IN

V.SEED USE AND SUPPLY

V.7. FIELD SEED PRODUCTION CONDITIONS

V.7.1. CONTAMINANTS

Traveling by car, it was common to see fields which appeared to be varietal mixtures, and rye (wild rye?) and wild oats were common. In field edges, and in the fields, Convolvulus spp and other weeds were quite noticeable, especially in spring-planted fields. It is clear that production of clean, pure wheat seed (which meets any reasonable standards) will require training farmers to rogue out undesirable plants, and that this has not yet become a commonly-accepted practice in the "informal" seed supply.

Since wheat, as a grass, is harvested by cutting and bundling, it is highly unlikely that pure seed is produced by the laborers who harvest the fields removing the wild oats and rye as they cut the wheat plants. Thus, it appears unlikely that the farmer-saved seed is of high quality, as often claimed by those who give the farmer credit for advanced crop selection skills.

By far the major contaminant problem for seed production, at the field level, is the contamination by volunteer rye plants. Every field seen in all travels, unless it had been rogued, contained volunteer rye plants. In some fields, it appeared that half or more of the plants were rye plants.

Roguing to remove rye plants, beginning at the early heading stage, is an essential process. And, the plants must be pulled up by the roots and removed from the fields; plants cannot be broken off, and the roots left, or they will resume growing.

FAO seed production supervisors advised us that rye must be rogued from the fields after each irrigation, beginning at the heading stage. It is difficult to understand, without actually seeing it in the fields, the extent to which rye seed survive in the field soils and then emerge as volunteer plants.

Other common contaminants include bindweed (Convolvulus spp.), very common in fields here, which in some other countries is considered as a prohibited noxious weed completely banned in seed fields. Wild oats (Avena fatua) is reported to be a major problem, especially in some areas, but was not seen at this crop stage in fields visited. White top (a Compositae, genus unknown to us) is also a serious problem.

Research in rainfed wheat in the western US in the mid-1900's found that even one contaminant plant per square meter would reduce yields. Weed and other-crop infestations in Afghanistan wheat fields seem to be the general situation, and will be quite difficult to control, given local conditions.

V.7.2. APHIDS

A major problem is said to be aphids. Aphids are associated with transmission of a stripe disease, cause leaf curling, and generally sap the plants. It was reported that, if uncontrolled, in the Ghazni area aphids can reduce wheat yields as must as 50% if the fields are not sprayed. FAO sprays its seed fields twice to control aphids; general farmers spray only once. With control sprays (several insecticides reportedly give good control), yield reduction is said not to exceed about 10%. "Metaphos" spray at 1 liter/ha in 60 liters of water (cost Pak Rs 250/liter of chemical) is said to give good control.

V.7.3. DISEASES

Reported major diseases of wheat are rust, loose smut (some even seen if fields during this trip at the early heading stage), and stripe. Farmer varieties (local landraces) are reported to be much more susceptible to diseases than the improved varieties.

General farmers reportedly do not use fungicidal seed treatments. In combination seed treatment, resistant varieties (i.e., the improved varieties) are said (in other areas where this is a problem) to be the only effective control.

Recommended seed treatments are used by very few farmers, so seedborne diseases such as smut (bunt) are very common in wheat. Yellow rust is a major problem in the Northern Region, as most crops grown from unimproved seed varieties are highly susceptible to yellow rust. Also, some of the older varieties have lost their resistance. (FAO). Manan reports that yellow rust and bunt are the most serious problems with wheat.

Few farmers, according to FAO, use recommended seed treatments to control seedborne diseases. Vitavax is reportedly the recommended seed treatment. Thiram is also used.

V.7.4. WATER

In all areas visited, lack of water is considered the main problem. Published reports indicate that, as a normal situation, Afghanistan has enough water to crop about half of its "irrigable" area. Conditions during the extended drought have reportedly reduced this significantly; many unplanted fields designed for irrigation were noted, and it was commonly due to "lack of water". Rains this year have helped; in several areas, it was reported that "if one or two more rains" are received, much of the rainfed wheat will produce a "good" crop.

While this varies, in some instances it was reported that wheat is irrigated every 12 days.

