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Green manure crop cover reduces need for mineral fertilizer in Africa

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Velvet bean planted in rotation with maize increases soil fertility, provides biomass for feed and suppresses weeds in Chipata, Zambia. Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT.
Velvet bean planted in rotation with maize increases soil fertility, provides biomass for feed and suppresses weeds in Chipata, Zambia. Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT.

It is widely accepted that improved maize germplasm will only express its yield potential under optimum agronomic management such as timely planting, optimal plant/space arrangements, and timely weed and pest control. But perhaps the most important agronomic intervention is adequate fertilization. Although farmers in Europe and America have used mineral fertilizers for generations, these have become available in Africa only relatively recently. However, the excessive use of mineral fertilizer in Europe and America has led to water pollution and eutrophication, and has increased the energy requirements of the fertilizer production process.

In Africa, mineral fertilizer remains a scarce, expensive and risky resource for most smallholder farmers. On average, farmers use less than 10 kg/ha of NPK fertilizer, and many do not apply it at all. The price of fertilizer is 3-5 times higher in Africa than in Europe due to the lack of infrastructure and production facilities, often making it unaffordable for farmers. Fertilizer is primarily applied to higher value and horticulture crops that, unlike maize, give farmers greater return on their investment.

Many farmers in southern Africa plant maize extensively on large areas, harvest less than 1 t/ha on average and mine already depleted nutrients from the soil while trying to become food secure and escape from poverty – an impossible task! But farmers are now being offered a range of solutions that provide a way out of the poverty trap, such as improved drought and stress tolerant maize germplasm, conservation agriculture (CA), improved rotation systems with legumes and green manure cover crops.

The use of CA principles (minimum soil disturbance, crop residue retention and diversification through rotation and intercropping) hinges on the ability of farmers to retain sufficient surface crop residues to protect the soil from heavy rain, evaporation and sunlight. However, farmers in mixed crop/livestock systems face competing demands for these residues because they also feed them to their animals.

It is against this background that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) involved CIMMYT in a small project aimed at introducing green manures to smallholder farmers in eastern Zambia and central and southern Malawi. Green manures are grown primarily to improve the soil, generate biomass for ground cover and provide fodder; some also produce grain for feed and food.

In Lilongwe District, Malawi, farmer Bikoni Yohane and wife Esnart proudly present their maize-cowpea intercropped field, which will produce grain and leaves for home consumption and im-prove soil fertility. Photo: Christian Thierfelder/CIMMYT.

A range of varieties have been tested by the Global Conservation Agriculture Program over the past five years. Crops such as velvet bean, lablab, cowpea, sunnhemp, jackbean, pigeonpea and groundnuts have been identified as viable options with great potential for smallholders. They provide 5-50 t/ha of extra biomass for groundcover and/or fodder, leave 50-350 kg/ha of residual nitrogen in the soil and do not need extra fertilizer to grow. The new project is testing these species in full rotation or intercropped with maize on farmers’ fields in the three project regions. To increase adoption, the project is using an intensive participatory process to adapt the green manures to smallholder conditions.

This initiative is not the only one where CIMMYT has been involved with green manure cover crops: in northern Mozambique, a collaboration with CARE International reports that yield increased from 4 t/ha to 13 t/ha by only using lab-lab and improved germplasm in cassava-based CA systems. The ACIAR-funded ZimCLIFFS project in Zimbabwe was also very successful in growing lablab and velvet beans to generate supplementary fodder for livestock during the dry winter period.

Through innovative approaches, CIMMYT will further explore new ways of integrating green manures into smallholder farming systems so they become the status quo, not just an option!

Pakistani stakeholders evaluate the performance of CIMMYT maize germplasm across Punjab

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Participants visit CIMMYT maize trials during the traveling seminar. Photo: M. Waheed Anwar/CIMMYT-Pakistan

Pakistan’s maize sector is heavily dependent on imported hybrid seed, which accounts for 85-90% of the annual seed supply. Such huge imports not only cost the country about US$ 50 million every year, but also mean that Pakistani maize farmers have to pay US$ 6-8 per kg for hybrid seed, depending on the variety and the availability of seed on the market. Availability and affordability of quality seed of widely adapted maize varieties are the key to unlocking the production and productivity potential of maize, Pakistan’s third most important cereal crop.

