Adoption of Improved Sorghum and Pearl Millet ... - Icrisat

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grow it. The local landraces are late-maturing and therefore vulnerable to end-of-season drought, but avoid the peak of the quelea birds. Okoa is intermediate in maturity – at least three weeks earlier than most local landraces but still able to avoid excessive quelea damage. Shibe, released at the same time as Okoa, remains unknown to farmers. This variety was developed from a Dodoma landrace, and is thus similar to landraces in maturity and physical characteristics. Many farmers who received the seed from relief organizations or government programs have been unable to differentiate it from their local landraces, and may not even realize they are in fact growing Shibe. Adoption of Shibe is therefore likely to be underreported. Diffusion patterns in pearl millet were different from those in sorghum. Nearly as many farmers learned about the new variety Okoa from extension officers as from other farmers (Table 15). This is probably because pearl millet variety adoption has been due to farmers exchanging seed among themselves. NGO- or government-supported seed multiplication groups have shown little interest in pearl millet; seed has come from farmers and from the primary schools program. Grain Yields from the New Varieties The survey asked farmers to estimate planted area and yield of their crops. Their yield estimates are very rough and based on bags per acre or number of 20-liter buckets. These were converted into tons per hectare for reporting purposes. Adoption data were collected and averaged across Table 14. Proportion of farmers planting alternative pearl millet varieties, 1999/00 and 2000/01 seasons. Dodoma Singida Tabora Shinyanga Mwanza Mara Lindi Mtwara Arusha (n=40) (n=31) (n=16) (n=32) (n=50) (n=16) (n=33) (n=32) (n=16) 2000/01 Okoa 27.5 29.0 – – – – – – – Shibe – 3.2 – – – – – – – Local 55.0 52.0 – 21.0 20.0 – – – – 1999/2000 Okoa 40.0 29.0 – – – – – – – Shibe – 3.2 – – – – – – – Local 40.0 57.0 – 15.0 24.0 – – – 43.8 – = no response Table 15. Percentage of farmers learning about the improved pearl millet variety Okoa from different sources, 2001. Extension Other farmers Research Other Dodoma 58.1 38.7 3.2 – Singida 47.6 42.8 4.8 4.8 Shinyanga 50.0 50.0 – – Weighted mean* 41.6 32.3 2.3 0.9 * Weighted in terms of number of farmers, ie number of farmers sampled in the region as a proportion of total sorghum farmers in the sample 13
two seasons: 1998/99 (poor season, long dry spells, below-normal harvests) and 1999/2000, which was a normal season. Farmers reported that Pato gave the highest yields. Across the two seasons, yields were Pato 1.2 t ha -1 , followed by Tegemeo 0.98 and Serena 0.82 t ha -1 , compared to an average of 0.62 t ha -1 from the local varieties used as controls (Table 16). Data are not reported for two other improved varieties, Lulu and Macia, which are grown by less than 5% of farmers nationally and are confined to one or two regions only. Macia was released only in 1999, and little seed has been distributed. Lulu is an old variety released in the 1960s; seed is no longer maintained by the national seed service and is available only from other farmers. Pearl millet is grown mostly in Dodoma, Singida, Shinyanga, and Tabora. The two varieties with significant adoption are Okoa and Serere 17. Adoption of Shibe, released 6 years ago, is very limited; although adoption may be under-reported, as discussed above. Farmers reported that Okoa gave the highest yield, 1 t ha -1 (Table 16). Serere 17 yielded significantly less than local landraces, largely because of its vulnerability to birds. This variety has essentially been rejected for this reason, and is now found only in parts of Singida and Shinyanga. In these areas, there has been considerable introgression (due to natural cross-pollination) of Serere with local landraces, thus delaying its maturity and reducing its vulnerability to bird damage. Overall, the new sorghum and pearl millet varieties outyielded local landraces by 10 to 38%, under farmer management conditions. Farmers’ Varietal Preferences Sorghum In order to understand variety-preference criteria, farmers were asked what they liked most about each sorghum variety they were growing (Table 17). Farmers growing improved varieties (Pato, Tegemeo, Macia, Serena, Lulu), almost without exception, cited one or both of two traits – early maturity and drought tolerance (which are in fact closely related). These two traits, as well as good taste and high yield, were the characteristics farmers most liked in these varieties. Farmers were impressed by early maturity Table 16. Average yield (t ha -1 ) from improved and local varieties based on survey data, 2000/01 cropping season. Variety Mean ± SD Sorghum Pato (n=42) 1.2 ± 0.91 Tegemeo (n=27) 0.98 ± 0.55 Serena (n=30) 0.82 ± 0.62 Local (n=131) 0.62 ± 0.54 Mean (n=230) 0.75 ± 0.50 Pearl millet Okoa (n=21) 1.0 ± 0.63 Serere 17 (n=8) 0.52 ± 0.35 Local (n=32) 0.91 ± 0.72 Mean (n=61) 0.81 ± 0.56 14
Page 1 and 2: International Crops Research Instit
Page 3 and 4: Adoption of Improved Sorghum and Pe
Page 5 and 6: Contents Sorghum and pearl millet p
Page 7 and 8: Table 1. Sorghum area (‘000 ha) i
Page 9 and 10: Sources: Crop Monitoring and Early
Page 11 and 12: On-station trials, pearl millet The
Page 13 and 14: Fluctuations in planted area Survey
Page 15 and 16: In the 2000 season, the schools con
Page 17: Adoption of Improved Pearl Millet V
Page 21 and 22: Serena is a high-tannin variety. Th
Page 23 and 24: Priority Areas for Sorghum and Mill
Page 25 and 26: Annex 1. Improved Varieties Release
Page 27 and 28: susceptible to kernel smut. Has the
Page 29: About ICRISAT The International Cro

Adoption of Improved Sorghum and Pearl Millet ... - Icrisat

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