Rivers and streams are reportedly very low in water, some even dry.

The drought has caused a rush to install tube wells, by farmers who are financially able to do so. There appears to be good underground water supply. In the Kabul, Bagram, Wardak, and Ghazni areas, it was reported that "drinking water" (i.e., smaller amounts) could be found at 30-50 meters depth, while "irrigation water" (i.e., larger amounts) could be found at 90-200+ meters depth. Everywhere we traveled, it was common to see new tube wells being drilled, and tube wells in operation, usually with tractor power (while fuel consumption varies with model and condition of the tractor, experience with small models of Massey-Ferguson, common here, indicates 4-5 liters diesel fuel/hour).

A farmer in Ghazni can be used as an example. He farms some 80 jeribs (of which 40 are rented from relatives), and has a 5-inch diameter (reported common well sizes are 4-6 inch diameter) tube well 92 meters deep. He gets a good flow of clear water reported as "good water", and reports no shortages; i.e., he never has to stop pumping because the well runs short of water. His pump can run continuously. Water flow is adequate to irrigate 1 jerib (0.5 acre, approximately) in 5 hours. Irrigation ditches are not lined, but are bare soil; given the commonly-noted soils, water loss in the channels has to be a major percentage of the water supply, especially in long channels between the pump (or river water source) and the field.

This farmer's pump was a Pakistani (Lahore) model, powered by a Chinese diesel engine. He reported that it requires 5 l/hour of diesel fuel, costing Pak Rs 12/liter.

An interesting point is that several better, larger, farmers apparently receive financing from family members who are living abroad.

V.7.5. NUMBER OF SEED VARIETIES PER FARM

In general in other countries, it is normal practice to limit the number of seed varieties grown on one farm to one or two. On the FAO-contracted seed production in Ghazni, 7 different wheat varieties were grown on the same farm.

This is apparently an adaptation to local operating conditions, and seems to be an acceptable practice here. The reason for this is that only good farmers with suitable facilities should be used for seed production; fields should be located so the fields are cost-effective in reaching for operations; and the farmer should have adequate finances to carry out the required operations. In this area, such farmers are not easy to find, and harvest methods are different here so that fields can be kept separate.

Given the field supervision applied by the contracting agency (FAO, ICARDA, etc.), it appears that there is no basis for standards to limit the number of varieties per farm, provided that (1) supervision is strict at harvest, (2) the different-variety wheat fields are isolated by not less than 1 meter of land which is cut clean of vegetation, and (3) handling/threshing is kept completely separate and supervised.

V.7.6. FIELD SIZE

Most fields are of small size, as are most farms. However, FAO staff reported that they selected the larger farms, because in most cases the larger farmers had better facilities and capabilities to produce seed.

Even on one large FAO-contracted seed production farm (reportedly of some 80 jeribs), the individual fields were small, due to irrigation requirements for land leveling. Given the hand harvest methods and wheat's self-pollination, this is no real constraint. However, it was noted that several different varieties were grown on the same farm. Again, this was described as "no problem", because of the hand harvest methods. This, however, will require considerable close supervision of laborers, to be sure they do not mechanically mix seed/plants among the different fields.

V.7.7. ROGUING

Roguing several times is an absolute necessity to produce wheat seed in Afghanistan. It is reported that during the Taliban era, only men could be used for field roguing. However, in most areas, it has been noted that women "do a better job" of identifying and removing contaminant plants in the field (and in doing laboratory seed purity and germination analysis). Women were roguing FAO-contracted fields visited in the Ghazni area; their work was reported, and observation appeared to confirm, to be good.

It is essential that rogued undesirable plants be removed with the roots, and carried completely out of the field. This was being done in the FAO seed fields visited.

It was reported that, after heading, fields must be rogued after each irrigation (reportedly 2-3 times), and then must be rogued for offtypes after the plants reach mature color. In view of the fact that rye plants which had not yet reached heading stage were noted in the field, such roguing should be a required practice in wheat seed fields.

