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PROJECT NEWS Dr. Hailu Tefera has worked on tef (the Ethiopian staple cereal) improvement beginning from his first employment at Debre Zeit Agricultural Research Center (DZARC) in 1982 until he left in January 2007. Spending more than two decades of research on a crop that was not a favorite research material to many rserachers, in most of the years as National Coordinator, manifests Hailu’s extraordinary tenacity and dedication. Hailu’s outstanding meritorious achievements include: released nine tef varieties under his leadership; made more than 100 tef cross-combinations (note that tef hybridization is tedious!), developed homozygous lines derived thereof, on which the tef improvement work in all over the country relies on; authored/coauthored more than 60 publications on tef (of these, 37 were published in internationally reputed peer-reviewed Journals that included Science, Food policy, Theoretical & Applied Genetics, Hereditas, Crop Science, Genome, BMC plant Biology, and Euphytica among others); and has immensely contributed to agriculture education in Ethiopia through teaching, advisorship and sitting in Examination Boards for Masters and Doctoral programs. Dr. Hailu has also been receiving funds from external donors. Using the competitive grant he (as Principal Investigator) secured for three phases (since 1995) from the McKnight Foundations Collaborative Crop Research Program in tef (MF-CCRP), Hailu has expanded the horizon of tef research that made the crop to join in the forefront of scientific research. Through this project, in collaboration with Cornell University, the most outstanding achievements have been the following: a) The release from a targeted cross of the variety “Quncho”, b) molecular characterization of tef genetic resources, c) construction of the tef linkage-map, d) organization of the first international tef workshop, e) construction of the molecular database of tef. In this project, the tireless and lead efforts of Hailu have contributed to the capacity building of DZARC, and other EIAR and Regional Centers involved in tef research. Notable among others are the training of 2 PhDs, 8 MScs, and several short-term training for technical assistants. It is because of the leadership trust Hailu has created on MF-CCRP that led to the expansion of the project by including finger millet in three countries (Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia) under the title “Genetic improvement technology dissemination and seed system development in African Chloride cereals”. The Advisory Committee (AC) for the tef component of the African Chloridoid Cereals project acknowledges, with the highest regard, and would like to record the exemplary contribution and leadership of Dr. Hailu in the MF-CCRP for more than a decade. The project has been one of the most successful, transparent, externally funded projects in the EIAR. Hailu is now Soybean breeder for sub-Saharan Africa, stationed at Malawi, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. The AC would like to express its best wishes, however belatedly, to Dr. Hailu Tefera in his new position. The Advisory Committee |
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Breeding
and Genetic Basis of Tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter]
Improvement in Ethiopia |
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The growing population of Ethiopia,
which is now estimated more than 70 million, coupled
with deteriorating environmental conditions for other
cereals, is posing an ever-increasing demand for tef.
Increasing tef productivity in the various agro-ecologies
of Ethiopia is therefore the primary goal of the National
Tef Research Project. Because its importance as a grain
crop is mainly of local importance, and only a handful
of scientists are involved, tef has lagged behind in
benefiting from the state-of-the-art scientific research.
JOURANL
ARTICLES 2000. Trait diversity, heritability
and genetic advance in selected germplasm lines of tef
[Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter]. Hereditas 133:29-37. 1999. Genetic characterization of two
Eragrostis species using AFLP and morphological traits.
Hereditas 130: 33-40.
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Leading the Agriculture
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Prof. Mark Sorrells, Cornell University, USA,
TEAM
MEMBERS Dr Berhanu Shilima POB 35, Adami Tulu Research Center, Zeway,
Ethiopia PARTNER INSTITUTION/FUNCING ORGANIZATIONS Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research
(EIAR) Hailu Tefera, Getachew Belay and Mark E. Sorrells (Eds.). 2000. Narrowing the Rift: Tef Research and Development. Proceedings of an International Workshop on Tef Genetics and Improvement, 16 -19 October 2000, Addis Ababa. earo, Addis Ababa. DURATION 1995–2006 SEE ALSO http://WWW.mcknight.org |
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