To address this issue, which is a priority of the government of Pakistan, CIMMYT is conducting maize intervention activities under the Agricultural Innovation Program for Pakistan (AIP), a USAID-funded project. Under the AIP program, CIMMYT has introduced more than 700 diverse maize lines from its regional breeding hubs in Colombia, Mexico and Zimbabwe, and has evaluated them under Pakistan’s diverse ecologies since early 2014.

The germplasm consists of hybrids and open-pollinated varieties with enhanced nutrient content (quality protein maize and varieties enriched with pro-vitamin A) and wide adaptation that have consistently performed well over the past three seasons.

Discussion on CIMMYT maize germplasm at a private seed company research station. Photo: M. Waheed Anwar/CIMMYT-Pakistan

Based on the performance of the materials, CIMMYT, in partnership with Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), organized a traveling seminar to give stakeholders the chance to evaluate the performance of CIMMYT maize germplasm in Punjab Province. The evaluation focused mainly on spring maize and took place on 15-17 June 2015. Experts from 12 public and private institutions (including seed companies, agricultural universities and public research institutions) evaluated the performance of the materials at different sites across the province.

The event also gave stakeholders the opportunity to share their trial management and field data recording experience. Participants thanked CIMMYT and PARC for creating such a unique platform where stakeholders showcased their activities and discussed and shared information on how CIMMYT materials perform across the different sites. According to AbduRahman Beshir, CIMMYT-Pakistan maize improvement and seed systems specialist, “When we first introduced the range of CIMMYT maize hybrids and OPVs in early 2014, we were not sure how they would perform, particularly in harsh environments where the temperature often exceeds 40 0C.” He added that after such an aggressive intervention, CIMMYT is now at the product allocation phase based on partners’ selection and requests. Today it is clear that CIMMYT has much to offer its Pakistani partners not only in their efforts to produce hybrid seed locally and achieve self-sufficiency, but also to enhance local maize breeding programs through enriched gene pools.

Message from Borlaug-Ruan international intern Sweta Sudhir, Turkey, summer 2015

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Sweta in the field in Konya, peeling wheat stems to score for crown rot symptoms. Photo: Gul Erginbas Orakci

As a small-town Iowa girl, I have grown up around farms my whole life but never quite grasped the complexity of the issue of food insecurity. Two years ago, my understanding of food insecurity could be summed up in an image of a barren desert in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet that January I embarked on a journey that would take me from my hometown in Iowa, to the state capital and, finally, to Eskişehir, Turkey.

This past summer I spent eight weeks in Turkey as part of the Borlaug-Ruan International Internship of the World Food Prize Organization. My deep thanks to Mr. Brad Horton, Lisa Fleming, and Ambassador Quinn for this opportunity. Working in the soilborne pathogen lab of CIMMYT-Turkey, I was introduced to the devastating impact of nematodes and fusarium on wheat yield. Reading journal articles before I came to Turkey, I simply saw numbers on a sheet of paper, but as I visited the field sites in Eskişehir, Yozgat, and Konya and as I conversed with my mentors Dr. Abdelfattah A. Dababat and Dr. Gül Erginbas-Orakci, I was able to see the devastation these pathogens cause on yield and the livelihood of farmers.

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16 new CIMMYT maize lines released

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CIMMYT is pleased to announce the release of a set of 16 new CIMMYT maize lines (CMLs). These CMLs were developed at various breeding locations of the CIMMYT Global Maize Program by multi-disciplinary teams of scientists in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Asia. These lines are adapted to the tropical and subtropical maize production environments targeted by CIMMYT and partner institutions.

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Tackling wheat rust diseases requires $108 million a year, study shows

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PhilipPardey
Economist Philip Pardey on the sidelines of the International Wheat Yield Conference in Sydney, Australia. CIMMYT/Julie Mollins

SYDNEY, Australia (CIMMYT) – When storybook character Alice stepped through the looking glass, the Red Queen encouraged her to run as fast as she could. Alice did, but despite her efforts she remained stuck in one place:

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” said the Red Queen.

