ICIS Training at PhilRice

3-5 August 2010
PhilRice, Nueva Ecija, Philippines

Rationale

Subproject 2 (Accelerating the Development and Adoption of High-Yielding Rice Varieties and Associated Technologies) of the PhilRice-IRRI cooperation on accelerating rice self-sufficiency involves development of breeding lines and their testing in the lab and in the field. In this regard, ICIS has been envisioned as the databasing platform to systematically record all the pedigree, trait, and marker data that will be generated from this multi-component project. We thus invited the ICIS development team from IRRI: (1) to conduct an intensive hands-on training for PhilRice researchers, and (2) to set-up the ICIS database in a LAN server within PhilRice. Along the way, the rest of the breeding projects at PhilRice also stand to gain from this databasing effort.

Resource Persons and Participants

The ICIS team from IRRI comprised of William Eusebio of PBGB, Deacart Arreza of CRIL, and Mr. Albert Tchamba (ICIS trainee from Africa Rice Center). PhilRice participants comprised of 36 junior and senior researchers from 7 breeding groups, namely: irrigated transplanted and special purpose (ITR), irrigated direct-seeded (IDS), hybrid (HYB), GTL/wide hybridization (GTL), TCL, rainfed and adverse (RAE), and marker-assisted selection (MAS). In addition, 2 researchers from PhilRice CVES also attended the training.

Key persons were identified for each breeding group, as follows: Macor Julaton for ITR, Winnie Barroga for IDS, Maerose Maoirat for HYB, Nelson Garcia for GTL, Christopher Cabusora for TCL, Martha Chico for RAE, and Marjohn Niño for MAS. These key persons will have access rights to the ICIS server and are tasked to perform the databasing work for their breeding group. An overall ICIS administrator will collect the GMS and DMS from the 7 breeding groups during regular periods (e.g., at the end of each season) and submit the combined PhilRice GMS and DMS to IRRI.

Training Components

Converting MS Excel data into WORKBOOK was introduced and practiced on Aug. 3. The next day (Aug. 4), the participants were taught how to set up a sample WORKBOOK template in the morning, and to set up a replicated yield nursery (RYN) germplasm list using SETGEN and a fieldbook using WORKBOOK in the afternoon. As their final activity (Aug. 5), the participants practiced loading their own genotype list and trait data into the ICIS database using SETGEN and WORKBOOK.

A PhilRice central ICIS database was installed by William in the ASPPD server with the help of Art Arocena. Local databases that are connected to the ICIS server were then installed in computer terminals (work stations) for each of the key persons of the 7 breeding groups.

Fig.1. Albert Tchamba demonstrating the steps to declare factors and variables in the description page of the ICIS WORKBOOK.

Fig. 2. Dec Arreza (in yellow shirt) assisting the training participants as they worked on a WORKBOOK exercise.