BDSRC Visitation to Indonesian Cereals Research Institute Maros

On November 23rd, 2017, AI R&D Center team visited Indonesian Cereals Research Institute (ICERI) in Maros, South Sulawesi. The goal of this visitation is to discuss the application of bioinformatics in increasing corn, wheat, and sorgum productivity. This visitation was opened by a round table discussion between BDSRC team and ICERI team.

In this discussion, Dr. Haryono, senior researcher of BDSRC, raised the topic of recent technology application in agriculture and possible application for corn, wheat, and sorgum. Continuing the discussion,  Dr. Bens Pardamean, Head of BDSRC, explained his team experience in building rice genomics database and statistical analysis for genomics data. The discussion was progressed in how to build genomics database of corn, wheat, and sorgum with the data collected by ICERI. In this discussion, Dr. Muhammad Azrai, Head of ICERI and Dr. Marcia Bunga Pabendon, senior researcher of ICERI, gave an explanation of the framework in breeding corn, wheat, and sorgum. They also described several challenges face in plant breeding.

Dr. Haryono also has a chance to see corn plantation managed by ICERI. One of the highly-valued corn breed planted here is NASA-29. This corn breed has a special characteristic to have double cob. The name of this breed is given by President Joko Widodo, inspired from Nakula and Sadewa, twins from Mahabharata epic.