rather than only in the testing of technologies
CASE 4: Participatory Barley Breeding
Goal:
To develop a new way of conducting plant breeding programs
Objective:
To increase barley production particularly in the less favorable environments
Output:
Activities:
Recent
Activities:
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The reason for the relatively low degree of success of plant breeding in marginal environments has to be largely attributed to the widespread use of research stations for the selection, and often testing work (centralized non-participatory breeding). Several cycles of selection, during which the breeder decides what to select and what to discard, are conducted in an environment (climate, soil, agronomic management) that little has in common with the target environments (the environments where the final products will be eventually grown, in this case the marginal environments.) Centralized breeding becomes participatory when, for example, farmers are invited to the research station(s) to express their opinion about the breeding material.
Several data indicate that when the difference between selection environment and target environment is large, it generates genotype x environment interaction effects by which the lines performing well in the selection environment perform poorly in the target environment, and vice versa (Ceccarelli, 1989). The apparently obvious solution to this problem is to transfer the process of selection to the target environment; a strategy defined as decentralized breeding (Ceccarelli et al., 1994, 1996). In an international breeding program, this consists of producing early segregating populations from crosses targeted to specific environments, sending them to NARS, and allowing national program scientists to select both between and within populations. The best selections are eventually used in further cycles of recombination and selection. At the national level, selection and testing are conducted by breeders directly in a number of target environments (decentralized non-participatory breeding). In this case, target environments are identified on the basis of repeatable genotype x location interactions (Cooper 1999) i.e., two locations represent two different target environments when they consistently discriminate differently amongst breeding lines over time. By contrast, locations which cause unpredictable and not repeatable genotype x location interactions are considered to belong to the same target environment.
Decentralized breeding does not necessarily respond to the needs of farmers because in international breeding programs it often merely results in a transfer of selection from one research station to another or a national breeding program because the definition of target environment does not include farmers' preferences and needs. In the latter case, farmers in areas which are classified as one target environment on the basis of genotype x environment interactions may actually prefer different types of germplasm. This may increase the number of "effective" target environments to a number which is beyond the capabilities of most national programs in developing countries.
The participation of farmers in the very early stages of selection offers a solution to the problem of fitting the crop to a multitude of both target environments and users' preferences (Ceccarelli et al., 1996, 2000). It is worth mentioning that, although farmer participation is often advocated on the basis of equity, there are sound scientific and practical reasons for farmer involvement to increase the efficiency and the effectiveness of the breeding program. It is also expected that decentralized participatory plant breeding will be particularly effective in those situations where seed is supplied by the informal seed system as it is the case for several crops in marginal environments.
From centralized non-participatory to decentralized-participatory plant breeding
At ICARDA, the gradual change from centralized non-participatory to decentralized-participatory plant breeding was implemented between 1997 and 2003 in three steps.
The first was mostly an exploratory step in which the main objectives were building human relationships (building the team), understanding farmers' preferences, measuring farmers' selection efficiency, developing scoring methodology, and enhancing farmers' skills. The exploratory work included the selection of farmers and sites and one common experiment for all participants. The experiment, described in detail by Ceccarelli et al. (2000, 2003), included 208 plots and was grown in two research stations and nine villages. All possible combinations of selection were conducted, namely centralized-non participatory (breeders on station), centralized-participatory (farmers on station), decentralized non-participatory (breeders on farm) and decentralized-participatory (farmers on farm). The results indicated that (1) farmers are able to handle large populations of entries, take a number of observations during the cropping season, and develop their own scoring methods; (2) farmers select for specific adaptation; (3) for some broad attributes, such as modern germplasm versus landraces, selection is mostly driven by environmental effects; (4) there is more diversity among farmers' selections in their own fields than among farmers' selections on research stations, and among breeder's selections, irrespective of where the selection was conducted; (5) the selection criteria used by the farmers are nearly the same as those used by the breeder; and (6) in their own fields farmers are slightly more efficient than the breeder in identifying the highest yielding entries; the breeder is more efficient than the farmers in selecting in the research station located in a high rainfall area, but less efficient than the farmers in research stations located in a low rainfall area. Therefore, the first step indicated that there is much to gain, and nothing to lose, in implementing a decentralized participatory plant breeding program.
The second step was mostly about methodologies and consisted of the implementation of the breeding plan, the choice and testing of appropriate experimental designs and statistical analysis, the refinement of farmers' selection methodology refined, and eventually initiating village-based seed production activities.
From a breeding point of view, the major features of the second phase were (1) a different role of the two research stations - one was not used in the new phase, while the second, located in an area with more reliable rainfall, was only used for seed multiplication; (2) the increase in the number of farmers directly involved in the project; and (3) the initiation of village-based seed production. The details of the second phase, such as number of lines, plot size, type of germplasm, selection criteria, and seed production issues, were discussed in meetings with farmers held in each village between August and September 1999. The host farmers and a number of neighbors that varied from 4 to 12 attended these meetings organized by the host farmers. In the case of the type of germplasm, the farmers generally expressed strong preferences for seed color and the row type. In one village farmers wanted to test the breeding lines in two different rotations (barley-barley and vetch-barley), and in another village in deep and shallow soil. The model of plant breeding we use in Syria is a bulk-pedigree system, in which the crosses are done on station, as well as growing the F1 and the F2. The bulks are yield tested over a period of three years in the farmers' fields (Fig. 1). The activities in farmers' fields begin with the yield testing of bulks (three years after making a cross), in trials called Farmers Initial Trials (FIT), which are unreplicated trials with 179 entries and 21 checks repeated every ten plots including the first and the last. This allows the evaluation of 179 new breeding materials every year in plots of 12 m2. As in the first phase, in two of the eight locations, farmers requested two sets of the same FIT to expose the genetic material to different environments or practices within the same village (two different rotations and two soil depth).
