Associate Manager– Pigeonpea Breeding

ICRISAT seeks applications from highly motivated and qualified professionals for the position of Associate Manager– Pigeonpea Breeding to support Crop Breeding under the Global Research Program Accelerated Crop Improvement. The position will be based in Hyderabad.  This position is crucial to assist Senior Scientist-Pigeonpea in pigeonpea breeding in the Head Quarters. Will look after the activities related to breeding for varieties and hybrids, speed breeding, compiling data, report writing and publications. The candidate will be responsible for developing breeding pipeline for early, mid-early and medium duration pigeonpea varieties and hybrids at Pigeonpea Breeding Programmes.

ICRISAT is a non-profit, non-political organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a wide array of partners throughout the world. Covering 6.5 million square kilometers of land in 55 countries, the semi- arid or dryland tropics has over 2 billion people and 644 million of these are the poorest of the poor. ICRISAT and its partners help empower these disadvantaged populations to overcome poverty, hunger and a degraded environment through better agricultural production systems.

ICRISAT is headquartered at Patancheru near Hyderabad, India, with two regional hubs and eight country offices in sub-Saharan Africa. ICRISAT envisions prosperous, food-secure and resilient dryland tropics. Its mission is to reduce poverty, hunger, malnutrition and environmental degradation in the dryland tropics. ICRISAT conducts research on its mandated crops of chickpea, pigeonpea, groundnut, sorghum, pearl millet and finger millet in the arid and semi-arid tropics. The Institute focuses its work on drylands and on protecting the environment. Tropical dryland areas are usually seen as resource-poor and perennially beset by shocks such as drought, thereby trapping dryland communities in poverty and hunger and making them dependent on external aid. Please visit – www.icrisat.org

Responsibilities:

• Plan and coordinate the breeding experiments and activities on-site to identify climate-resilient pigeonpea lines.

• Develop a strategy to align classical breeding with Molecular breeding (QC and GS) and bioinformatics to enhance selection efficiency and selection accuracy in pigeonpea breeding.

• Identification of high-yielding, disease and climate-resilient pigeonpea breeding lines with a rigorous selection and evaluation process.

• Communicate with the staff of the program, other programs, FES, and support services with regard to necessary deliverables.

• Demonstrate Research and Development to the stakeholders.

• Handle field breeding activities including population development for varieties and hybrids in global Pigeonpea.

• Support in project management in Asia and East Africa.

• Implement predictive breeding approaches in pigeonpea.

• Managing rapid generation advancement facilities.

• Summarize and interpret the data of the experiments; prepare reports for donors.

• Publish research papers in reputed journals.

• Establish seed stocks and seed productions for multi-locational trials in the region.

• Assist Pigeonpea breeding teams to manage the speed of breeding and generation advancement.

• Managing the breeding store.

• Any responsibilities assigned by the supervisor.

Qualifications:

Required:

• Masters in Genetics and Plant Breeding/Molecular Breeding/Crop Science or any other related field.
• A minimum of Five years of experience in pigeonpea Breeding is a must.
• Sound knowledge of developing breeding experiments and generation advancement techniques.
• Experience in Field experimentation (Field layout, field book), data analysis and interpretation (GENSTAT, R and SAAS).

• Excellent communication and writing skills.

• Proficiency in computer skills MS-office.

• Team management and crisis-handling skills

General:

This is a contractual position for a period of 36 months.

How to apply:

Applicants should apply on or before 17 November 2024 with their latest Resume, and the names and contact information of three references that are knowledgeable about their professional qualifications and work experience. All applications will be acknowledged; however, only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

ICRISAT is an equal opportunity employer