Philip Pardey, a professor in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota, referred to the Red Queen character in Lewis Carroll’s 19th century novel “Through the Looking Glass” at the International Wheat Conference in Sydney, Australia to illustrate a conundrum about wheat rust disease research.

Despite efforts to develop wheat that is resistant to damaging stem, stripe and leaf rusts, the diseases, which have existed for 10,000 years, will continue to thwart scientists, Pardey said, adding that the annual global investment in wheat rust research should be $108 million a year in perpetuity.

Currently, major projects such as the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, which is directed at completely wiping out Ug99 stem rust, are funded for set periods of time and target specific strains of rust. It is unfeasible to expect a cure to be found, Pardey argued.

“It’s fallacious to think that we can ‘solve the stem rust problem’ through funding because the actual solution sows the seeds of its own destruction,” Pardey said, explaining that the fight against rusts is ongoing and must be funded continuously.

RED QUEEN EFFECT

Just as Alice and the Red Queen ran in one spot as hard as they could but got nowhere, rust sexual reproduction and genetic re-combinations fight to survive, allowing wheat rusts to co-evolve and adapt to changes in their environment.

In his study, Pardey determined that global losses from all three rusts average at least 15.04 million tons (552.8 million bushels) per year, equivalent to an average annual loss of about $2.9 billion a year.

He calculated that the economically justifiable investment in wheat rust research and development should be $108 million a year, equivalent to an annual investment of $0.51 per hectare per year across the current 212 million hectares (524 acres) of wheat worldwide.

“The nature of the intervention is that the very seeds of success of wheat breeders sows their own destruction,” Pardey said. “A co-evolutionary pressure is developed where rust has every incentive to survive, so when fungicides are used or the biology of the plants is altered to resist those fungi, it forces evolutionary pressure on the fungi to evolve around that resistance.”

Almost the entire global wheat crop is at risk of infection from wheat rusts, Pardey said. Globally, only 3.2 percent of the crop is grown in areas not susceptible to 
infection, while 62.7 percent of the crop is in areas that are vulnerable to all three rusts.

“I’m hopeful Pardey’s research findings illustrate the importance of ongoing funding for wheat rust research,” said Hans Braun, head of the Global Wheat Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Wheat Research Program overseen by the CGIAR consortium of agricultural researchers.

“Pardey’s research is critical in highlighting the severity of the threat from all three types of rust, showing that continuous funding in perpetuity is the best way to keep them in check. Consistent funding will make it easier to help farmers and protect food security by controlling the disease.”

GLOBAL RISKS

Through modeling for both seasonal vulnerability and system vulnerability, Pardey determined that losses at any particular location or point in time do not represent the average annual global losses over the longer term.

“In 1935, the United States lost a fifth of the crop to rust, last year they lost less than half a percent,” Pardey said. “So, I wouldn’t want to take last year’s loss as being representative of the losses of this disease, nor would I want to take the 1935 loss. It’s not representative.”

Pardey developed a framework to characterize the probabilistic nature of losses over the century, then conducted a Monte Carlo simulation – which assesses risk impact under all possible outcomes of a given scenario – to determine a loss average estimate.

“If wheat breeders are successful in getting modern varieties onto all the wheat areas around the world, there is additional value because they’re at a higher yield level when the disease pulls the yields down,” Pardey said.

“High-yield varieties make the value of the rust avoidance go up as the yield goes up. You’ve got a virtuous cycle. The rust resistance becomes more valuable the more extensive the higher yielding varieties are spread. An investment of $108 million a year just allows us to keep up with it – we’re running fast to stand still.”

Zero-till wheat raises farmers’ incomes in eastern India, research shows

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Farmer-with-wheat-harvest
Photo Credit: Vinaynath Reddy / CIMMYT

In a study published last month in Food Security, CIMMYT researchers reported that wheat farmers’ total annual income increased by 6% on average with the introduction of zero tillage (ZT) in Bihar.

While studies done in the past in the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) have shown ZT impacts in field trials or controlled environments, this research is believed to be the first that studied actual impacts in farmers’ fields in eastern India.

ZT allows direct planting of wheat without plowing, sowing seeds directly into residues of the previous crop on the soil surface, thus saving irrigation water, increasing soil organic matter and suppressing weeds.

