promoting certified seed availability of wheat (triticum ... - PJAR

Pakistan J. Agric. Res. Vol. 25 No. 3, 2012PROMOTING CERTIFIED SEED AVAILABILITY OF WHEAT (TRITICUMAESTIVUM L) THROUGH PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP AND ITSIMPACT ON YIELD IN RAINFED AREASMuhammad Tariq*, Raja Muhammad Omer**, Muhammad Ashraf Mian*,Obaid Ur Rehman***, Amjad Tahir Virk and Kazim Abbass**ABSTRACT:- The use of poor quality seed results in poor crop stand andeventually in lesser vegetative growth leading to poor crop yield. Hence, itis the need of the time to enhance provision of certified seed of improvedvarieties to the farmers. An approved wheat variety 'Chakwal-50' of rainfedareas was selected for certified seed production and distribution in rainfedDistrict Chakwal under joint venture of a study on comparison of seedsource(Certified vs. Farmer's seed) contribution towards wheat yield at sixsites in the District. All the agronomic practices were the same in both-2treatments. The number of fertile tillers m were significantly higher incertified seed source than the farmer's own seed that resulted in significantincrease in grain yield. Other yield contributing parameters includingnumber of spikelet per spike, numbers of grains per spike and 1000 grainweight were at par in both seed sources. It was concluded that healthy andpure seed source gave high seed germination and good crop stand whichenabled the plants to withstand abiotic stress especially drought during thecrop season. The seed multiplication of crop varieties of rainfed areas canbe done in irrigated areas to ensure the quality of seed and its availability inrainfed areas, which ultimately will increase the income of the farmingcommunity of the area.Key Words: Wheat; Certified Seed; Rainfed Farming; Public- PrivatePartnership; Crop Yield; Income; Pakistan.INTRODUCTIONWheat crop yield is very low inrainfed areas due to the use of oldand obsolete varieties by most of thefarmers. Consequently area underwheat crop is reducing, resulting indecreased production and eventuallyfarmers loose profit, which increasespoverty level within the localcommunity. Another consequence ofthe prevailing situation is the changein land use from agriculture tocommercial purposes. The process ofland use conversion could beretarded if productivity from availableland could be enhanced. An essentialelement for increasing productivityof any crop is provision of qualityseed. The certified seed of recommendedvarieties is available tovery few farmers in Pakistan. Thesituation is even worse in rainfedareas as authentic seed companiesincluding Punjab Seed Corporation(PSC) are not supplying certified seedof even main cash crops in the area(GoP, 2010). The frequent climaticvariations in the areas discouragethe seed companies to manufacture*Barani Agricultural Research Institute , Chakwal, Pakistan.**Sustainable Land Management Project, Lahore, Pakistan.***Zamindara Seed Corporation, Okara, Pakistan.Corresponding author:barichakwal@yahoo.com174

MUHAMMAD TARIQ ET AL.and market quality seed to farmersin the rainfed areas. The farmers areconsequently using poor quality oldlow yielding varieties seed producedlocally. Due to non-availability of improvedseed in rainfed tract substantialarea remains devoid of agriculturecrops that result in exposureof soil to erosion and leads to soil degradationand desertification.It was, therefore, essentially requiredto explore mechanism foravailability of certified seed of improvedvarieties to farmers in therainfed areas to prevent further expansionof land degradation and desertificationprocess. Furthermore, acomparison between the farmer'sown seed and certified seed had to bemeasured to ascertain magnitude ofeffect on crop yield. Besides that, theimpact of supply of supplementaryirrigation water on yield of certifiedseed in rainfed areas had to begauged to realize the maximum potentialof the improved variety insemi- arid environment.MATERIALS AND METHODThe study was conducted in therainfed District of Chakwal andirrigated District of Okara in Punjabprovince during 2010-12. The firstpart of the study is the Public PrivatePartnership (PPP) mode for certifiedseed production in District Okaraand the second part is the distributionof certified seed in DistrictChakwal and assessment of the cropyield.Public-Private Partnership inSeed ProductionAn innovative approach wasadopted to overcome the climaticvariations that affect production ofcertified seed in the rainfed areas. APPP arrangement was concludedbetween Zamindara Seed Corporation(ZSC) and the Government ofPunjab through the funds providedby the Sustainable Land ManagementProject (SLMP). The standardoperating procedures (SOPs) approvedby the Government of Punjabfor functioning of Foundation SeedCell established in the Ayub AgricultureResearch Institute, Faisalabadwere used. The project invitedsealed bids from the 25 seedcompanies to produce certified seedwith the support of SLMP and BaraniAgricultural Research Institute(BARI), Chakwal. ZSC gave thehighest bid to contribute 52% of thetotal cost of the project.The production of certified seedwas restricted to wheat since it wasthe main cash crop in the study area.Chakwal-50, a high yielding droughttolerant variety developed by BARIwas selected for seed production.Basic seed of Chakwal-50 wasprovided by BARI to the ZSC for theproduction of certified seed throughcontract growers in Okara District.The Geographic Information System(GIS) specialist of SLMP measuredthe area cultivated using GlobalPositioning System (GPS) and RemoteSensing (RS) techniques. Theseed crop was monitored by BARIand Federal Seed Certification andRegistration Department, Islamabad(FSC& RD ) for true to type, purityand healthy seed production.The ZSC procured seed of thevariety from the contract growers onpremium price. The process of seedgrading/cleaning/storage/fumigation and packing under requiredconditions was carried out by ZSCunder the supervision of BARI and175

