Kavango farmers select best induced mutant seeds

FARMERS in the Kavango East and West regions had the opportunity on Tuesday to select the most promising induced mutant seeds that could be adopted as national varieties during the 2017/18 financial year.

The seeds under evaluation are cow­ peas, pearl millet and sorghum, director of agricultural research and develop­ ment (Dard), Johanna Andowa said.

Andowa was speaking at a farm­ ers’ information and field day held to evaluate and select improved varieties of cowpeas, pearl millet and sorghum at the Bagani Research Station in the Kavango East region.

“The first experiments on induced mu­ tation in Namibia were planted in 2009. Since then, promising crop lines were identified and were closely observed in order to make distinct selection among them,” she explained.

The objective of the project is to release early maturing mutant varie­ties with high yield stability, enhanced nutritional composition and tolerance to drought conditions.

Mutation breeding, sometimes re­ ferred to as variation breeding, is the process of exposing seeds to chemicals or radiation in order to generate mutants with desirable traits to be bred with other cultivars.Andowa said the generation of mutant seeds has increased and many different traits have been collected for further evaluation and breeding.

The best emerged selected lines were 24 cowpeas, 18 pearl millet and 14 sorghum.

Farmers, however, only have to choose the best three which will be multiplied to become registered as a national variety.

The project is supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency together with the Food and Agricultural Organisation and the Namibian govern­ ment.