I began my university journey at the University of Nairobi in 2011 after completing high school in 2009. I completed most of my general education classes at the department of plant science and crop protection where I was pursuing a BSc in Horticulture. I graduated with a second-class upper division in 2015 and then decided to undertake an MSc degree in Plant breeding and Biotechnology in 2016.
My experience at the University of Nairobi has not only provided me with the learning tools necessary to be functional in the research space, but it also has given me a sense of personal gratification and the confidence to be anything I want to be. The majority of my research skills have come from hands-on experience acquired during my field visits and laboratory research. However, professional components of my skill set have been improved dramatically during the last 4 years. I am eternally grateful to my project supervisors for the mentorship and support.
Abstract
Drought is an important abiotic stress in the tropics that highly constrains sorghum production. Sorghum landraces and wild relatives have been known to harbor sources of novel genes but there is hardly any information about their drought tolerance performance during the post flowering period based on the stay green trait. There is need to characterize this stay green expressed drought tolerance and transfer the mapped QTLs into drought susceptible farmer preferred varieties. This research aimed at identifying sorghum genotypes that have the stay green trait through phenotypic and molecular characterization and subsequently, introgress the stay green QTL from mapped donor lines into farmer preferred varieties. This characterization was done phenotypically and also with Diversity array technology (DArT) molecular markers in genotypes grown under well irrigated and induced drought stress conditions. The trials in the field were set in an alpha lattice design of 12*8 replicated three times. The backcross progenies were genotyped using DArT markers. The genotypes and water regimes used had effects on various traits and helped to identify stay green genotypes. Backcrossing for the stay green trait from mapped donor lines into farmer preferred varieties was successful with over 50% of the genotypes having greater than 75% recovery of the genome of the recurrent parent in the first backcross. These genotypes will form a strong basis for selection of superior drought tolerant sorghum varieties and the potential of improving susceptible sorghum genotypes for drought tolerance through marker assisted breeding.
Keywords: Sorghum, drought, stay green, backcrossing
Important Links
https://orcid.org/
0000-0002-3337-731X
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/gracerozinah
Research Supervisors
Prof. Kahiu Ngugi
Dr. Lydia Wamalwa
Dr. Damaris Odeny
Dr. Eric Manyasa
