The Eleventh Regional Wheat Workshop For Eastern ... - Cimmyt

THE INTRODUCTION OF DISEASE AND PEST RESISTANT
WHEAT CULTIV ARS TO SMALL-SCALE FARMING SYSTEMS
IN THE HIGHLANDS OF LESOTHO
John Tolmayi, M.L. Rbsenblum 2 , M. Moletsane 2 , M. Makula 2 and T. Pederson 2
IARC-Small Grain Institute, Private bag X29, Bethlehem, 9700, South Africa
2GROW, P.O. Box 74, Mokhotlong, 500, Lesotho
ABSTRACT
Summer wheat is one of the major crops planted by farmers in the highlands
of Lesotho. The crop is used by subsistence farmers for food, roofing material,
fuel and seed. Currently, farmers are using "farmer varieties" dating back to
the early 1960s and 80s. No adoption of new cultivars with modern traits such
as Russian wheat aphid or yellow rust resistance has taken place in the area. A
partnership was forged between the ARC-Small Grain Institute and GROW, a
development agency operating in the Mokhotlong Valley, to introduce and
evaluate new varieties utilizing nurseries of the agency's Seeds of Wellbeing
project. New cultivars look promising in terms of yield increase, but they have
not yet been sufficiently evaluated with regards to stability and adaptation to
the environment. Suitability of new cultivars to farmers' needs will be
determined through farmer participation in the trials and by testing selected
cultivars in farmers' own field plots: It is foreseen that research capacity in the
area and the linkages between research, the development agency and farmers
in the field, will be strengthened as a result of this partnership.
INTRODUCTION
Summer wheat is one of the major crops planted by farmers in the Highlands of Lesotho. The
crop provides food, roofing material, fuel and seed to subsistence farming households
(Collinson, 1989; Rosenblum, Ts'iu and Moletsane, 1999) who grow the crop at elevations of
2100-2300 m. The crop is typically established with carryover seed from the previous season
soon after the onset of the spring rains. According to Rosenblum et al. (1999), varieties used
by farmers are not pure and can be divided into six different types or "farmer varieties".
Though mixing of varieties may be purely accidental, genetic variation within the local wheat
populations could contribute to sustainability of production by reducing risks of specific
threats to overall harvest (Worede and Mekbib, 1993 as quoted by Rosenblum et al. (1999».
The same authors point out that modern high yielding genotypes rarely outperform farmers'
traditional varieties and they quote Majoro and Holland (1986) who stated that this had been
the case in Mokhotlong as modern varieties released there in the past had not significantly
increased yields.
According to a survey performed by Rosenblum et at. (1999), farmers described the three
wheat varieties most commonly used as Bolane, Mants' a 17ala and Mohohlotsane. Bolane is
a tall variety that was included in cultivar trials in Maseru during the sixties (Weinmann,
1966). As a variety it did not show much potential for yield and was consistently
outperformed by other cultivars during that time. It has a low tillering capacity and prominent
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