In parallel, we conduct on station pure line selection within the selected bulks by collecting heads on the selected F3 bulks. The F4 head rows will be promoted to the F5 screening nursery only if farmers select the corresponding F4 bulks. The process is repeated in the F5 and the resulting families, after one generation of increase, return as F7 in the yield-testing phase. Therefore, when the model is fully implemented, the breeding material which is yield tested includes new bulks as well as pure lines extracted from the best bulks of the previous cycle.
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| Fig. 1. The scheme of decentralized participatory barley breeding implemented in Syria. The scheme shows only the three stages of testing and selection of bulks. |
The breeding materials selected from the FIT are yield tested for a second year in Farmer Advanced Trials (FAT,) which are replicated trials grown by 4-8 farmers in each village. While the FAT contain the same entries within a village, the type and the number of entries and checks varies from village to village and from year to year. The plot size in the FAT is 36 m2 to produce enough seed on farm to plant the selected entries on larger plots in the third stage. The number of FAT in each village depends on how many farmers are willing to grow this type of trial. Each farmer decides the rotation, seed rate, soil type, and the amount and time of fertilizer application. Therefore, the FAT are planted in a variety of conditions and managements. During selection, farmers exchange information about the agronomic management of the trials, and rely greatly on this information before deciding which lines to select. One of the advantages of the program is that the lines start to be characterized for their responses to environmental or agronomic factors at an early stage of the selection process.
The entries selected from the FAT are planted in the third level of testing, called Farmer Elite Trials (FET), with plot size of 144 m2. The three types of trials are entirely managed by the farmers.
Farmers practiced the selection at two stages. When the crop was close to full maturity, and using a scoring method from 0 = discarded and 4 = the most desirable, farmers expressed their opinion on each individual entry. Some farmers were assisted during selection by a researcher to record both quantitative and qualitative data.
In each trial, the scientists record the following data: plant height, spike length, grain yield, total biomass and straw yield, harvest index, and 1000 kernel weight. On station scientist record days to heading and days to maturity. The data are subjected to different types of analysis. Firstly, the data were analyzed with a GENSTAT program for spatial analysis of un-replicated trials (FIT) or for replicated trials (FAT and FET) in which the response of the checks provides the basis for modeling the spatial variability in the field and to adjust the genotypes performance (Singh et al., 2003). The environmental standardized Best Lineal Unbiased Predictors (BLUPs) obtained from the GENSTAT programs are then used to analyze Genotype x Environment Interactions using the site regression (SREG) model using the GGEbiplot software (Yan et al., 2000).
One major concern of the farmers was about the seed multiplication of the selected lines. The farmers requested a full control of this operation to avoid any mechanical mixture. To respond to this concern, we established, in four of the eight villages, small seed units consisting of a seed cleaner and a machine to treat the seed with fungicides against seed-born diseases. The unit has a limited capacity (about 400 kg/h), but provides farmers with full control of the seed quality of their selections in the various stages of the breeding program. This is the first step towards the creation of village-based seed production activities.
In the third phase the emphasis was on Institutionalization and scaling up. Most of the work described above is a participatory breeding program where the main participants are the farmers and ICARDA scientists, with the occasional participation of the breeder of the General Commission for Scientific and Agricultural Research (GCSAR) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform of the Syrian Arab Republic, and of six-seven staff from the Extension Service.
In 2003 we started the processes of institutionalization and scaling. The first step in this direction was the organization of a workshop, supported by the Embassy of Switzerland in Damascus, which was held in Hama, Syria, in February 2003 with the participation of about 20 farmers from the villages where the PPB program was been implemented, a large number of researchers, including heads of research stations of agricultural offices from most provinces, the main research policy makers, the Seed Organization, the Extension Service, and the Minister of Agriculture.
The workshop was a useful forum to discuss the relationships between PPB, seed production, and variety release, and to start drawing a plan for scaling-up participatory barley improvement with the objective of determining an impact on the barley production at national level. The mechanism agreed upon for scaling-up PPB is a gradual transfer of responsibilities from ICARDA scientists to GCSAR scientists and the staff of the Extension Service in a way that at the end of the process each province will implement all the various PPB activities within its boundaries, with the overall coordination shared between ICARDA and GCSAR. Therefore, one important component of the initial steps of scaling-up is an extensive training program of GCSAR scientists and the extension staff on all the aspects of PPB.
When the transfer of responsibilities is completed, the PPB program will be implemented in the eight provinces that together represent 95% of both the barley area and the barley production. The research and extension staff in each province will be able to work with the farmers of between five and seven villages and between 15 and 30 farmers per village (Fig. 5). Such a large network of farmers will enormously facilitate the access of non-participating farmers to the products of PPB, and, therefore, to their adoption on a large scale. For this to be possible, village-based seed production will play a key role.
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Time table: Started 1997, ongoing.
