From 28-30 January 2008, the Genration Challenge Programme (GCP) lived up to its middle name and organized a workshop on an intricate challenge— drought phenotyping. Held at CIMMYT’s El Batán facilities, the workshop brought together experts from diverse disciplines—crop physiologists, GIS specialists, model developers, to name several—to address more effectively the increasing phenotyping needs from genomic studies and breeding programs. During the workshop, several options for tackling the complexity of drought phenotyping in GCP projects were discussed, centering on:
- Improving environment characterization, based on GIS, water balance models, and their combination.
- Improving phenotypic data collection through better experimental designs, protocols, and data capture.
- Selecting potential hubs, based on climatic representativeness and existing facilities and expertise.
- Common activities were agreed upon by the participants, who developed a workplan to be further refined and implemented in the coming
months.
The participants were: Gregory Edmeades (Consultant), Abraham Blum (Consultant), Glenn Hyman (CIAT, Colombia), Sam Geerts (Leuven University, Belgium), Robert Koebner (Consultant), Paul Brennan (Consultant), Reinaldo Gomide (EMBRAPA, Brazil), John O’Toole (Consultant), Guy Davenport (CIMMYT), Rosemary Shrestha (CIMMYT), Eduardo Hernández (CIMMYT), Humberto Gómez (GCP), Jean-Marcel Ribaut (GCP), and Philippe Monneveux (GCP).
Capacity development 