PROMOTING CERTIFIED SEED AVAILABILITY OF WHEATFSC&RD. The certified seed producedby the ZSC in District Okarawas made available to farmers inDistrict Chakwal through four seeddealers, BARI and also from itsheadquarter in District Okara.Comparison of Crop YieldThe certified wheat seed (T 1) andfarmer's own kept seed (T ) were2sown at six different sites to comparethe yield from the two treatmentsunder rainfed conditions in Chakwaldistrict. One acre plot size, 45 kg-1acre seed rate and 22.5 cm row spacingwas maintained for bothtreatment. Similar cultural practicesand fertilizer doses (one bag each ofDiammonium phosphate, urea andpotash per acre) were applied on allplots at the time of sowing. Thetreatments were sown on November21, 2011 and harvested on April, 28-30, 2012. Different variables onplant growth measured during thetrial included plant height (cm),-2number of fertile tillers m , spikelength (cm), numbers of spikelets-1 -1spike , number of grains spike ,1000 grain weight (g) and grain yield-1(tha ). The results of different cropvariables were bulked up to eachlocation and treatment for the principalcomponent analysis (PCA) (Jolliffe,1986). The ANOVA means forcrop yield of certified and farmer'sseed for different sites were obtainedby using MSTAT-C statistical analysesprogramme (Steel and Torrie,1980). The ANOVA means for cropyield of certified seed under irrigatedand rainfed conditions was obtainedby using MSTAT-C statistical analysesprogramme. The overall differencesbetween individual meanswere examined by LSD tests(Cochran and Cox, 1957). Any twomeans whose difference exceededthe LSD value at alpha=0.05 wereconsidered to be significantly different.RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONPublic-Private Partnership in SeedProductionDue to timely availability of canalirrigation water in District Okaraduring rabi season the seed crop ofwheat was satisfactory as certified inthe reports of FSC&RD. ZSC had toplant the basic seed (3750 kg) of thevariety over 75 acres as peragreement to produce certified seedin District Okara, however, usingabout 136,639 kg seed was procuredfrom the growers by the ZSC and90,000 kg quality seed waseventually obtained after cleaning/gradingetc. It can be estimatedthat about 34% seed was lost duringthe grading, cleaning and packagingstages. The major distribution ofcertified seed in District Chakwalwas through BARI (25,300 kg)whereas the remaining distributionof seed was through four seeddealers of Tehsil Talagang and KalarKahar.Comparison of Crop YieldThe results showed that theaverage of 6 locations for two parametersi.e., number of fertile tillers-2m and number of spikelet per spikewere significantly different for farmer'sown seed and certified seed.Whereas, there was no significantdifference between the farmers's ownseed and certified seed among plantheight, spike length, number ofgrains per spike and 1000 grainweight. Meaningfully, the percent-2increase in number of tillers m and176

