Western Australia
July 2, 2007
Source:
Newsletter Number 2, August 2007
Institute of Agriculture
University of Western Australia (UWA)
by
Adj. Professor Harry
Nesbitt
The ‘Seeds of Life’ Program, which
commenced in 2005, addresses food security issues in the rural
areas of East
Timor. The major aims are to improve the capacity for East Timor
to release and distribute improved varieties of key food crops.
Major crops currently being researched are maize, rice, cassava,
sweet potato and peanut, although effort is also put into
improved pigeon pea and cultivating ancillary crops such as
velvet bean.
‘Seeds of Life’ is a
Ministry of Agriculture
Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) program supported by Australia
with funding from the Australian Agency for International
Development and the Australian
Centre for International Agricultural Research. The
Australian funding is managed by UWA through the
Centre for Legumes in
Mediterranean Agriculture (CLIMA). The current phase of
‘Seeds of Life’ consolidates the gains made by a previous three
year ACIAR Project which ended in 2003.
During the previous phase,
improved germplasm imported from crop centres belonging to the
Consultative Group on
International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) were evaluated
on research stations. The best varieties are now being
cultivated in farmers’ fields with more than 1600 onfarm trials
started in the past two seasons. CGIAR centres continue to
provide their latest appropriate breeding material for
evaluation under East Timor conditions in the search for a wide
range of crop variety options.
Yield improvements over locally
available crop varieties were impressive in research station
trials. Maize yields of modern yellow maize composites were
double those of locals. A similar result was achieved with
introduced sweet potatoes. Some modern cassava clone yields were
approximately 50% higher than locally grown varieties and newer
peanuts had larger seed size. Two years of on-farm trials
illustrated that the yield advantage on research stations was
also reflected in farmers’ fields. Under farm conditions and
farmer management practices, the new varieties continued to
express their superior yield advantage. In fact the yield
advantage of growing the newer varieties was up to 50% greater
for rice at low altitudes and 48% greater for peanuts across 168
on-farm trials. Three sweet potato varieties had a yield
advantage of 140% over local varieties in on-farm trials.
Farmer taste and acceptability
evaluations conducted during field days and from an early
adoption survey were quick to point out the advantages and
disadvantages of the new crop varieties. Some farmers preferred
the milling and storage characteristics of traditional white
varieties compared with yellow maize and the newer sweet
potatoes grew so large that the soil cracked allowing termites
to enter the tubers if not harvested early. Acceptability is
high, with most farmers re-planting the crops after harvesting
their on-farm trial plots.
In March, 2007 the MAFF formed a
Varietal Release Committee, which discussed the results of
replicated trials and on-farm testing before releasing seven new
varieties. These included two maize, one paddy rice, one peanut
and three sweet potato varieties. The challenge now is
multiplying sufficient seed and planting material to keep pace
with the farmers’ high demand.
Source:
http://www.ioa.uwa.edu.au/__data/page/129207/IOA_Newsletter_August_2007.pdf
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