“We found that the prevailing ZT practice, without full residue retention, used by farmers in Bihar has led to an average yield gain of 498 kilogram per hectare (19%) over conventional tillage wheat, which is in contrast to the results of a recent global meta-analysis” says Alwin Keil, Senior Agricultural Economist, CIMMYT and the lead author of this study.

The global meta-analysis published last year compared crop yields in ZT and conventionally tilled production systems across 48 crops in 63 countries. It reported that ZT is only profitable in rainfed systems and when it is combined with full residue retention and crop rotation. “However, in Bihar, marginal and resource-poor farmers cannot afford to leave the full residue in the field as they use the rice straw to feed their livestock,” says Keil.

According to Keil, the divergent findings of the meta-analysis may be caused by the fact that most of the reviewed studies were conducted in moderate climatic zones (U.S., Canada, Europe, China) and results were aggregated across various crops.

Bringing a Wheat Revolution to Eastern India

Compared to the prosperous northwestern states, the eastern IGP is characterized by pervasive poverty and high population density, and its resource-poor farmers are more prone to the risks of climate change. Bihar has the lowest wheat yields in the IGP with an average of 2.14 tons per hectare.

To feed a growing wheat-consuming population, Bihar currently imports wheat largely from Punjab, where yields have stagnated over the last five years due to an over-exploitation of resources, especially water.

While ZT is widespread on the mechanized farms of Punjab and Haryana, seat of the first Green Revolution in India, farmers in the eastern IGP are yet to benefit. “There is also evidence that the positive effect of ZT is larger in areas with low agricultural productivity (generally low yields, such as Bihar) than in areas with higher productivity (such as Punjab, for instance),” remarks Keil.

Increasing Access among Smallholders

The study concludes that ZT users reap substantial benefits, and that this technology could help close the growing yield gap between production and consumption of wheat in Bihar. A 19% yield increase would translate into a production increase of 950,000 MT, which exceeds the total wheat imports into Bihar (868,000 MT in 2011).

However, with low ownership of tractors and ZT drills, large-scale adoption of ZT in eastern India hinges on an expansion of the network of service providers, who can custom-hire these kinds of services to smallholder farmers.

With public and private sector partners, the CIMMYT-led Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) has supported the development of ZT service providers among tractor owners by facilitating the purchase of ZT drills and providing technical trainings and know-how since 2009. Consequently, the number of ZT service providers in Bihar increased from 17 in 2011 to 1,624 in 2014, servicing a total of approximately 44,700 acres.

“Furthermore, we found that only 32% of non-users of ZT in our sample were aware of the technology. Hence, increasing the number of service providers to enhance farmers’ access to ZT has to go hand-in-hand with large-scale information campaigns to raise their awareness of the technology,” says Keil.

Robert Zeigler

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Lessons and opportunities from a commodity CGIAR center in times of change: reflecting on my IRRI era and possible implications for CIMMYT

​International Rice Research Institute

​Date: ​Wednesday, 19 August 2015

Time: 12:30-13:30hrs.

Venue: Auditorium in main building

*The idea behind brown bag lunchtime seminars is to use the lunch break in everyone’s busy schedule to hold a brief exchange of ideas.

Minimizing yield losses via conservation agriculture

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Last year, climatic variability such as untimely rainfall was devastating in northwest India. Mid-season rainfall resulted in massive yield losses during winter 2014-15. Starting that season, a case study of wheat adaptation to climatic risks was undertaken in Karnal by Sakshi Baliyan, a young female student, as an internship project under CIMMYT-CCAFS. The project aimed to evaluate yield losses as evidence of the difference zero till makes in coping with unseasonable rainfall.

The study focused on the vulnerability of wheat yields to untimely mid-season rainfall by comparing conventional vs. conservation agriculture (CA) practices. To construct the database, during the 2013-14 and 2014-15 winter seasons, wheat yield data were collected from 100 randomly selected farmers who produced wheat using conventional tillage and conservation agriculture in 14 climate-smart villages (CSVs) in the Karnal district of Haryana.

