Client-orientated breeding is quick, cheap and effective

Concept and approaches of client-oriented breeding (COB): Better varieties from better plant breeding

'Client-Oriented Breeding' is a pioneering approach that puts the customer - the farmer - first. Farmers set the goals. They say what qualities they want in new varieties. Next, they select those that work best under local conditions from a large batch of possible varieties, and then test them in their fields using their own farming practices. It's a quick, cheap and effective approach. This system helps develop improved varieties very quickly. Farmers in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Ghana already use maize, rice, chickpea and cassava varieties developed this way. So, putting farmers first could have a rapid impact in areas where conventional plant breeding has failed to produce the choice of varieties farmers need.

Project Ref: PSP34:
Topic: 1. Improving Farmers Livelihoods: Better Crops, Systems & Pest Management
Lead Organisation: CAZS-NR, UK
Source: Plant Sciences Programme

Contents:		Description
		Validation
		Current Situation
		Lessons Learned
		Impacts On Poverty
		Environmental Impact
		Annex

Description

Research Programmes:

Plant Sciences Research Programme (PSP). Joint PSP with the Crop Protection Programme. DFID India.

Relevant Research Projects:

R6636, R7080, R7122, R75565, R7838, R8071, R8099

The list above includes only those who were partners in the listed research projects. In addition there are many other collaborators involved in the scaling up of varieties bred by COB that are too numerous to list here.

Research Outputs, Problems and Solutions:

Outputs proposed:  The PSP has developed and formalised a participatory research approach to the breeding of new varieties with farmers called client-oriented breeding (COB) that overcomes the limitations of traditional, on-station plant breeding. COB was also known as participatory plant breeding (PPB) but recently we revised the name to reflect the purpose of farmer participation (improved client orientation) rather than simply describe the activity (farmer participation) (Witcombe et al., 2005). COB involves stakeholders in setting breeding goals i.e., specifying the traits required in the new varieties.  Parents of crosses are carefully chosen to meet the specified needs. The breeding method uses many fewer crosses than is conventionally the case and large population sizes are grown (Witcombe and Virk, 2001). Selection inn the segregating generations is done in environments that match the fields of the target clientele. Quality testing takes place with end users before more expensive yield trials. Once a new variety is produced it is immediately tested with farmers in participatory varietal selection (PVS) trials in the target population of environments - the farmers' fields (see PSP33).

The wider adoption of this improved method of breeding new varieties has profound implications for increasing food security as it can produce much higher yielding varieties in situations where modern plant breeding had previously produced none.

When produced: The PSP research began only in 1997 and the first varieties from the programme were produced by 2000. The products of COB were more widely tested from about 2002. The research has been pioneering and is the best documented body of work in this area. Other examples of COB are rare, generally poorly documented, and usually have been concerned with the empowerment of farmers rather than, as in our case, improving the efficiency of plant breeding. None have tried the few-cross, high-population-size method of breeding.

Problem addressed and description of outputs: Low-resource farmers in marginal areas usually grow either obsolete varieties (low yielding and disease susceptible varieties that were released often more than 20 years before) or landraces (Witcombe et al., 1998).  This causes low yields and consequent food deficits. We found that although PVS was often able to identify suitable varieties among those that already existed this was not always possible. For example, no maize variety was found that was suitable for drought prone areas of western and eastern India and the best upland rice variety identified by PVS for western and eastern India had undesirable traits such as poor lodging resistance. COB provided a means of rapidly producing better material based on the best germplasm identified in PVS. In several cases the varieties produced by COB have been officially released.

Farmers have adopted new varieties from COB that were of a higher utility to them (a combination of improved agronomic traits, higher yield, and improved quality) and were superior to any available alternatives. As a result of this research, we are able to say that COB is cost-effective and produces widely adapted varieties; for example, COB varieties produced in Chitwan, Nepal perform well throughout the entire Terai region of Nepal and in Bangladesh. We have also been able to confirm that making very few crosses is both effective and much cheaper than conventional methods.

Adoption of COB varieties by farmers increased on-farm biodiversity and improved livelihoods of resource poor farmers (Mottram, 2005; Virk et al., 2005).

The process of COB is not commodity specific and is applicable to all crops in all agricultural systems. It has been used in most farming systems but has been extensively used in semi-arid systems, smallholder rainfed dry/cold farming system and wetland rice-based system (Witcombe et al., 2005). It has been used in the following crops:

• Maize in western India (Witcombe et al., 2003; PSP15); maize in eastern India (Virk et al., 2005; PSP15), maize in Nepal (Tiwari et al., 2001, 2004).
• Upland rice in India (Virk et al., 2003; PSP16).
• High altitude rice in Nepal (Joshi and Witcombe, 2003).
• Lowland rice in Nepal (Joshi et al., 2002; Gyawali et al., 2006; PSP10).
• Chickpea in western and eastern India (PSP17). 
• Cassava in Ghana.

Potential for Added Value:

COB is, compared to other interventions such as seed priming or participatory varietal selection, a relatively complex process that involves specific scientific interests (plant breeding) with farmer participation. It could be aligned with work that involves farmer field schools as training of farmers in COB is required for maximum effectiveness.

The PVS stage of COB involves the testing of a new intervention - a crop variety - with farmers in the farmers' fields. Other interventions can be tested that are synergistic with new crop varieties such as improved crop agronomy, including seed priming (e.g., cluster PSP30), and crop protection. Since farmers evaluate material for all traits including fodder quantity and quality then clustering with improved livestock nutrition would be an advantage. PVS (cluster PSP33) is an essential technique for COB. PVS is also and an essential component in participatory approaches to replacing rice fallows (cluster PSP35).

