Research Technician - Sorghum Breeding
Center for International Forestry Research
Kenya · Makueni County, Kenya
1 . 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.