The results revealed that CA-based systems produced higher wheat yields (6% higher in 2013-14 and 13% higher in 2014-15) than conventional tillage systems. The study also found that farmers who practiced conventional tillage during winter 2014-15, which had untimely heavy rains, averaged a 19% yield loss, whereas those practicing CA averaged a yield loss of only 10% in the same locations.

These interesting results indicate that the next step should be to introduce climate-smart agricultural practices (CSAPs) in policy decision making. A more in-depth study should be undertaken to verify the results and establish environmentally and farmer friendly policies at the state and national levels. Policies that calculate subsidies and compensations considering the agricultural practices used by farmers are required to motivate them to adopt CSAPs. This will not only reduce losses in times of uncertainty, but also generate gains in favorable times.

Empowering women in agriculture through SIMLESA

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CIMMYT’s project on Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume-based Cropping Systems for Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) and the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) of South Africa hosted a five-day gender training workshop on 24-29 August in Pretoria, South Africa.

Called “Situating Gender in SIMLESA”, the workshop aimed at increasing awareness of gender issues in agricultural research and development, and identifying practical solutions to integrate gender into SIMLESA. It brought together a core team comprised of SIMLESA’s project leader, project manager, gender focal points, monitoring and evaluation specialist, communications specialist, and country coordinators. In his opening remarks, Litha Magingxa, ARC Group Chief Executive (Agri-Economics and Capacity Development), commended SIMLESA for the gender training.

Working closely with the ARC, CIMMYT gender specialist Vongai Kandiwa provided technical training to 14 participants on gender analysis tools, leadership skills, and competencies. Given the coordination role that SIMLESA gender focal points play within countries, it is essential that they have solid interpersonal and leadership skills, in addition to their gender expertise.

“This is a particularly exciting workshop because it demonstrates a strong commitment by CIMMYT and SIMLESA to actively invest in building skills and finding practical ways of integrating gender into ongoing activities,” said Mulugetta Mekuria, SIMLESA Project Leader. “The workshop has highlighted some of the gender-based constraints that women and men face when they try to adopt, adapt, and benefit from sustainable intensification options. This is a critical first step to improving gender awareness and equality in the rural smallholder agriculture sector where SIMLESA operates.”

Of the poor who depend on maize for their livelihoods and food security in East and Southern Africa, more than half are women and girls. Although women play a crucial role in farming and food production, they often face greater constraints in agricultural production than men. Rural women in East and Southern Africa are also less likely than men to own land or livestock, adopt new technologies, access credit and financial services, and receive education or extension advice, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Participants discussed challenges and opportunities to embed gender within the relevant SIMLESA work sub-objectives. They collectively identified gender entry points, specified monitoring and evaluation indicators, and agreed on an effective accountability framework. They also agreed on what should be done across all SIMLESA countries in diverse areas such as socioeconomic research, strategic gender research, participatory selection of alternative sustainable intensification options, and seed systems.

As Kandiwa told the participants, “Careful integration of a gender perspective into the research process ensures that maize and legume research for development leads to positive and substantive outcomes.”

The participants were expected to return to their respective workplaces and apply the knowledge and skills they gained at the workshop. Almost immediately, country coordinators will work closely with objective coordinators and gender focal points to ensure gender relevant activities are budgeted for during SIMLESA’s annual planning meetings, effectively implemented, and accurately reported. The ARC undertook to develop a gender capacity building strategy for SIMLESA.

In SIMLESA II (2014-2018), the aim of gender integration is to consolidate the gains made during SIMLESA I (2010-2014). Through the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (ASARECA), SIMLESA I strengthened the capacity of more than 1000 individuals by providing gender-sensitive training at times and places that were convenient for both men and women, to ensure equal access to the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in agriculture.

Additionally, ASARECA documented in-depth case studies to improve SIMLESA’s understanding of the best practices for gender analysis and development. SIMLESA II is poised to build on this foundation and integrate gender effectively.

