The academic staff of the University of Embu are currently engaged in research activities in ten thematic areas, namely; Agriculture and Food Security, Microbiology and Molecular Biology, Ecology, Education, Organic and applied Chemistry, Energy, Business, Health Sciences, Social Sciences and Mathematics. Our members of staff continue to actively seek new funding opportunities so as to attract research grants in the university. The members of staff have also published widely with the high impact journals and top publishers in the world.Hybrid Rice Research
The hybrid rice research project is established as a special project of the National Research Fund(NRF). The project has been running from July, 2020 and will run upto July, 2023. Our project is dedicated to advanced research and training in rice breeding and biotechnology and advancing knowledge, applying the latest techniques in the following aspects of rice breeding:
1. Breeding to introgress wide compatibility, drought tolerant and dwarf (sd-1) genes into TGMS to produce a super parent rice for use as female parent in crosses with Basmati 370,
2. Determining linkages of major genes controlling quality and yield in Basmati370,
3. Production of super yielding Basmati370 hybrid rice seeds for farmers by crossing it with TGMS super parent varieties,
4. Determining of compatibility of major TGMS rice varieties in Kenya with Basmati370,
5. Optimization of Basmati rice anther culture conditions for doubled haploid plants production,