The Department of Field Crops at the College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences, University of Baghdad, recently organized a specialized workshop titled “Genetic Markers and Their Significance in Field Crop Breeding Programs.”
Presented by Lecturer Sally Ali Abdul-Wahid and attended by department faculty, the workshop aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 4: Quality Education).
Objectives
The session aimed to empower researchers and graduate students by:
Clarifying the concept of Genetic Markers and their practical applications.
Demonstrating how to accelerate the selection process.
Enhancing the efficiency of developing new agricultural varieties.
Key Recommendations
To advance the field of crop science, the workshop concluded with the following strategic recommendations:
- Research Integration: Incorporating genetic marker techniques into graduate research projects to improve the precision of genetic selection and support the development of stress-tolerant varieties.
- Adopting MAS: Emphasizing Molecular Markers as a vital tool to speed up breeding programs. The workshop encouraged adopting Marker-Assisted Selection (MAS) alongside traditional field selection to maximize breeding efficiency.
- Infrastructure Development: Highlighting the urgent need to equip university and research laboratories with advanced genetic tools, including PCR, Gel Electrophoresis, and Sequencing technologies.