Rebuilding livelihoods: CIMMYT supports agricultural recovery in Nepal

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Farmer-uses-minitiller-in-Nepal
Farmer uses a mini-tiller in mid-west region of Nepal CSISA

The recent 7.6 magnitude earthquake that struck Nepal on 25 April, followed by a 7.3 magnitude aftershock on 12 May and several hundred additional aftershocks to date, has had huge negative impacts on the country’s agriculture and food security. Around two-thirds of Nepal’s population relies on agriculture for their livelihood and agriculture contributes to 33 percent of Nepal’s GDP. It is estimated that about 8 million people have been affected by the earthquakes, with smallholders in hilly regions being most hard-hit.

The earthquake damaged or destroyed agricultural assets, undermining the longer-term food production capacity of farm families and disrupting critical input supply, trade and processing networks. Farmers lost grain and seed stocks, livestock, agricultural tools and other inputs, and are facing significant shortages of agricultural labour. Widespread damage to seed and grain storage facilities have affected smallholder farmers’ ability to secure their harvested crops through the rainy season.

In response to the devastation, USAID-Nepal has provided US$1 million for earthquake relief and recovery to the CIMMYT-led Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia in Nepal (CSISA-NP). The Earthquake Recovery Support Program, for a period of 13 months, will be implemented in close coordination with the Ministry of Agricultural Development (MoAD), Department of Agriculture (DoA), Department of Livestock Services (DoLS), Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) and District Disaster Relief Committee (DDRC). The districts that will receive support include Dolkha, Kavre, Khotang, Makwanpur, Nuwakot, Ramechap, Sindhupalchowk, and Solukhumbu, which have suffered particularly high levels of damage.

“Even if seed is available, the capacity for farmers to plant and harvest crops has been severely diminished due to the loss of draft animals and the exacerbation of labor shortages,” said Andrew McDonald, CIMMYT Principal Scientist and CSISA Project Leader. “We will reach more than 33,000 farming households through seed and grain storage facilities, mini-tillers and other farm machines, agricultural hand tools, technical training and agronomy support,” added McDonald.

The program will provide 50,000 grain storage bags, 30 cocoons for community grain storage, 400 mini-tillers and other modern agriculture power tools (e.g., reapers, maize shellers, seeders), 800 sets (5 items in a set) of small agricultural hand tools, and 20,000 posters on better-bet agronomic practices for rice and maize. “We will first focus on getting small horsepower mini-tillers into affected communities, and subsequently broadening the utility of these machines to power a host of essential agricultural activities including seeding, reaping, threshing and shelling, as well as powering small pumps for irrigation,” said Scott Justice, Agricultural Mechanization Specialist, CSISA-NP.

At the program’s inception workshop held recently on 28 August, Dr. Beth Dunford, Mission Director, USAID Nepal, remarked that USAID-Nepal has arranged a special fund to help earthquake-affected people. Beyond the devastation of houses, public infrastructure like roads, the earthquake has seriously disrupted the agriculture and rural economy throughout the impacted districts. Re-establishing vital agricultural markets and services in the aftermath of the earthquake is key to how quickly these communities will recover, underlined Dunford.

For effective coordination and monitoring of activities in the program, Central Level Management Committee, District Level Management Committee and Local Level Management Committee have already been formed. They aim to identify most earthquake affected areas within a district and will ensure efficient and transparent distribution of support items.

Dr. Adhikari, Joint Secretary, MoAD, highlighted that the Ministry feels a real sense of ownership over this program and is committed to implementing the activities through its network. He said the farm machinery support program will be a perfect platform for MoAD to expand its farm mechanization program into other areas of the country. The Earthquake Recovery Support Program also aligns with the Agriculture Development Strategies of the Government of Nepal, which focuses on community-wide inclusive development.

Bhutan releases its first winter wheat variety

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In Bhutan, wheat is an important cereal for farmers at high altitudes, where its area of cultivation is considerable. However, in recent years, the winter wheat area has declined owing to numerous circumstances, including not having a better variety. This may be due to the fact that spring wheat has been the focus of most research and development efforts to date.

However, of late, the national wheat program has been paying equal attention to winter wheat research and development in collaboration with CIMMYT and ICARDA. But while ICARDA’s winter wheat nurseries are still being evaluated, CIMMYT-Nepal has helped to introduce cultivars that have recently been released in cooler regions elsewhere. One such genotype is Danphe (KIRITATI//2*PBW65/2*SERI.1B).

