On-farm Evaluation of Maize Varieties

during the 2009/2010 Cropping Season in

Mozambique

Proposing Institution:

Instituto Superior Politécnico de Manica (Chimoio - Mozambique)

Proposed by:

Sarrok dos Anjos C. I. Talhada, Agronomist

Lecturer
 Wednesday, 08 July 2009

INDEX

1. BACKGROUND AND PROJECT JUSTIFICATION ..........................................................................1

1.1. THE PARTNERS .........................................................................................................................................1
2. PROJECT OBJECTIVES.........................................................................................................................2
2.1. GENERAL OBJECTIVE ................................................................................................................................2
2.2. SPECIFICS OBJECTIVES ..............................................................................................................................2
3. THE ACTIVITIES ....................................................................................................................................2
3.1. THE TRAIL DESIGN (MOTHER-BABY TRAIL - MBT).....................................................................................2
3.1.1. Mother Trail..................................................................................................................................2
3.1.2. Baby Trail ...................................................................................................................................3
4. THE MAJOR STEPS OF PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION................................................................3
5. SPECIFIC OUTPUT GOALS ..................................................................................................................4
6. EXPECTED OUTCOMES .......................................................................................................................4
7. SUPPORT ACTIVITIES EXPECTED FROM NCU ............................................................................4

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Project title: On-farm Evaluation of Maize Varieties during the 2009/2010 Cropping
Season in Mozambique

Proposing Institution: Instituto Superior Politécnico de Manica

Project elaborated by: Sarrok dos Anjos C. I. Talhada (Agronomist - Lecturer)

1. Background and project justification

The Instituto Superior Politécnico de Manica (ISPM) is a Public Higher Education
institution located in Manica province, Gondola district. At present, The ISPM trains
people in the areas of Agriculture, Animal Production, Forestry and, Accounting and
Auditing. The ISPM has 10 agronomists in its staff with potential to provide good
research and extension activities, services that in addition to the academics are part of its
mandate. The ISPM has a Competence Based Learning Curricula where the students
spent almost 30 percent of their studies in internships at companies all over Mozambique.
That’s a reason why the ISPM has partners all over the country who can support and
make it possible to us conduct On-Farm Experiments in numerous sites at the same time.

During this year, 2009, ISPM has multiplied 6 ha of maize (Zea mays L.) Basic seed of
the Matuba variety under dry land conditions to contribute to seed availability in the
market. The ISPM decided to be part of the seed value chain because in our activities at
different locations of Mozambique we have seen that one of the most limiting causes to
production of maize is that most of small farmers don’t use certified seed. In addition of
that only few Varieties are available in the market and yet not known by most farmers.
The south region (Figure 1), Inhambane, Gaza and Maputo, the productivity is very low
because of the lack of drought tolerant varieties well adapted to this region with low
precipitation.

1.1. The partners

To this point there are some partners already committed to the project:
• IDEAA;
• IIAM -CZ Centre - The Maize program;
• National Seed Service;
• SIWAMA (Union of agricultural association of Manica);
• And another partners we are already working on student’s internships.

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2. Project Objectives

2.1. General Objective

• Introduce improved maize varieties and assess the performance of these new
and a number of released varieties on farmers fields to increase the possibility
to the farmers to make more informed decisions about which varieties to
grow according to their conditions

2.2. Specifics Objectives

• Conduct On- Farm Maize variety trail
• Introduce more productive and drought tolerant maize varieties
• Register and disseminate the varieties with good performance

3. The activities
The major activity proposed by the Project is to conduct On farm evaluation of new and
released varieties using Mother – Baby Trail Scheme. There will be evaluated 12
varieties, news and released, OPVs and hybrids (Table 1). We will grow released
varieties within the trials to allow us to compare the performance of new varieties to
existing well known varieties.

Table 1. Type of variety and year released

Variety Type of variety Year released
ZM 309 OPV Not released
ZM 401 OPV Not released
Chinaca (ZM 521) OPV 2003
ZM 523 OPV Not released
ZM 621 OPV 2003
ZM 623 OPV Not released
ZM 721 OPV Not released
PAN 53 Hybrid Released
HLUVUKANE Hybrid 2008
OLIPA Hybrid 2008
CML444/CML445//CZL054 Hybrid Not released
ZS261 Hybrid Not released

3.1. The trail Design (Mother-Baby Trail - MBT)

There will be planted 15 Mother-Baby trails all over Mozambique. One in each province
(11 provinces) and others four will planted in specific sites identified has region with
high potential on maize production (Figure 1), such as: Lichinga –Niassa, Milange –
Zambézia, Angónia- Tete and Bárue – Manica.

3.1.1. Mother Trail

Each location will have two types of trials with all treatments (12 Varieties)

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Green trail: Under recommended agronomic practices related to fertilizers application,
i.e. 250kg/ha of basal fertilizer (Compound D) and 250 kg/ha of topdress fertilizer (Urea)
Yellow trial: Under farmer-representative conditions, 150 kg/ha of topdress fertilizer if
the farmers apply any.
Plot size: two rows 6 meters long (with 90 cm between rows and 30 cm between plants)

3.1.2. Baby Trail

Each Baby Trail contains 4 varieties, since each variety must be evaluated by two
farmers; the number of baby trails grown in each community will be 2*12/4, i.e. 6 Baby
trails. Plot size: 100 m2

High Potential

Good potential

Regular

Low Potential

Marginal

Figure 1 Agro-ecologic Maize regions in Mozambique

4. The major steps of Project Implementation

The first step will be identification of partners amongst Agricultural Universities,
Research institutes and agricultural companies. After identification they will be invited to
a general meeting where we will choose members for the Coordination Unit in three

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regions of Mozambique (North, South and Center). These members will facilitate the
activities in the regions and coordinate directly to the national coordinator in the ISPM.
The meeting will also be for the training with partners and identification of locations for
Mother Trails.

Once identified places for mother trails the partners will identify the farmers for Baby
Trails a send their names and data to the Coordination Unit. With these names the
Coordination Unit will contact with CIMMYT to labeling and introduction of the new
variety seeds. And the Collection of and released from IIAM or other seed Company.
Next step will be developing instructions, field books for the partners/farmers and
preparing the seed. After that there will be made the Planning the first visit according to
the expected beginning of the rainy season. Then it there will be made 1st, 2nd and 3rd
visits. The data Collection will start in the 3rd visit and while the data is collected the team
in the ISPM will do the systematization for statistical analysis. After the data collection
and analysis there will be another last meeting with all partners to provide them the trails
results. And there will be a continuous dissemination of results of the On –farm variety
trails grown in different locations in the country.

5. Specific Output Goals

• Increased number of registered varieties used by the farmers

• More and ease of access of certified seed to farmers
• Increased number of drought tolerant varieties that perform well under poor
farmers conditions

6. Expected Outcomes

• The farmer will have access to new and improved maize varieties
• Farmer will be able to make more informed decisions about which varieties to
grow according to their conditions
• Augmented productivity of the small farmers as the result of using the most
appropriate varieties for their production system

7. Support Activities expected from NCU

• Identification of more nutritious and improved maize varieties with good

performance under drought conditions
• Introduction of correct labeled kits of seed of these new varieties for the Mother-
Baby Trails
• Facilitate acquisition of seed of released varieties
• Current costs of running the project ( Shipment of trail kits, people travelling per
diems, fuel, fertilizer and pesticides, field days, communication )
• Registration of the most accepted varieties
• Summary of trial results and information dissemination