V.8. SEED HARVEST AND CONDITIONING

V.8.1. HARVEST

Seed harvest, just as all grain harvest, is largely by hand. In wheat, the primary food grain, plants are cut by hand sickle, tied in bundles, stacked in the field to complete drying, and then is moved to a threshing floor where the grain is threshed by trampling the spread-out plants. It was reported that "no portable threshers, such as are used in Pakistan, are known to be used in Afghanistan", although it seems highly likely that some of the larger farms have brought them in from Pakistan.

At the time when grain production was 2.6 million MT, there were reportedly 40 combine harvesters in the country. It was said that none of them are operating now. It seems likely that a few of them have been maintained in locations which escaped looting, although

Neighboring Pakistan has, over the last 20 years, moved almost (but not quite!) entirely moved into threshing grain/seed with portable mechanical threshers. These can be adjusted to turn out grain/seed which is quite clean. The use of one or more mechanical threshers per Afghan village would improve grain/seed quality and purity, speed up harvest, and reduce shattering/handling loss of grain. However, Afghanistan's economic condition does not show signs of bringing this into reality for the foreseeable future. This is an area in which NGO's could have a major impact on rural development, by introducing and donating small, easy-to-maintain, cheap-to-operate, portable threshers to be operated under the direction of village Shurahs,

V.8.2. INFORMAL SEED CLEANING

Most (90+%) seed is supplied by the informal sector: farmer-saved, exchanged farmer-to-farmer, by community seed growing/growers, etc. This seed is cleaned by traditional methods.

Traditional seed cleaning with basket-sieves, wind, and hand methods is slow, but at the same time it creates employment for laborers.

ICARDA-Kabul reports that seed is not cleaned by contracted farmer-growers who produce the wheat seed. ICARDA, after inspecting and accepting fields which meet standards, procures the seed and takes it to a central location at ICARDA'S storage. Here, laborers are hired to clean the seed to ICARDA's purity standards. Five laborers can clean approximately 1 MT per day, sometimes more. Thus, cleaning large amounts of seed (for example, ICARDA/FHC plan to supply 10,000 MT wheat seed for fall 2002 planting) will provide a significant amount of employment in the local market.

V.8.3. PROGRAM ("FORMAL") SEED CLEANING

V.8.3.1. Facilities Established

The ASC was involved in production, processing, testing, certification, distribution and sale of seed. The company built storages for keeping seed after processing. There was one large processing plant for wheat seed with capacity of 5 MT/hour in Darul Amon and 2-3 mobile seed cleaning units, each with capacity of 1 MT/hour. At present, four ISE plants (Herat, Pulekhumri, Kandahar, and Kabul) are working as implementing partners (IP's)of the FAO seed component. (Manan).

FAO has maintained a seed program in Afghanistan since 1955. It established one stationary seed conditioning plant at Herat. This is reportedly the only stationary facility in the country; FAO has named it the "Afghanistan Seed Center". This plant, by international standards, is small but complete. Reported to have a 5 MT/hour cleaning capacity, it uses equipment from AGROSAW of Ambala Cantt., India. It includes seed processing, seed storage, and a small seed testing laboratory.

There was a stationary cleaning plant, reportedly, at Kandahar, and a facility at Mazar-i-Sharif.

A number of small and/or portable seed cleaners have been introduced and used by FAO and some NGO agencies. FAO reports that it established 8 portable cleaner operations. One NGO reportedly plans to contract fabrication in Afghanistan of a small hand-powered seed cleaner. ICARDA

Seed drying is reportedly not a problem, due to the climate, especially at harvest time.

V.8.3.2. Post-Conflict Status

The Herat plant has not been looted, and is relatively new and in good condition.

The Herat stationary plant escaped looting, and is in good condition. FAO (Tunwar) reports that the portable cleaner locations have been looted. The Mazar-I-Sharif and Kandahar plants are reported to be badly looted, to the point of requiring replacement.

The Pulukumri (?) plant has been partially looted.

V.8.4. NEEDS

Afghanistan has 2 kinds of needs in seed conditioning:

Seed treatment is considered essential because of locally-prevalent wheat diseases. However, it is reportedly little-used by farmers with "informal" seed.

Facilities should be fairly small, and installed at a number of strategically-placed locations, in order to minimize seed transport and handling costs, and to provide better local service to both growers and farmer-seed-users.