The 13 Cohort 7 students of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), have presented their PhD theses research proposals. All thirteen proposals were presented in a classical format of power point presentations after which there were questions, answers and recommendations on the various research projects. The students, who enrolled in January 2014 have successfully completed the first year of thier four year PhD programme. They will now return to their home institutions to conduct their theses research on various crops across Africa.
Present at the proposal seminar were: management and staff of WACCI, associate faculty, some supervisors from students’ home institutions and some experts in the area of plant breeding from around the WCA sub-Region. Some of invited guests and plant breeding experts included: Prof. K. Ofori, Prof. E. T. Blay, Dr. Jean Baptiste, Dr. Francis Padi, Dr. Nani Drame, and Dr. Darkwah) and an external examiner in the person of Dr. Tom Hash (ICRISAT Dryland Cereals Program, ICRISAT Sahelian Center, Niamey, Niger).
Dr. Tom Hash intimated that the standard of the presentations have been very high and he commends WACCI for the excellent training programme. Also, the Director of WACCI, in his closing remarks commended the students for the good presentations and encouraged them to continue to work hard to ensure that they meet the completion deadline.
The thesis titles of the 13 students are:
|
NAME |
THESIS TITLE |
|
Dieni Zakaria |
Genetic Study of Cowpea Resistance to Alectra vogelii in Burkina Faso |
|
Alidu Sanatu Mustapha |
Genetic Analyses of the Relationship between Drought Tolerance and Phonological Plasticity in Cowpea |
|
Diallo Chiaka |
Genetic analysis of yield related traits in sorghum under diverse phosphorus field conditions in the Sudano-Sahelian zone of Mali |
|
Souleymane Abdou |
Evaluation of diverse Niger cowpea germplasm for P. use efficiency |
|
Akaogu Ijeoma Chinyere |
Combing ability, heterosis and identification of QTLs for Striga resistance in early maize hybrids under stress and non – stress environments |
|
Kayondo Siraj Ismail |
Genome wide association analysis and gene introgression for resistance to CBSD |
|
Alabi Olumide Alaba |
Empirical estimation of genetic gains in cassava using genomic selection in a one-year breeding cycle |
|
Ezenwaka Lydia Chidimma |
Allele mining for cassava green mite resistance in Nigeria |
|
Diop Bathe |
Determination of the genetic architecture of iron toxity tolerance in West African rice cultivars |
|
Sambou Aissatou |
Genetic improvement of groundnut for earliness and drought tolerance in Senegal |
|
Kanfany Ghislain |
Inheritance of downy mildew resistance of Pearl Millet in Senegal |
|
Kamanda Isata |
Improving yield and tuber nutritional quality of cassava in Sierra Leone |
|
Kumba Yannah Karim |
Genetic analysis for high starch, dry matter content and root yield in Cassava. |
