---
title: KALRO Maize Research Assistant
emoji: 🌽
colorFrom: green
colorTo: green
sdk: docker
pinned: false
license: cc-by-4.0
---

# KALRO Maize Research Assistant

A research chatbot for Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), grounded in 16 research papers and training manuals on Kenya maize production.

## Knowledge Base

- Hybrid breeding and combining ability (KALRO Muguga inbred lines)
- Genotype × environment interaction and stability analysis
- Water harvesting technologies for ASAL (zai pits, ngolo pits, tied ridges)
- Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN): epidemiology, resistance screening, seed transmission
- Genetic gains in the Kenya Hybrid Maize Program (1999–2020)
- Farmer preferences for stress-tolerant variety traits
- Agronomic factors and the smallholder yield gap
- KCEP-CRAL and KCSAP extension programmes

## How It Works

Questions are answered using a two-layer retrieval system:

1. **Wiki layer** — structured summaries of each paper (primary source)
2. **PDF layer** — raw extracted text from all 16 documents (fallback for detail)

Retrieval uses `all-MiniLM-L6-v2` embeddings stored in a local Chroma vector database. Generation uses Claude Sonnet via the Anthropic API.

## Setup (self-hosting)

Set `ANTHROPIC_API_KEY` as a Space secret (Settings → Variables and secrets).

To rebuild the knowledge base from new documents:

```bash
python3 chatbot/pipeline/run_pipeline.py
```