MUHAMMAD TARIQ ET AL.Table 1.Location wise comparisonn of certified and farmer's own seed for yieldand yield components under rainfed conditions of wheat in ChakwalDistrictLocation Seed source Height(cm)No. of fertiletillers(m 2 )Spikelength(cm)No. ofspike lets/spikeNo. ofgrains/ spike1000 grainwt (g)Yield(tha -1 )JhamraCertified seed 89.0 400.0 9.8 18.3 20.3 26.7 2.18Farmer’s own seed 85.3 278.3 7.7 14.3 18.3 37.5 1.79MianiCertified seed 82.7 409.3 10.1 19.0 25.0 33.5 3.48Farmer’s own seed 84.3 309.3 9.3 17.0 26.3 41.7 3.01DhurnalCertified seed 78.7 246.3 9.7 18.3 19.7 24.6 1.00Farmer’s own seed 86.0 201.3 8.7 13.0 18.7 24.3 0.76Pindi GujranCertified seed 82.7 361.0 9.7 19.0 24.0 33.9 2.50Farmer’s own seed 83.3 268.3 8.7 16.3 25.0 28.2 1.70TalagangCertified seed 84.3 351.7 10.5 19.0 29.7 33.5 3.13Farmer’s own seed 85.0 256.3 10.0 18.3 24.7 28.9 1.84Rahna SadaatCertified seed 91.3 322.0 10.7 18.3 29.7 28.5 2.47Farmer’s own seed 76.7 192.3 9.6 19.0 24.0 26.1 1.00Avg. of 6locationsCertified seed 84.8 348.4 10.1 18.7 24.7 30.1 2.46Farmer’s own seed 83.4 251.0 9.0 16.3 22.8 31.1 1.66% increase overfarmer’s own seed2 28 11 13 8 -3 32number of spikelet per spike was28% and 13% for certified seed overfarmer's own seed, respectively(Table 1).The PCA indicated that the cropyield obtained from the farmer's seedwas strongly correlated to thenumber of tillers and 1000-grainweight (Table 2). Furthermore, theincrease in number of tillers wascorrelated with 1000-grain weight(Table 2). It can be inferred that theyield from farmer's own seed was dependentupon the number of tillerswhereas the length of spikes impactedthe yield of certified seed. Thegermination of non-certified seed isrelatively low that increases spacebetween the plants. Consequentlythe number of tillers was relativelymore in non-certified seed to fill upthe empty space between plantsTable 2.Variables Yield Height No. ofTillersFarmer SeedYield 1Height 0.287 1No. of tillers 0.931 0.485 1Cross-products matrix containingcorrelation coefficientsamong crop variablesobtained through PrincipalComponents Analysis (PCA)for farmer and certified seedused at the six locationsSpikelengthSpike length 0.085 -0.406 -0.205 1Spikeletsspike -1Spikelets spike -1 0.246 -0.671 0.008 0.799 1Grains.spike -1 0.554 -0.360 0.340 0.729 0.805 1Grains 1000-spike -1 grain wt1000 grain wt. 0.890 0.390 0.897 -0.302 -0.079 0.143 1Certified seedYield 1Height 0.265 1No. of Tillers 0.777 0.372 1Spike length 0.532 0.582 0.079 1Spikelets spike -1 0.735 -0.368 0.472 0.071 1Grains spike -1 0.657 0.433 0.142 0.924 0.378 11000 grain wt. 0.740 -0.121 0.642 0.021 0.747 0.238 1Degrees of freedom (df) = 28; Values in bold are significantlycorrelated at alpha = 0.05 for farmers’ seed and 0.01 forCertified seed177

PROMOTING CERTIFIED SEED AVAILABILITY OF WHEAT(Ahmad et al., 1999; Amjad andAnderson, 2006; Behera, 1995). Onthe contrary, the increase in length ofspikes had strong correlation withthe grains produced per spike forcertified seed. Due to better germinationof certified seed the plantsare close to each other that allowvertical rather than horizontalgrowth. Presumably it was due to thesame reason that the length of spikeswas longer and eventually producedhigher number of grains per spikethat resulted in better yield ofcertified seed (Lesznyak, 1996; Iqbalet al., 2010).The crop yield obtained from thecertified seed was significantlyhigher than the seed used by thefarmers from own source (Table 3). A32% increase in crop yield was observeddue to use of certified seed.The difference in crop yield washighly significant between the sixsites for both certified and farmer'sseed (Table 3). The overall interactionbetween the sites and certified seedwas also highly significant. It is atypical feature of the rainfed areasthat the crop yield varies for differentsites and even within the same sitedue to climatic variation (Ercoli andMasoni, 1995; Malik et al., 1996).Availability of soil moisture onsustained basis particularly in semi-Table 3.Sites (ST)SeedQuality (S)Farmer seed(N=18)Certified seed(N=18)Mean (ST)N=36F test P-Value (S)ANOVA means of wheat yield-1(tha ) for farmer own seedand certified seed at differentsitesJamra Miani Talagang Pindi Bilal Rahna Mean (S) F test P-Gujran Abad SadatValue (ST)N=6 N=6 N=6 N=6 N=6 N=6 N=361.79 cd 3.00 a 0.75 e 1.69 d 1.83 cd 0.99 e 2.46 a2.17 bc 3.47 a 0.99 e 2.50 b 3.13 a 2.47 b 1.68 b1.98 c 3.24 a 0.88 d 2.10 bc 2.49 b 1.74 c0.00000.0075S*ST=0.0038LSD value = 5.306; LSD value for ST= 5.129 and for S=5.306 at alpha 0.05arid climatic conditions is a majorlimiting factor towards obtainingoptimum crop yield (Shoukat et al.,1999; Subhani et al., 2012).The yield obtained from thecertified seed with application oftube well supplementary irrigationwas significantly higher than thatunder rainfed condition at two sites(Jhamra, Miani) in Chakwal (Table4). The increase in crop yield onovercoming the water limitation was41%. This has clearly been shownfrom the results that even the yield ofcertified seed increased on providingsustained supply of water to the cropas compared to the same seedcultivated under rainfed conditionswithout varying the site. It may beconcluded that the farmers have achoice to double their yield by usingimproved seed and by applyingsupplementary irrigation wherepossible in rainfed climate.It was a unique PPP betweenBARI, Chakwal; Govt. of Punjab anda local seed company. The PPParrangement undertaken as part ofthe Project is the first of its kind inthe seed sector. The arrangementwas cost effective since all partieshad suitable human resource andinfrastructure available to achievethe desired outputs. The use of GPSand RS technology to measureTable 4.Irrigation (I)Irrigated (N=6)Rainfed (N=6)F test P-Value (I)ANOVA means of Wheat-1Yield (tha ) obtained fromcertified seed produced bySLMP at Jhamra & Mianisite under irrigated andrainfed variationsMean (I) N=124.76 a2.82 b0.000Values with the same superscript are not significantlydifferent at alpha=0.05 & alpha=0.01LSD value at alpha 0.05 = 4.20, LSDvalue at alpha 0.01 = 6.59178