Danphe’s performance during its multi-location evaluation in the highlands of Bhutan (1200-2600 masl) was very promising. The new variety on average yielded 30% more than the local cultivar called Kaa, which means wheat in the local language. In addition, Danphe produces big grains, is short in height and lodging tolerant, which are farmers’ preferred traits. Up to now, farmers have had to manage with Kaa, which is very tall, small-grained and low yielding. Farmers who attended the field days unanimously preferred Danphe over the local cultivar.

In view of such an astonishing performance and of farmers’ preference for Danphe, the 18th Technology Release Committee of Bhutan’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forests authorized the release of this line under the name Bumthang Kaa Drukchu. Bumthang is the name of the target area (the district), Kaa means wheat and Drukchu means sixty (60).

Ganesh Chhettri, a committee member from the Department of Agriculture, remarked that such an accomplishment in such short time was not expected, as winter wheat was never adequately attended to. Further, he commented that wheat production in this ecosystem will surely increase now that farmers have a higher yielding variety.

CIMMYT is considering providing about 1500 kg of Danphe seed to Nepal to fulfill farmers’ needs for the ensuing season, and promote the new variety’s dissemination and adoption.

Videos sharpen Bangladeshi farmers’ interest in farm mechanization

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Quality video can be an effective way of enhancing training messages and sharing complex agronomic information with a large audience. The USAID-funded Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia-Mechanisation and Irrigation (CSISA-MI) and the EU-supported Agriculture, Nutrition and Extension Project (ANEP) in Bangladesh recently produced five new farmer-focused videos on efficient irrigation technologies, machine-aided line sowing, strip tillage, bed planting and mechanized harvesters. The videos contain comical but educational dramas with farmers as actors; they focus on practical messages on how to calibrate, use and maintain the machines, which are drawn by two-wheeled tractors, and describe how machinery service providers can make money by selling machine planting and harvesting services to farmers at a low cost.

“Our research shows that machinery training videos can be an effective way of generating farmer interest in experimenting with and purchasing appropriate machinery,” explained CIMMYT agronomist Tim Krupnik. “CIMMYT’s private sector partners also agree, buying-in and paying cable television companies to screen the videos for advertising purposes, adding value to our efforts.” Most recently, The Metal Ltd., a private sector machinery manufacturer and CSISA-MI partner, aired the “Reaper” video on television in Bangladesh to an audience of over 75,000 people during 11 days. Technical support was provided by CSISA-MI’s NGO partner iDE, which arranged to show the video during the July vacation, when farmers tend to be at home watching television with their extended families.

Beyond advertising, the videos are crucial for training farmers on how to use complex machinery. According to CIMMYT training specialist Kamrun Naher, the videos are high quality and well produced. In each technical training course, they serve both as the ice-breaker and the primary lesson. “After watching the videos, service providers and farmers understand the machines’ usefulness,” she said.

“Farmers need to visualize and learn how technologies work in order to show interest in experimenting with and adopting them. Videos can help open that door,” commented Tim Krupnik. Mohammad Rafiqul, a farmer in southern Bangladesh who recently bought a wheat harvester through CSISA-MI’s private sector partners, agrees. “I should thank the video you showed me. I was inspired by it and bought the machine, though at first my family was against the investment.” In his opinion, the video should be screened more widely to increase the use of machines on Bangladeshi farms.

“The videos were prepared primarily as training materials and to influence farmers positively towards the machines,” explained Rezaul Karim, who directed the videos. Usually farmers are not well disposed towards a new idea or machine. “Our target was to remove their fear about the machines and make them feel that these machines are going to make real changes in their lives, and we succeeded.”

For more information on the use of videos in training programs, see:

Bentley, J., Van Mele, P., Harun-ar-Rashid, Md. and T.J. Krupnik. 2015. Distributing and Showing Farmer Learning Videos in Bangladesh. Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension. DOI: 10.1080/1389224X.2015.1026365.

