How the Enterprise Breeding System advances IITA legume breeding

The Enterprise Breeding System (EBS) is a fit-for-purpose tool that enhances IITA cowpea and soybean breeding efficiency and decision-making.

The deployment of the Enterprise Breeding System (EBS) at IITA has benefited their maize, cowpea, and soybean breeding programs across Africa. The system includes regular training for breeding teams, ensuring they are equipped with the skills to use advanced breeding data systems, maintaining IITA’s leadership in modern breeding and crop improvement, and supporting its mission to improve food security and promote sustainable agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa.

Cowpea and soybean may not be as widely recognized as wheat or maize, but their importance to developing countries is undeniable. For decades, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) has been at the forefront of improving these legume crops. Breeding teams have successfully released high-yielding, climate-resilient (early maturing, pest- and disease-tolerant) varieties of soybean and cowpea across the globe. Now, IITA is taking its breeding programs to the next level by modernizing them, with a particular focus on digitalization and breeding analytics.

As a member of the CGIAR network, IITA implemented the Enterprise Breeding System (EBS), CGIAR’s preferred data management platform, across multiple crops. EBS is a breeding data management platform that enhances data accuracy, precision, and analysis capabilities, allowing breeding teams to deliver improved crop varieties more efficiently. IITA deployed EBS for maize in 2022 and is now moving toward cowpea and soybean. The deployment process involved consultations with the breeding teams, development of a new EBS instance dedicated to cowpea and soybean, data migration from various sources and platforms into the new system, and, as a final step, hands-on training.

This training covered file preparation for data collection, data capture and uploading, data quality checks, and analysis using tools such as the Data Collection and Phenotypic Data Manager. By systematically capturing and integrating pedigree, phenotypic, genotypic, and trial management data, EBS ensures that all relevant information is accessible to all team members in real time. This leads to better decision-making and more accurate calculations of genetic gains.

Trainees can now effectively navigate and utilize the key features and functionalities of the breeding data management system and configure and customize EBS to suit their specific user and breeding program requirements. They also learned how to create experiments and update experiment management and protocol information, including previewing labels and tags for printouts, managing trial occurrences, and advancing generational nurseries. As part of the training, the EBS team gathered feedback from participants on how to improve the cowpea and soybean data and workflow in production environments, proving that the tool’s development is continuous and collaborative. This allowed them, for example, to document crop-specific germplasm nomenclature and printout requirements.

Additionally, EBS integrates with other breeding tools, such as marker databases and the FieldBook app, allowing IITA technicians to collect data in the field and instantly sync it with the system. This improved workflow and automation reduces manual work and minimizes errors, speeds up breeding cycles, and ultimately accelerates the development of improved crop varieties.

EBS not only improves data quality and integrity but also standardizes traits, experiments, crosses, and germplasm nomenclature across breeding programs. This standardization makes it easier to share data and capacity within IITA, across CGIAR breeding programs, and with partners. For example, in West Africa, where IITA has soybean breeding operations in countries such as Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, and Mali, national partners test newly developed varieties.

The EBS package also includes a 24/7 service desk and global user support, allowing IITA teams to submit tickets and receive help whenever they need it. User resources are also available to the entire community, making it a truly comprehensive ecosystem.

Using a unified breeding data management system enables sharing of experimental data and real-time updates, strengthening IITA collective efforts to develop novel soybean and cowpea varieties. This collaborative approach benefits the entire breeding network, improving selection efficiency and ultimately delivering improved varieties to the farmers and processors who need them most.

EBS is a fit-for-purpose tool that enhances IITA cowpea and soybean breeding efficiency and decision-making, aligning perfectly with our mission to improve food security and promote sustainable agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa.
Hapson Mushoriwa, IITA Head of Breeding, Ibadan, Nigeria

Dr Ousmane Boukar, IITA’s lead cowpea breeder, receives a certificate for completing the EBS training in Kano, Nigeria. Credit: IITA