MUHAMMAD TARIQ ET AL.cultivated area has potential forreplication by crop assessment wingof agricultural institutions. Althoughthe seed company was slightlyreluctant to cultivate rainfed varietyof wheat under the impression thatthe crop yield will be quite less,however, due to higher resilience ofthe rainfed variety the crop yield wasquite high. The seed production anddistribution stages were timelycompleted. The role of BARI in thePPP was pivotal since all seedcompanies; agriculture extensionworkers and local farmers haveworking relationship with theresearch institute on initiativesrelated to dry land agriculture. Itmay be concluded that any PPParrangement can successfully beimplemented if lead role is given to anintermediary institution that haslong term technical and socialacceptability for all parties.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTThe study was completed withthe financial assistance provided byZSC and SLMP. The technical andadministrative support in completingthe PPP project became possibledue to the input provided by theGovernment of Punjab, Planning &Development Department. Thelaunching of this initiative was onlypossible due to the background workalready completed by the FoundationSeed Cell of the AgricultureDepartment Punjab.LITERATURE CITEDAhmad, B. Iftikhar, M. Shafi, M.Akbar, H. Khan, H. and Raziq, A.1999. Effect of row spacing onthe yield and yield componentsof wheat. Sarhad J. Agric. 15:103-106.Amjad, M. and Anderson, W.K. 2006.Managing yield reduction fromwide row spacing in wheat. Aust.J. Exp. Agric. 46:1313-1321.GOP. 2010. Agricultural Statistics ofPakistan, Ministry of Food andAgriculture and Cooperative,(Planning Unit), Government ofPakistan, Islamabad.Behera, A.K. 1995. Effect of seedrate, row spacing and fertilizeron wheat (Triticum aestivum).Indian J. Agron. 40: 510-511.Cochran, W.G. and Cox, G.M. 1957.Experimental Designs. p. 127-131.Ercoli, L. and Masoni, A. 1995.Effects of row spacing andorientation on yield and yieldcomponents of winter wheat.Agricoltura Mediterranean, 125:215-221.Jolliffe, I. T. 1986. PrincipalComponent Analysis. Springer-Verlag. p. 487.Kent, M. and Coker, P.1992.Vegetation description andanalysis: A practical approach.CRC Press.Lesznyak, C.M. 1996. Grain yielda n d p l a n t p o p u l a t i o nrelationships in hard red springwheat. Crop Sci. 25: 521-525.Malik, M.A. Rasheed, M.H. andRazzaq, A. 1996. Row spacingstudy on two wheat varietiesunder rainfed conditions.Sarhad J. Agric. 12:31-36.Iqbal, N, Akbar, N., Ali, M. Sattar, M.and Ali, L. 2010. Effect of seedrate and row spacing on yieldand yield components of wheat(Triticum aestivum L.). J. Agric.Res., 48: 151-155.Shoukat, A. Shah, P. Sharif, H.M.and Ali, I. 1999.Yield, yield179

PROMOTING CERTIFIED SEED AVAILABILITY OF WHEATcomponents and other importantagronomic traits of wheatas affected by seeding rate andplanting geometry. SarhadJ.Agric.15:255-262.Steel, R.G.D. and Torrie, J.H. 1980.Principles and procedures ofstatistics. McGraw Hill Inc. NewYork.Subhani, A. Tariq, M., Mahmood, A.Latif, R. and Iqbal, M.S. 2012.Eliminating summer fallowaffects soil moisture and yields ofwheat and chickpea crops inrainfed regions. Plants andEnviron. 1: 1-7.180