Development of information system for tracking breeding traits of improved crops

Abstract

Plant breeding involves application of a group of systems targeted at transporting collected decent parents’ traits to produce an improved crop in the offspring. Cross-breeding and selection in plant breeding has been able to considerably improve yields as well as pest and disease resistance of crops. Efficiency in crop breeding research programs is contingent upon the aptitude of breeders making it possible to successfully produce, classify, store, track and choose recombinant genetic constitution with a determined number of required traits. It is not easily done with the manual system to store and manage 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 importance of keeping track of research data is becoming vital 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 such systems which included data-flow diagrams (DFDs) and entity relationship diagrams (ERDs). An ERD was used to recognize the data to be apprehended and deposited, and regained in order to accomplish the process of storing and tracking files. As a result, a breeding tracking system was developed as an application tool that can manage the creation and tracking of records. The advanced system supports information sharing between scientists and easy access to the trait information in improved crops.   Key words: Data, tracking, plant, breeding.