View more CSISA-ANEP training videos below.
•Axial Flow Pumps
•Bed Planter
•Strip Tillage
•Power Tiller Operated-Seeder
•Reaper Machine

Statistical support for the Turkish wheat community

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The soilborne pathogens (SBP) program at CIMMYT-Turkey, a Grain Research Development Corporation (GRDC) funded project, hosted two biometricians from the GRDC project Statistics for the Australian Grains Industry (SAGI): Beverley Gogel, a senior biometrician at the University of Adelaide, and Chong You, a biometrician at the University of Wollongong. Their visit, spanning from 31 August to 4 September, was sponsored under the umbrella of the CIMMYT Australia ICARDA Germplasm Evaluation (CAIGE) project.

The main objective of the visit was to advise on how to improve the program’s experimental design and data analysis under the framework of the GRDC-SBP, CIMMYT project. Gogel and You visited experimental locations in the different environments where the SBP group is testing/screening wheat materials against SBPs. They gave very valuable suggestions and recommendations on how to increase efficiency and improve estimates associated with the targeted research questions. The outcome of this statistical support will ultimately improve trial design and analysis and, hence, the results of the full trial process.

At the same time, Abdelfattah A. Dababat, in collaboration with the Transitional Zone Agriculture Research Institute, organized a two-day workshop titled “Understanding linear mixed models from the ground up: Statistical tools for the Turkish National Breeding Programs” to a group of 13 participants, including breeders, pre-breeders, physiologists and pathologists from Turkey, CIMMYT, and ICARDA. Gogel introduced the experimental trial designs used in Australia and described how to analyze both single trials and trials in multiple sites using the ASReml software. Chong You gave a presentation on QTL analysis and described improvements over the current methodologies used by Turkish national breeding programs.

Special thanks to the GRDC for funding this statistics workshop and to the Turkish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock for hosting and facilitating the workshop, especially the Transitional Zone Agriculture Research Institute, Eskisehir.

Improved sowing for a quality harvest: certified maize seed production training in Celaya

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Representatives of Mexican maize seed companies attended a training course on certified maize seed production in Celaya, Guanajuato, Mexico, from 17-20 August 2015.

Based on seed companies’ training requests in 2015, the MasAgro Seed Systems Unit decided to provide training in certified seed production. The training agenda included the following subjects: maize hybrid development, production planning, production and contract areas, maintenance of parental lines, isolation, sowing for production, roguing, detasseling, pollen control, harvesting, drying and seed health. These subjects were addressed by CIMMYT experts and experienced national seed producers.

Experts from Mexico’s National Seed Inspection and Certification Service (SNICS) explained the certification process and rules, as well as its cost, and then gave practical examples of how to classify the genetic quality of maize in seed production plots.

A certification inspection exercise was conducted in one of Monsanto’s seed production plots. Monsanto representatives gave detailed explanations of the agronomic management of their production plots and the technical and scientific support provided for precision agriculture. Later, SNICS trainers gave step-by-step instructions on how to conduct inspections of seed production plots for certification purposes.

For this exercise, teams of participants toured the 6-hectare plot and were given a manual (especially developed for the exercise) on developing maize varieties and characterizing male and female plants; they also learned the criteria used for sampling and selecting the variables to be assessed. The teams shared their results and standardized plot inspection and evaluation criteria.

According to the participants, the course exceeded their expectations, and they vowed to immediately start applying their new knowledge to improve their seed production and quality control processes.

CIMMYT goes to college

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For the past two years, Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, has been using two CIMMYT manuals as a resource in its Agrilife Research Department undergraduate program. Students in Crop Stress Management 402, a senior level course for undergraduates working towards a degree in Plant and Environmental Soil Science, gain knowledge from “Physiological Breeding I: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Improve Crop Adaptation” and “Physiological Breeding II: A Field Guide to Wheat Phenotyping.”

According to Dirk Hays, professor and chair of the Molecular and Environmental Plant Sciences Department at the University, the manuals are used during a course in which genotypic responses to crop stress are measured in the greenhouse and field, and crop stress monitoring is part of the crop management strategy. “This is one of the best stress phenotyping and measurement manuals currently available,” said Hays.

In addition to visits from students and scientists, and the sharing of knowledge and research, CIMMYT and Texas A&M have had a long partnership. Among other things, a strong bond between the two organizations was forged with the 1980s appointment of Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former CIMMYT wheat scientist Norman Borlaug as professor and researcher at the University.