CIMMYT to provide 78 wheat varieties to BARI   
Maryam Naseer
Publications Officer, PARB

Under a Punjab Agricultural Research Board (PARB) funded project, wheat varieties are being collected from world renowned body to cultivate on trial basis in the Punjab province. Dr. Tariq Director Barani Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) Chakwal, visited International Wheat and Maize Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), Mexico under the PARB-funded project entitled “Development of nutrient use efficient wheat germplasm for food security in rainfed areas of Pakistan”.

During the visit wheat selections were also carried out from the advanced elite wheat material sown in the experimental station Obregon. Seventy eight advance lines were selected on phenotypic basis, which will be provided to BARI, Chakwal after harvesting for further testing in the barani as well as irrigated areas of Punjab.

Last year CIMMYT launched the wheat program on micronutrients like Zn and Fe for the biofortification to combat the malnutrition in the South Asian countries. “In future we will collaborate with CIMMYT to get the micronutrient based developed nurseries and will utilize it for breeding program to develop the nutritionally enriched wheat varieties,” Dr. Tariq added.

Dr. Tariq observed that in order to address the issue of edible oil import in Mexico, the Government has suggested to plant safflower crop. Many farmers are cultivating this crop and according to them being a hard and drought tolerant crop they also get more economical gain as compared to wheat. “Seed of five varieties of safflower has also been brought to conduct experimental/adoptability studies in the low rain fall areas of rainfed tract”.

CIMMYT is focusing on the agriculture conservation by utilization of resources. In rainfed areas the crop is irrigated through the high efficient irrigation systems like the sprinkler and drip. The most important aspect of conservation agriculture is that all the crops (wheat, maize, sorghum, safflower and soybean) are being cultivated on raised bed with residues of the previous crops. Moreover many farmers are using sprinkler irrigation for wheat and safflower crops. Majority of the farmers asses the crop need for nitrogen fertilizers (urea) through the facility of remote sensing provided by the farmers union (cooperative) at cost of US$ 6/ha, and are saving 20-30% expenditure on nitrogen fertilizers and reducing the environmental pollution.

Many training activities were being carried out includes field visit of Sonora valley having 341 tube wells installed along the main canals which were centralized through satellite. These tube wells pump out the water and put it into the main canal which provides water to the farmers’ field. District Government charges 52 US $/ha for irrigation per annum.

The average wheat yield of the valley is 6.2 tones/ha but the majority is getting 7 to 8 tones/ha. This wheat is exported to the developed countries especially USA to get the foreign exchange. TheThe next visit was to Obregon, experimental station of CIMMYT. On this experimental station the scientist develop about 2000 wheat crosses per year for the varietal development among which 40% are rejected at the F1 stage and 20 ha area is under the F2 population.

CIMMYT target is 2% annual yield increase through the agronomic practices. Demonstration was given on different wheat nurseries regarding to the rust resistance, kernel bunt, fusarium, stem rust Ug-99, heat tolerance, wheat quality and the development of early maturing varieties. CIMMYT is also taking the observations on the Pakistani germplasm like, Inqilab-91, Pak-81 and Mexipak. CIMMYT is running the synthetic wheat program to develop the new diversity in the elite cultivated wheat varieties.

The participants were also showed the conservation based cropping systems and management, raised bed technology, zero tillage sprinkler irrigation and water conservation, assessment/diagnosis of nitrogen fertilizer through remote sensing which is an efficient fertilizer application method help to save 20% fertilizer.

The new intervention in the CIMMYT is the cultivation of safflower due to water shortage and to mitigate the edible oil import. Farmer Association purchases the farmers yield and ensure the payment in time. The farmers chop the stalk in the field which improve the soil nutrient status and beneficial for soil conservation and water retention.

The visit was very fruitful and learned a lot regarding the wheat selection from the segregating populations, rust scoring and best ideotype selections, crop agronomy and conservation agriculture.