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Title Tropical lowland maize subprogram: annual research report 2004
 
Names Córdova Orellana, H.
Krivanek, A.F.
Ramírez, A.
Date Issued 2004 (iso8601)
Abstract The year 2004 was the first of the Tropical Ecosystems (TES) program. Our research activities in the tropical lowland subprogram had good support from the government of Mexico through SAGARPA that provided resources to fund 50% of the maize breeding operational field activities in the highland, subtropical and tropical elevations. In the new CIMMYT research strategy we are devoted to focus more of our investment on the small farmers with limited resources to alleviate hunger and malnutrition in the developing world, this is what we have being accomplishing in the past 10 years or more and certainly we have succeeded. Dedication of the staff always striving for excellence, allowed us to develop new products that will help national programs and private seed companies to put new maize cultivars into the hands of all types of maize farmers in the tropical mega environment. Cultivars that possess yield stability and buffer capacity to absorb the many constraints of maize production resulting from the changing climate and environment. Our contribution to increase food security and alleviate malnutrition in the developing world, received tremendous validation when India informed us that 4000 metric tons of QPM hybrids were planted to 200,000 hectares in 2005. In 2004 we planted 40 different types of trials in eight locations: three in Mexico (Cotaxtla Veracruz, Agua Fria Puebla and Edzna Campeche); three in Guatemala (Las Vegas, Cuyuta, and Monjas), two in India (Bihar and Hyderabad), one in Colombia (Turipana) and a few trials were planted in Panama. In addition, international trials were shipped to 41 countries. Results are very exciting with yields up to 14.5 t/ha at Monjas, Guatemala in single cross hybrids. Our hybrids also performed well under stressed and non-stressed environments. 10 new TWC tropical white hybrids QPM out-yielded seed industry with 30 to 50% more yield. Under drought prone environments the superior QPM hybrids yielded 3. 7 t/ha and Monsanto nutria hybrid yielded 1.8 t/ha. Normal and QPM synthetic varieties were extensively tested in marginal environments in Latin America and Asia. New QPM synthetics yielded 5 t/ha across 22 locations, 12% more yield than the best QPM varieties and similar to the best normal hybrid check. In drought prone environments, the best QPM synthetic yielded 3.0 t/ha and showed resistance to ear rot while the normal hybrid check suffered high incidence of ear rot and yielded only 1.4 t/ha clean yield. In this report we made a recommendation focused on how the new products developed can effectively be used to contribute to increase maize productivity in the developing world once the germplasm is adopted by farmers. Fortunately, in 2004 our budget was enough and we recovered our third testing site in Campeche, Mexico. At the end of 2004 Alan Krivanek was hired as post doc in the TES Program CIMMYT. The tropical lowland maize subprogram staff appreciates all the support received from other sub programs and units and TES Direction. We are grateful to CIMMYT Maize Outreach in Eastern and Southern Africa, South America and India for conducting our trials. We are also grateful to Cristiani Burkard and PROSEMILLAS in Guatemala, Messina Beej Company in India and Miguel Villa Lobos, director for research CERES Seed Company in Mexico for their support in conducting trials at their experimental sites. We also are grateful to Mario Fuentes, Carlos Perez, Sergio Mejia, Felix, Mauro Sierra, Roman Gordon, Ismael Camargo and Dr. N.N. Singh, Project Director, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, for the assistance in conducting trials at their respective stations. We encourage maize scientists in outreach to read this report carefully because it contains information that can be useful for your region and to test the superior germplasm under the production system of farmers planting maize in the developing world.
Genre Annual Report
Access Condition Open Access
Identifier http://hdl.handle.net/10883/3732