Research Technician – Breeding- CIMMYT

1. Coordinate, execute, and manage finger millet breeding nurseries

• Execute bi?parental crosses in pearl and finger millet as guided by the scientist, ensuring that resulting populations are properly QA/QC’d in coordination with the applied genetics team.
• Implement and coordinate Forward Accelerated Selfing Technique (FAST) on F2 and F3 populations, maintaining required population size and producing new inbred lines at the end of the FAST workflow.
• Work closely with the agronomist and station operations team to plan field maintenance, including land preparation, fertilizer application, irrigation scheduling, and weed and pest management for optimal nursery establishment.
• Oversee seasonal workers in field operations such as planting, pollination, rogueing, bagging, and harvesting; conduct training on best practices for cross?pollination, contamination avoidance, and teamwork; and maintain safety protocols and operational efficiency during peak breeding activities.
• Learn and operate the Enterprise Breeding System (EBS) for nursery creation and management, and ensure diligent and timely entry, curation, and maintenance of all nursery layouts, field books, and phenotypic data in EBS, and ensure nursery rows and plot are appropriately tagged with EBS QR codes.

2. Manage crossing work, pollination, bagging to generate new populations

• Supervise controlled pollination activities, including bagging of inflorescences, gametocide application, pollen collection from designated male parents, and meticulous hand pollinations, following established protocols.
• Ensure timely and efficient crossing by maintaining or exceeding established F1 success rates.
• Monitor crop progress and promptly address issues affecting the performance and integrity of breeding populations.
• Organize harvesting, post?harvest drying, threshing, cleaning, and mechanical grading to produce high?quality seed lots suitable for nurseries and trials.
• In collaboration with the scientist and station team, propose and implement incremental improvements in crossing, pollination, and seed?processing workflows (e.g., workflow mapping, SOP refinement, better use of digital tools) to increase efficiency, seed quality, and worker safety.

3. Implement and manage finger millet regional multi-location trials

• Plan and coordinate the annual regional trialing strategy in consultation with the scientist, including trial lists, site allocation, planting windows, and seed requirements for each collaborating location.
• Prepare, pack, and document trial seed kits (including checks and standards), maintain trial seed inventory, and coordinate shipment to national partners, ensuring that all trials are established on time and according to experimental designs.
• Liaise regularly with NARS partners and trial site staff to ensure timely land preparation, planting, agronomic management (fertilizer, irrigation where applicable, weed, pest and disease control), and adherence to agreed trial protocols and HSE standards.
• Coordinate accurate and timely collection of agronomic, phenotypic, and environmental data across sites using digital tools (e.g., tablets, field data capture apps), ensuring data quality, completeness, and standardized trait scoring.
• Create and manage trials in the Enterprise Breeding System (EBS), including loading entry lists, generating field books, and ensuring diligent entry, cleaning, and long?term maintenance of all multi?location trial data and metadata in EBS in collaboration with the data management team.
• Use trial data and partner feedback to identify bottlenecks and propose improvements in trial design, implementation, data collection, and partner support, and contribute to the refinement and documentation of regional testing procedures and SOPs.
• Provide backstopping to partners through remote support and periodic site visits (as needed), troubleshooting implementation challenges, reinforcing protocols, and contributing to continuous improvement of the regional testing network.

4. Resource management, reporting and communication

• Uphold CIMMYT’s Core Values of Excellence, Integrity, and Teamwork, as well as CIMMYT’s health, safety, and environment (HSE) standards.
• Prepare field management reports, trial logs, seed inventory summaries, and recommendations for improving nursery and trial implementation.
• Provide field training and on?the?job coaching to seasonal staff, students, and visiting researchers, and contribute to partner capacity?building activities as required.

Requirements

• Master’s or Bachelor’s degree in Plant Breeding or related field
• Minimum two years’ practical experience in field crop research, with specific experience in pearl millet or hybrid seed production preferred.
• In-depth knowledge of pearl millet floral biology and pollination. Familiarity with digital data collection apps (e.g., Fieldbook, tablets)
• Ability to drive field car (pickup with manual or automatic gear).
• Occasional travel to partner locations.