New Varieties to Help Improve Maize Productivity and Income-Generation for Resource-Poor Farmers.
The new hybrids have potential yields of 7.0/ha and 8.5t/ha respectively, attracting preference from most farmers, mainly because of other qualities including early maturity, which has an advantage during erratic rainfall seasons especially in the second planting in South West Nigeria, and grain size and high starch content, which are good for livestock feed mill. For instance, the Ife Maizehyb-08the weighs better and has high energy to release from feed.
There is a real gap between production and needs of maize in the southern part of Nigeriawhich is mainly due to demographic increase, drought, diseases, new requirements from end-users (poultry feed, livestock feed, breweries, processors etc.) and appearance of agri-business farmers who are requesting hybrids.
The humid forest ecologies of Nigeria are great potential zones for maize production which can help to reduce this gap with the availability of high yielding adapted hybridssuch the Ife Maizehyb-07 and Ife Maizehyb-08.
Dr. Toure Aboubacar, AGRA's Program Officer for Crop Improvement and Variety Adoption said: 'AGRA's strategy to meet the needs of smallholder farmers across Africa is yielding great results. We are very happy that our support to national research institutions to develop, register and release improved varieties of staple crops such as maize is paying off as exemplified by the release of these two new maize varieties. Our work is aligned with the Nigerian government's policy on maize value chain development.'
The Ife Maize hyb-07, which was formerly calledSW5-OB x IART-INBRED1 is a top cross hybrid of ART/98/SW5-OB x IART Inbred 1 pedigree. It has forest and derived savanna agro-ecologies adaptation with 98 days maturity period, and 7.0t/ha potential yield character. It is also tolerant to maize streak virus, rust, leaf blight, and curvularia leaf spot with an outstanding dent floury grain character containing starch, ash, fat, and protein. Similarly, the Ife Maize-hyb 08, formerly called Ile 1 -OB x IAR-INBRED 1, has a potential yield of 8.50/ha and 110 days to maturity. Ife Maize hyb-08 has similar other characteristics as the Ife Maize hyb-07.
The release of these varieties has been made possible through AGRA's grant to the Institute of Agricultural Research and Training, Obafemi Awolowo University in Ibadan,Nigeria, and the hard work of Dr. Samuel Adelowo Olakojo and his team, who managed a team of professional breeders.
The grant seeks to increase the production and productivity of smallholder farmers in the humid forest ecologies of Nigeria by developing and promoting ten top cross hybrid maize adaptable to the region.It took over fiveyears of intensive research work to develop, register and release the varieties.Having achieved this major milestone, AGRA, in collaboration with IAR&T, will now engage in demonstration and awareness creation activities to prepare for a major commercialization of these new varieties which are expected to transform the farming lives of millions of rice farmers, not only in Nigeria, but across West Africa and beyond.
For more information, please contact:
Felix Deyegbe
Communications Specialist
Tel: +233.302.768.602
Mobile: +233.246.937.430
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