June 2010

Source: Seed Info Nr. 39, June 2010

Pulodi, a new barley variety developed jointly by Tajikistan’s Institute of Crop Husbandry, the Tajik Academy of Agricultural Sciences and ICARDA, has been released for cultivation by Tajikistan’s State Variety Testing Commission. The variety is medium-tall, resistant to lodging, with high biomass yield, and resistant to locally important diseases.

Pulodi was developed at ICARDA between 2000 and 2002, and then tested for several years by the Institute of Crop Husbandry and finally by the State Variety Testing Commission. It gave yields of 3 to 3.5 t ha-1 under rainfed conditions, and 4.5 to 5 t ha-1 under irrigation. Barley varieties in Tajikistan are mostly used as forage, harvested during the heading stage. Pulodi is particularly suitable because of its high biomass yield and its earliness – its begins heading 8-10 days earlier than most other varieties, allowing farmers to grow two crops per year, even without irrigation.

Since 1995, ICARDA has been working with NARS of CAC region in introducing food legumes to diversify the agricultural production systems. In Tajikistan, a new chickpea variety Hisor 32 (ILC 3279) was released from ICARDA materials supplied through the international nurseries in 1999/00. In 2009, the State Variety Testing Commission officially released the variety after several years of selection and testing under different environmental conditions of Tajikistan by NARS partners. The variety is adapted to rainfed areas and has an average plant height of 72-80 cm, a thousand seed weight of 260-270 g, resistant to black stem, and yield of up to 2 t ha-1, an advantage of 14-15% over the standard check. The State Variety Testing Commission has issued the breeders certificate # 62 (in 2006) and patent #62 on 28 February 2010.

NARS has about 400 kg seed of Hisor 32 and efforts are being made to multiply all seed available during the off-season to make it available to farmers for the next planting season.

Ram Sharma, ICARDA-CAC, Tashkent, Uzbekistan; E-mail: r.sharna@cgiar.org

Website: http://www.icarda.org

Published: June 15, 2010