Some of the traits showed a highly significant (p<0.01) positive genotypic and phenotypic correlations while the other traits showed significant negative correlations. The genotypic correlation coefficients were higher than phenotypic correlation coefficients in magnitude indicating fairly strong inherent association between the characters studied. Path analysis revealed that roots number per plant, root girth and harvest index had positive direct effects on storage root yield at both phenotypic and genotypic levels. Based on the results of current study, traits that showed a positive direct effect on storage root yield could be used as the best predictors of storage root yield in sweetpotato improvement program. Key words: Character association, correlation coefficients, path coefficient, sweetpotato.

Knowledge of the extent and pattern of genetic diversity within and among populations is crucial to identify useful breeding materials and design appropriate collection and conservation strategies. Genetic diversity of 160 durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf) accessions was studied using 15 morpho-agronomic traits. The field studies for morphological characterization were undertaken at Adadi Maryam and Ginchi locations using randomized complete block design with two replications. The average linkage technique of clustering produced a more understandable portrayal of the 160 durum wheat accessions and released varieties by grouping them into seven clusters with inter-cluster D2 values ranged from 13.72 to 235. The highest genetic distances (253) was observed between cluster five (improved varieties) and cluster three accessions. The minimum genetic distance (13.72) was observed between cluster one and two both are landrace collections. Five of the 15 principal components accounted for more than 76.98% of the total variation in the Ethiopian durum wheat genotypes. The first principal components accounted for 32% of the total differences. In this study, there is a moderate genetic diversity between landraces collected from Tigray, Gonder, and Wello. Landraces from these areas can be used as a source of important pre-breeding material for future breeding programs. Key words: Landraces, durum wheat varieties, genetic distances, correlation, genetic diversity, morphological characters.

Sorghum is one of the most widely preferred and cultivated crops in Ethiopia. It is grown for food and feed components. In the developed world, exploitation of heterosis in most crops (Maize, Sorghum, Rice, etc.) is high. There is a clear need to develop sorghum hybrids in Ethiopia to improve their livelihood by increasing sorghum production and productivity. One of the strategies for increasing sorghum yield is through the exploitation of heterosis because sorghum hybrids are high yielder than OPV lines. Properly selected sorghum hybrids can help growers to increase yield, use less water, reduce lodging losses, increase feed quality, and manage maturation time. In Ethiopia, the National Sorghum Research Program runs a multiple technology development work in Ethiopia with the collaboration of International and National Institutions and Universities. One of the oversea collaborative Universities is Purdue University and the Sorghum program received sorghum hybrids to evaluate their performance across sorghum growing dry lowland areas. A total of 35 sorghum hybrid genotypes were introduced and evaluated at six sorghum growing lowland areas of Ethiopia including two recently released hybrid check in 2014. Based on the experimental data submitted to national variety releasing committee, candidate 9187 has been approved for farmers and commercial seed producers in 2018; it is named ESH-5. This hybrid variety is released with a merit of seed color, over all agronomic performance, head shape and yield superior to the recently released hybrid check by 11% yield advantage. Key words: Hybrid, heritability, sorghum, stability.

Soybean is an important food and cash crop in Uganda. Despite the importance of soybean in Uganda’s economy, its performance is highly affected by genotype × environment interaction making it difficult to select and recommend new superior soybean genotypes for diverse growing environments. The objectives of this study were to examine the nature of G × E interaction for soybean grain yield, to identify stable and high yielding soybean genotypes with desirable percentage protein and oil content for production in diverse environments and to determine ideal test location for future soybean breeding activities in Uganda. The experiment was conducted at six locations for two consecutive seasons of year 2018 (2018A and 2018B). Twenty-three newly advanced generation soybean lines and two commercial varieties were evaluated in a randomized complete block design replicated three times. Combined analysis of variance over locations and seasons was carried out for grain yield, protein and oil (%) content. The results for grain yield showed significant (p 0.05) for all the sources of variation except location. The genotype main effect plus G × E interaction biplot explained 65.74% of the total interaction sum of squares for grain yield and showed that the advanced generation soybean lines BSPS 48A-28; Mak 3N × 1N and NGDT 8.11×3N-2 were high yielding and stable and had other desirable agronomic traits. Nakabango was the most discriminating and representative test location. Key words: Soybean, stability, GGE, ideal testing location, mega-environment.

Three pollination control tents (PCTs) made from novel nonwoven synthetic fabrics with more open pore structure (DWB10, DWB23 and DWB24) were compared with the standard DWB01 fabric for pollen proofing in sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) at the research station of Lion Seed Ltd Essex, UK in 2019. PCTs of 63.5 x 63.5 cm footprint accommodated single potted plants. A completely randomised trial with five replications including an open pollinated control was conducted using cytoplasmic male sterile line 1TM37. Analysis was computed for (a) full data and (b) excluding three DWB23 defective tents. Differences among treatments were non-significant for all morphological traits except for number of secondary branches in (a) only. There was thus no micro-climatic difference among treatments for morphological traits of the 1TM37 CMS line. Among the seed related traits, 1000-seed weight and 10-day germination (%) were significant between treatments in (a) but only 1000-seed weight in (b). The mean 1000-seed weight was significantly higher for the open control than all other PCT treatment means which did not differ significantly from zero. Therefore, all four fabrics of PCTs were equally pollen proof in preventing pollen contamination. It is concluded for the first time that mini-tents of these novel nonwoven fabrics, engineered for both larger pores for air permeability and fibre architecture to prevent pollen transmission, adequately eliminated cross-pollination while maintaining ambient environmental conditions and are effective for sugar beet breeding. The PCT technology may be equally usefully deployed in other traditional, commercial and fibre crops for hybrid seed production. Key words: Sugar beet, nonwoven synthetic fabric, pollination control tent, male sterility. &nbsp

A study was carried out to evaluate the effect of drought stress on pod yield and other traits of groundnut genotypes to select the ten best performing genotypes using indices. Ninety six genotypes including 90 F2:3 progenies, 4 parents and 2 checks were planted under well-watered (WW) and water-stressed (WS) conditions at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics ICRISAT, Mali. Six selection indices including mean productivity (MP), tolerance (TOL), geometric mean productivity (GMP), stress tolerance index (STI), drought tolerance index (DTI) and reduction (%) (RED) were used. The indices were adjusted based on pod yield under WW and WS conditions. High DTI, STI, MP, and GMP values under both well-watered and water-stressed conditions were more effective in identifying high yielding cultivars under water limited conditions. Based on these indices, the F2:3 progenies ICGV-IS 13012F2-B1-297, ICGV-IS 13012F2-B1-40, ICGV-IS 13005F2-B1-46, ICGV-IS 13005F2-B1-252, ICGV-IS 13012F2-B1-29, ICGV-IS 13005F2-B1-205, ICGV-IS 13005F2-B1-287, ICGV-IS 13012F2-B1-525, ICGV-IS 13012F2-B1-576 and ICGV-IS 13005F2-B1-91 were identified as the most drought tolerant genotypes with high yield stability in the well-watered and drought stress conditions. The indices STI, MP and GMP were positively correlated with pod yield under WW and WS conditions and breeding for drought tolerance. Key words: Groundnut, breeding, selection indices, drought stress.