IAR will soon release Nigerian GMO maize

The preparation to mitigate shortage of maize supply in the country is under way as Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) will soon release a genetically modified maize variety that is fall army worm and stem borer  resistant, with high yield potential for commercialization.

The Executive Director, IAR, Prof. Mohammed F. Ishiaku disclosed to Food Farm News yesterday in his office at Samaru, Zaria.

Prof. Ishiaku said that farmers would be more economically competitive in the production of this  ( Tela maize variety), being having a high drought and insect resistant potentials that can withstand stem borer and fall army worm diseases which had in the past wiped out many farms and thereby making farmers to incur great losses.

He assured Nigerians that the new genetically modified maize would not take loner time like the cowpea because it evaluation process will not involve many breeding processes saying ‘’

The new maize variety when release for commercialization will be competitive enough for our farmers to produce maize in a more cheaper cost because it has drought resistant against stem borer and fall army worm which you know how much destructive they can be. We can all attest to how much yield loss fall army worm can inflict on farms. It will look nonsense for anybody to be importing maize from any other country by the time this variety is released because our own will be cheap enough to compete economically with any other one. And it will make our environment more healthy as there will be reduction in the use of herbicide and insecticide against these diseases by our farmers ’’

  Responding to how soon the variety will be released he said ‘’ this is going to take much shorter time to commercialize because, in the case of cowpea, addition breeding work had  to be done. This may not apply to ‘’ TELA MAIZE’’. It is a crop with breeding system of just one cross for development and evaluate in two years or three on the field’’