Upland rice varieties development through participatory breeding

摘要

Farmers’ participation during variety development and selection can promote adoption of the released cultivars. Open Semi Structured Household Level Questionnaires (OSSHLQ) were administered to randomly selected sixty seven households in the major rice production areas in Kenya, to obtain information on varietal preferences and production constraints. To supplement on this survey information, focus group discussions and key informants were incorporated. To ensure farmers desired traits were firmly anchored in the breeding programme, an on station research managed parent selection trial was established where farmers were involved in assisting the selection of lines to be used as parents based on their own selection criteria. The farmers preferences were high yielding and good grain quality, hybrid rice and high nutrient use efficient varieties. These accounted for about 54% of their wishes. Rice was the most important crop among the selected farmers followed by maize, but the hectarage of maize was the highest followed by rice; probably this was because of larger spacing for maize. Labour cost was identified as a factor limiting production, especially for irrigated rice and thus they preferred upland rice which is easy to produce. They identified land preparation, inputs, planting, weeding and harvesting as the most expensive activities. The majority of the respondents (66%) grew irrigated rice, while 25% grew upland rice. This disparity was attributed to the fact that upland rice was new, the varieties having been officially released in 2009. This is in contrast to the irrigated varieties that they have been growing since 1951 when the irrigation scheme was established as a pilot scheme. However, the majority of the farmers expressed their desire to grow upland rice but lack of seeds, appropriate varieties and production knowledge was a major setback. The existing varieties were viewed as high input based and farmers could not afford the inputs. The main fertilizers used were Diammonium Phosphate (DAP), Sulphate of Ammonia (SA), Calcium Ammonium Nitrate (CAN) and NPK (23:23:0), though the amounts used were very low and contributed little to any consequential yields. This was the case even though the farmers were aware and indicated that soil fertility was poor due to continuous cropping under irrigation. Fourteen varieties were selected by farmers including Nerica1, Duorado, IR79913-B-176-B-4, CT16333(1)-CA-20-M, CT16333(1)-CA-22-M, CT16333(2)-CA-18-M, CT16313-CA-19-M, WAB964-B-3A 1.2, CT16317-CA-4-M, CT16307-CA-14-M, CT16337-CA-12-M, CT16345-CA-3-M, WAB 905-B-4A 1.1 and WAB 450-B-136-HB - NERICA9; but only nine of them were successfully used due to hybridization incompatibility.