What's New

HHB 67 Improved Increasing and Multiplying

After a slow start in 2006 following its official release in late 2005, pearl millet hybrid HHB 67 Improved was grown on >60 000 ha during the 2007 rainy season. Its good performance, and higher downy mildew disease resistance compared to the original HHB 67, has stimulated large demand for seed, and both public- and private-sector seed producers are now engaged in meeting this.

Andhra Pradesh State in southern India is famous for pearl millet hybrid seed production. Each summer, farmers in Nizamabad district produce >70% of the country's pearl millet hybrid seed requirement, with annual profits estimated at US$8 million. Farmers earn net profits of Rs 9,000-10,000 (about US$250) per acre through this activity, which had previously concentrated in and around Nizamabad, and has lately spread to Kurnool district as well.

This summer, large-scale seed production of HHB 67 Improved was taken up in Nizamabad and Kurnool districts. Naveen Seeds of Adoni, took up seed production on 210 acres in Gajja Halli village in Holagunda mandal of Kurnool district, on vertisols irrigated with water from the lower Thungabadra canal. Farmers there grow chillies and sunflower during the rainy season and pearl millet hybrid in the summer.

This HHB 67 Improved can pay my school fees.

The crop was sown in mid January and was ready for harvest when ICRISAT scientists visited in early April. Seed was directly sown by bullock-drawn implements in rows about 60 cm apart. This distance facilitated interculture operations by bullock-drawn implements. The male (H 77/833-2-202) to female (843-22A) row ratios ranged from 1:4 to 1:12 in different plots. The male and female rows were sown on the same day and there was good nicking during flowering, with the male flowering 2 days in advance of the female. The crop was excellent, with good uniform growth, tillering and very good grain filling. Farmers are most pleased and are expecting 8-10 quintals of seed to be harvested per acre (2.0 to 2.5 t ha -1).

Since its release in 2005, over 2 t of Breeder Seed of the parents of HHB 67 Improved (830 kg of pollinator, 1213 kg male-sterile line, and 191 kg maintainer line) has been supplied by ICRISAT to seed producers, largely for direct multiplication of Certified Seed of the hybrid, but now increasing for Foundation Seed production. With large areas under "HHB 67 Improved" hybrid seed production this summer, we expect that in the coming 2008 rainy season, over 500,000 ha in Haryana and Rajasthan will be sown with HHB 67 Improved, benefiting thousands of farm families.

For more information contact: c.hash@cgiar.org.

The idea of more crop per drop has stimulated research and development to address water-use efficiency and increased production per unit area in cropping systems. Now that same concept of getting more per drop is being expanded to include livestock systems.

The livestock industry has often been criticized because vast amounts of water are needed to produce meat and milk. For example, much more water is needed to produce a kilogram of meat (13.5 m 3) than a kilogram of vegetables (0.15 m 3) or cereal (0.7-1.4 m 3). As the pressure on livestock producers and governments to develop environmentally benign livestock systems mounts, it has become imperative to consider water-use efficiency in livestock systems.

Increasing the water-use efficiency at the farm level will create sustainable systems that avoid risk.

A team of scientists from IWMI, ICRISAT and ILRI together with their NARS partners in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe are studying opportunities to improve the water-use efficiency of crop-livestock systems as part of the BMZ-funded project Improving Water Productivity of Crop-Livestock Systems of Sub-Saharan Africa. Since livestock eat as much as 100 times more water than they drink, much of the research is focused on improving livestock management and feeding systems. The team has identified four main research areas:

• Strategic sourcing of animal feeds - Promoting non-grain food sources with high water productivity, use of crop residues and by-products as feed, and practices that encourage more uniform grazing.

• Enhancing animal productivity and reducing mortalities - Promoting better health, genetics, nutrition, and animal husbandry practices, thereby enabling livestock keepers to get more from fewer animals

• Reducing negative environmental impacts - Managing animals in a manner that reduces land and water degradation

• Strategic provision of drinking water - Providing adequate quality drinking water that is strategically placed to enable animals to reach otherwise inaccessible grazing areas, keep them from contaminating domestic water sources, and enhance production of meat and milk.

The researchers will identify entry points to increase the water-use efficiency at the farm level focusing on livestock products in particular. In so doing, the project will identify the most efficient rather than the most productive systems. Efficient systems are more risk averse and sustainable, especially when allowing farmers to respond to the vagaries of climate change.

For more details contact: a.vanrooyen@cgiar.org.

Underground agents survive the searing SAT

The earthworm is the farmer's friend. Its favorite food, plant matter, nourishes the soil after digestion. In an experiment at ICRISAT-Patancheru, ongoing since 1999, large numbers of earthworms were seen, especially in treatment plots where low-cost inputs, including weeds, glyricidia loppings and other plant materials are used.

