Research Technician – Sorghum Breeding at World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)

Duties and responsibilities

** Breeding operations support.**

• Support breeding activities by helping coordinate the movement of genetic material through successive breeding stages.

• Assist with preparation, labeling, storage, and dispatch of materials for rapid-cycle advancement.

• Maintain accurate records of breeding materials.

• Support timely transfer of selected material between greenhouse, nursery, and breeding pipeline stages.

** Cross and seed logistics.**

• Prepare and organize seed packets, crossing kits, envelopes, labels, and other materials required for breeding operations.

• Assist with seed sorting, packaging, reconciliation, and dispatch for crossing and advancement activities.

• Support tracking of parental lines, cross progenies, and advanced breeding materials to ensure identity and traceability.

• Help maintain orderly seed stores and breeding operation supplies.

** Support rapid early-generation cycling.**

• Assist in handling materials from rapid cycling crosses, including progenies from early-generation crosses and related advancement materials.

• Ensure breeding materials are moved quickly and accurately between activities to minimize delays in the pipeline.

• Support preparation of materials for recurrent crossing and advancement under the RCGS workflow.

• Help maintain continuity of materials across breeding cycles and breeding generation transitions.

** Coordination of trial kits.** 

• Work with Trialing Research Associate in preparing trial kits, labels, materials, and documentation required for multi-location sparse testing.

• Ensure that all items needed for field trials (seeds, plot QR code labels) are packed and dispatched correctly and on time.

• Coordinate with field teams, breeders, and logistics staff to ensure smooth delivery of trial kits to partners.

• Keep checklists and inventories for all kits and dispatched materials.

Data recording and documentation.

• Record breeding operation details accurately, including dates of crossing, dispatch, and sparse testing location details such as trial planting harvesting and data return, and material movement.

• Ensure all genetic materials and experiments are recorded in EBS.

• Assist with basic data entry and file organization related to breeding operations.

• Support documentation needed for quality assurance, traceability, and reporting.

Collaboration with scientists.

• Work closely with the Plant Breeder and other scientists to implement operational aspects of RCGS.

• Support the conversion of genomic selection decisions into practical breeding actions.

• Coordinate with breeders to ensure selected materials are prepared and moved efficiently through the pipeline.

• Provide operational feedback on bottlenecks, delays, losses, or material-handling issues.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture, Crop Science, Seed Science, Plant Breeding, Agronomy, or a related field

• Practical experience in seed handling, breeding nursery support, or agricultural research operations in a large plant breeding program.

• Experience supporting breeding programs, crossing work, or germplasm logistics.

• Familiarity with dryland crops such as sorghum, pearl millet, or finger millet.

• Experience in seed labeling, inventory management, or breeding pipeline tracking.

• Ability to work in a fast-paced research environment with multiple deadlines.

• Willingness to support occasional travel to partner sites.