System for Tracking Breeding Traits of Improved Crops

Plant breeding involves application of a collection of techniques aimed at bringing together good parents’ traits to generate a better crop in the progeny. Cross-breeding and selection in plant breeding has been able to considerably improve yields and pest and disease resistance of crops. Efficiency in crop breeding research programs depends upon the ability of breeders and geneticists to effectively and efficiently create, identify, store, track and select recombinant genotypes with a maximum number of desirable traits in the shortest time possible. This was not easily possible with the manual system for storage and management of information lying in large volumes of data generated in all research institutions. Locating files among tons of data is a tedious and time-consuming process for researchers. The need to keep track of research data is significantly becoming important in agricultural research institutions. A study was conceived in response to the need to improve the storage, tracking and dissemination of research data collected during the breeding of improved crops. It was conducted to develop a system for tracking breeding records, at the National Agricultural Research Laboratories (NARL) in Uganda. This was motivated by the increasing need to develop high yielding yet resilient crop varieties due to the constantly changing climate amid other socio-economic changes like population pressure and loss of soil fertility. Different methods were used to design the system which included Dataflow Diagrams (DFDs) and Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERDs). An ERD was used to identify the data to be captured, stored and retrieved in order to support the activities performed in the process of filing and tracking files. As a result, a breeding tracking system was developed in form of an application tool that is able to manage the creation and movement and tracking the originality of files from desk to desk of personnel who work on them. The developed system supports information sharing between scientists as well as easy access to information about good traits in improved crops.