Earthworms seen at ICRISAT-Patancheru

Two types of full-grown worms (a) 3 to 5 cm long, and (b) 8 to 10 cm long were found. Both types are native to the soil and need to be identified. The big ones seem similar to Eisenia foetida. The small types were 7 to 15 times more in number than the big types. The fact that full-grown worms were observed in the topsoil within 20 hours and quantified within three days after the rain, suggests that large populations survive in depths lower than 60 cm in the soil profile, which may still be moist.

Details about this experiment are in: Rupela OP. 2008. Organic farming: Building on farmers' knowledge with modern science. Pages 28 to 45 in Organic farming in Rainfed Agriculture: Opportunities and Constraints (Venkateswarlu B, Balloli SS and Ramakrishna YS, eds.). Central Research Institute on Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA), Hyderabad.

For more information contact: o.rupela@cgiar.org.

Reaching the full potential of chickpea in Ethiopia

With 185,000 hectares of land cultivated under chickpea and a total production of 180,000 tons, Ethiopia is the largest producer of chickpea in Africa. Farmers who cannot afford fertilizers use the crop in rotation to improve the productivity of cereals. This characteristic of chickpea has highly integrated the crop into the farming system and makes it a particularly good choice for areas that suffer from soil nutrient depletion.

Despite its high potential for improving the incomes of the poor, chickpea has not been fully exploited in Ethiopia. ICRISAT conducted a study in several primary markets in one of the major chickpea growing areas (Ada-Liben) and tertiary markets in both Addis Ababa and Nazareth, to review the production and marketing of chickpea. The study estimated the production costs, local price trends, access to improved cultivars and identified market access and other institutional constraints in developing the chickpea value chain.

Farmers move their valued chickpea harvest to the homestead for threshing.

Why is the full potential of chickpea not realized in Ethiopia? First, new high-yielding varieties with market-preferred traits have not reached farmers. Second, the local landraces grown by farmers in many countries do not meet the quality and quantity requirements preferred by domestic and international markets and thus it is largely consumed on the farm. Farmers do not gain much from grain quality improvements as traders at the upper end of the market chain capture much of this benefit. Lastly, there is pervasive asymmetric information in the marketing system, which has resulted in opportunistic behavior among the market actors. As far as export markets go, it was found that competitiveness in the South Asian markets mainly depended on prices and was less responsive to quality differentiation.

A concerted effort is needed to introduce high-yielding improved chickpea varieties and efficient market information systems. Increased access to new kabuli varieties will allow farmers to generate a surplus for markets. Existing quality grades need to be integrated into the pricing systems so that actors along the chain will recognize the value of standardized products. Farmers should be advised to keep different varieties separate to differentiate quality grades. Reliable sources of information on available supplies and real time prices in the domestic and international markets are crucial. There is a need for increased participation of the private sector in provision and strengthening of business support services to farmer cooperatives and traders along the value chain. As these requirements are realized, chickpea will begin to contribute substantially to Ethiopia’s agriculture sector.

For more details contact: b.shiferaw@cgiar.org.

A lady leads the learning

Mrs Mbiri Tengerepena is one among the twenty farmers selected by her peers in the Gumulira village to take part in the ICRISAT program for seed systems development, in which each farmer received 20 kg of groundnut variety ICGV-SM 90704 seed, locally called Nsinjiro. She and more than 1200 other farmers participate in the joint ICRISAT-Millennium Village Project (MVP) in Mchinji district in central Malawi.

Mbiri Tengerepena lives in Bwerela Basikolo (a sub-village of Gumulira), and grows a number of crops – groundnut, maize, tobacco and soybean. She has also been growing local groundnut varieties that were low yielding and susceptible to groundnut rosette disease and other foliar diseases.

Mbiri was selected for the ICRISAT program because of her hard work and commitment to groundnut production and other food security initiatives. More importantly, she has shown enthusiasm and guaranteed success in seed production by following recommended practices for groundnut seed production. In addition to the seed provided by ICRISAT for purposes of seed production, Mbiri Tengerepena was also given 10 kg seed as part of the MVP program to popularize rosette resistant groundnut varieties in their villages of intervention.

Mbiri in her thriving groundnut field backed by ICRISAT scientists.

The association between Millennium Village Project and ICRISAT helped Mbiri to access a good, high yielding, medium duration, and rosette resistant variety of groundnut. She rightly observes, “This variety ( ICGV-SM 90704) has the potential to give better yields than our local varieties because it is resistant to many diseases”.

She was overwhelmed and excited when ICRISAT scientists visited her seed production field in late March. In her view, the visit confirms that she is an able and enthusiastic leader, that she is not working in vain and that fellow farmers will be learning from her field how to produce good quality seed. She plans to sell part of the seed produced to the ICRISAT seed revolving scheme and to keep the rest as seed for planting in the next season.

For more details contact: e.monyo@cgiar.org