Projects

Lodging Resistant Tef

Lodging is the major constraint to increasing the yield of tef. Tef has a tall and tender stem which is susceptible to damage by wind and rain. We implement a modern improvement technique to develop lodging resistant semi-dwarf tef cultivars.

Drought Tolerant Tef

Drought is another bottleneck for increasing productivity in tef. Drought and erratic rains are common in Ethiopia where they tremendously reduce the productivity of crops. We are interested to develop drought tolerant tef cultivars using high-throughput techniques.

Tef Genome Sequencing

The number of organisms with full-genome sequencing is growing. So far, the completed genome sequencing is available for several cereal crop including rice, maize and sorghum. Whole genome sequencing is important particularly for orphan crops such as tef, for which less genetic and genomic resources are available. We have launched the Tef Genome Sequencing Project in the beginning of 2010.

Technology Transfer to Ethiopia

In collaboration with the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), we evaluate the performance of promising tef lines in the field especially for lodging- and drought-tolerance. One of our best candidate line has been introgressed to the high-yielding and adaptable cultivars and progenies are currently grown in the field in Ethiopia.