NEWS
2022
16/02/2022
01/03/2022
We are pleased to welcome Dr María Muñoz-Amatriaín, who joins KT's team of consultants to guide the West African Cowpea Consortium (WACC) projects. María was based at UC Riverside before joining Colorado State University in 2019. In July 2021, she relocated back to Spain, where she joined Universidad de León as a distinguished researcher
16/02/2022
The improved cowpea varieties FUAMPEA 3 and FUAMPEA 4 (the large-seeded versions of FUAMPEA 1 and FUAMPEA 2 bred to be resistant to Striga) have been officially released to farmers in Nigeria. These were developed by the KT-funded cowpea improvement programme led by Dr Lucky Omoigui at the Federal University of Makurdi.
Congratulations to Professor Sir Edwin Southern and Professor Mike Timko, who have been awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre de l'Etalon by the government of Burkina Faso for their contribution to research on cowpea in Burkina Faso.
2021
KT would like to wish Colin Dexter all the best for the future as he moves to Taunton, in Somerset. Colin has been with KT for almost 14 years, looking after the West African projects working on cowpea.
03/08/2021
Congratulations to Mr Muhammed Sitote for successfully completing a Master of Science Degree in Plant Breeding from the University of Jimma, Ethiopia. The title of his thesis project was: "Marker-assisted introgression of the anthracnose (ANT) resistance gene to common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.)".
20/07/2021
Congratulations to Mr Mwiinga Mulube for winning the competitive Kirkhouse Trust PhD Scholarship. Mr Mulube's doctoral research will focus on the genetic control of resistance to Common Bacterial Blight in the Andean gene pool of common bean, under the supervision of Dr Kelvin Kamfwa at the University of Zambia.
20/07/2021
The Cameroon Edition of the Kirkhouse Trust Newsletter is out. This issue is dedicated to the research team led by Dr Sobda Gonné at the Institute of Agricultural Research (IRAD), and celebrates the recent release of Lori-2 and Lori-3, two cowpea varieties resistant to the parasitic weed Striga.
01/07/2021
The Kirkhouse Trust welcomes Dr Joseph DeVries as a consultant for seed dissemination projects. Dr DeVries is the founder and president of the Seed Systems Group, and previously established and led the Program for Africa's Seed Sytems (PASS) of the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
17/05/2021
Dr Hamadou Sidibe qualified for a PhD at the Université Joseph Ki-Zerbo, Ouagadougou. The title of Dr Sibide's doctoral research thesis is "Genetic improvement of cowpea for resistance to thrips (Megaluropthrips Sjostedti) in Burkina Faso".
12/05/2021
Congratulatios to Dr Kelvin Kamfwa at the University of Zambia for obtaining a grant from the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Legume Systems Research for a collaborative proposal entitled “Strategic collaborations: implementing a gender-responsive genetic improvement program for bruchid dry beans in Southern Africa”.
03/05/2021
Congratulations to Mr Felicien Serge Zida for his appointment to coordinate a new project on Tepary bean with the Pan-Africa Bean Research Alliance (PABRA) of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).
2020
17/12/2020
Congratulations to Professor Paul Gepts, Distinguished Professor at the Plant Sciences Department of the University of California Davis, USA, for receiving the International Crop Science Award from the Crop Science Society of America. Professor Gepts is the Scientific Leader of the Kirkhouse Trust's African Bean Consortium (ABC).