The forage collection maintained by ILRI, for example, contains germplasm from around 19,000 plant populations representing over 1,400 forage species, including grasses, legumes and fodder trees, many of which are under threat in the wild from land use changes and over-grazing. ILRI’s forage collection is providing scientists with the genetic material to develop climate-smart, high yielding and disease tolerant varieties that will have a key role in Africa’s farming future. Continue reading
Category Archives: Genebank
Forages Genebank
ILRI in retrospect – Alexandra Jorge reflects on her work with ILRI in this exit interview
Alexandra Jorge just left ILRI to return to her native Mozambique. In this exit interview she reflects on her years at ILRI and activities of its forage genebank. Continue reading
ILRI upgrades its nutrition analysis laboratories in Addis Ababa
On 10 January, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) inaugurated new nutrition laboratories at its Addis Ababa campus. Feed quality is in good hands again. The importance of feed quality Feed quality reflects the ability of a given feed to meet the daily nutrient needs of animals consuming the feed. Tremendous variation exists in nutrient … Continue reading
ILRI’s forage genebank achieves good harvest of seeds in Ethiopia
Every year International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)’s forage genebank plants about 900 accessions of forage germplasm to be regenerated (to produce new and more viable seeds) or multiplied (to increase the amount of seeds to make them available for distribution). Four field sites across Ethiopia are used to grow the 1500 different accessions (they needs … Continue reading
Collaboration with Brazil expands Napier grass diversity in ILRI’s forage genebank
From May 2011 to May 2013, the Africa-Brazil Marketplace sponsored a project to introduce Napier grass elite lines for screening for stunt resistance to provide feed for improved smallholder dairy productivity. The project was a partnership between the Forage genebank of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and EMBRAPA Dairy Cattle … Continue reading
ILRI forage seeds duplicated at CIAT in Colombia
One of the responsibilities of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) genebank is to assure that forage germplasm is adequately conserved and that major risks of losing valuable and often rare plant materials are minimized. ILRI has agreements with the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) genebank to duplicate ILRI materials in their premises. This … Continue reading
German SES expert supports ILRI Addis Ababa genebank
In 2012, ILRI’s Forage Diversity team hosted Senior Experten Service – SES scientist Evelyn Möller. Since then, she has visited Addis Ababa 3 times (Nov-Dec 2012; April – May 2013 and Nov-Dec 2013). Her assignment was to help ILRI improve the quality control of its genebank laboratories, more specifically regarding plant health diagnostic techniques and … Continue reading
New funding agreement to help maintain world’s genebanks–and save plant genetic diversity
Frank Rijsberman, CEO of the CGIAR Consortium, is given a tour of the ILRI Forage Genebank, located in Addis Ababa, by its manager, Alexandra Jorge, in January 2013 (photo credit: ILRI\Zerihun Sewunet). The Global Crop Diversity Trust and the CGIAR Consortium have announced a new agreement which will bring financial stability to 11 international genebanks of … Continue reading
ILRI Genebank preserves forages to help farmers produce more food
For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Alexandra Jorge, who has taken over from Jean Hanson as manager of ILRI’s Genebank, reflects on ILRI’s forage research and the importance of the forage seeds genebank hosted at the ILRI campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. ‘I joined ILRI in Ethiopia … Continue reading
ILRI forage germplasm stored in Addis genebank travels to the Arctic’s Svalbard Global Seed Vault
‘The Svalbard Global Seed Vault celebrated its third anniversary with the arrival of seeds for rare lima beans, blight-resistant cantaloupe, and progenitors of antioxidant-rich red tomatoes from Peru and the Galapagos Islands. The arrival of these collections, including many drought- and flood-resistant varieties, comes at a time when natural and man-made risks to agriculture have … Continue reading