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.