COB is also synergistic with all RNRRS outputs relating to the provision of seed and can involve community based seed production (cluster PSP36).

Validation

How the outputs were validated:

How validated: The validation stage of COB is the value of new varieties produced by the breeding. This has always used PVS where validation is always by the first end users of a new variety - farmers - in on-farm participatory trials. These use participatory evaluation (employing many techniques e.g., matrix ranking, surveys, organoleptic assessment) of many traits considered important by farmers. The trials were always replicated to provide a test of statistical significance. Where grain quality was important end users such as millers, traders and consumers helped test post-harvest quality traits. Validation of yield increases was often done by government organisations in on-station trials. See also outcome assessments under "Poverty Impact Studies".

The final step of PVS - the wider dissemination of farmer-preferred varieties - tests the acceptability of a variety on a much larger scale and varieties bred using COB in a single location in Nepal have done well throughout the low-altitude areas of Nepal and in Bangladesh (Joshi et al., 2006). Varieties bred in eastern India have been recommended in states in western India.

Who validated: Validation was done by farmers working with researchers from many organisations who were involved in the validation process [1]:

The target groups of male and female farmers were from all social groups representing resource rich, medium and poor farmers. Wealth categories (usually three) were determined through local informants using key proxies for wealth such as landholding size. Evaluation of PVS trials included participating farmers (with a representative proportion of women) and their neighbours, relatives and friends (this always included some women). The evaluation of the post-harvest traits always involved women. 

[1] Including:

• India: State Agricultural Universities, State Departments of Agriculture; GVT, CRS, ASA.
• Nepal: NARC, DADOs; LI-BIRD, FORWARD.
• Bangladesh: DAE, Wheat Research Centre; PROVA.
• Increases in productivity: Tremendous increases in productivity were achieved over the local cultivars in many crops across countries (see Table 1) that were associated with other improvements (Table 2).

Table 1. Examples of yield increase of new varieties from COB

Table 2. Examples of improvement in traits other than grain yield.

Validation of the process: this is related to the number of cases where COB has been effective. It has produced validated results in three countries and two crops, so far, namely rice and maize.

• In rice, it is validated in three countries from two separate breeding programmes across most of the rice ecosystems from upland (shallow rainfed unbunded) to semi-deep rainfed lowland, as well as high altitude.
• In maize, it has been validated in three distinct areas in three separate breeding programmes (western India, eastern India and Nepal).

The validation of the few cross breeding strategy has been done over four crosses in rice (three were successful) to give a statistically significant improvement in the success rate compared with conventional breeding.

COB has also been tested in cassava in Ghana and there are preliminary results from chickpea and other legumes in India.

Products: Thousands of farmers, in collaboration with NGOs and GOs, validated the products of COB in three countries (India, Nepal, and Bangladesh) over wide areas. For where and when see Table 3. The process was validated across very diverse farming systems ranging from marginal rainfed to high potential production systems.

There were never fewer than hundreds of farmers involved in the PVS of varieties produced by COB as the validation was replicated in each year and done across at least three years (Table 3).

Table 3. Regions and farming systems where the outputs were validated. In all cases, validation was with thousands of farmers.

Current Situation

Here we are concerned with the COB as a process rather than the varieties produced by the process (detailed in other clusters). COB is now integral to the rice innovation system in Nepal where LI-BIRD works with CAZS-NR and NARC to carry out a continuing programme. The breeding programme has many varieties that are in advanced trials (including Sugandha 2002 and Barkhe 2014 that have already been identified for release proposals to be made in 2006/07). LI-BIRD, in its adoption of COB, uses all of the major elements developed by the PSP research projects i.e., client-oriented objectives, careful choice of parents, few crosses, selection in the target population of environments, quality testing before yield trials, and yield testing through PVS mother and baby trials.  NARC collaborates in this programme. More recently PROVA are collaborating with LI-BIRD and CAZS-NR, using germplasm supplied by the latter, in a rice breeding programme for the high Barind Tract.

Products from COB programmes are currently being tested in on-station and PVS trials. These include chickpea, horsegram and blackgram in India, maize in eastern and western India, rice and kidney bean in Nepal, and cassava in Ghana.

We are convinced that many other breeding programmes have adopted elements of the approach but resources have not been available to carry out a detailed survey. For example, in the rice and wheat breeding programmes in Nepal there has been a reduction in the number of crosses that are made and we have reasons to believe this is also true in certain wheat breeding programmes in Bangladesh. Other collaborators have proven to be remarkably resistant to change even though they have collaborated with CAZS-NR for many years.

In IRRI the recommendation to have high volume crossing (Mackill et al., 1966) has been dropped in the latest breeding manual (Fischer et al., 2003) that now has specific reference to some of the PSP work.

As a result of training courses to African national programme plant breeders there is evidence of elements of the approach being adopted in Africa but no detailed survey has yet been made.

The areas are:

• In Nepal, for all of the rice growing areas in the Terai and low hills. This accounts for the great majority of the rice growing area in Nepal and covers the rainfed lowland ecosystem from shallow unbunded fields to semi-deep rainfed lowlands.
• In Bangladesh, in the High Barind Tract in a similar set of rice ecosystems to those in Nepal.
• In India, in maize the semi-arid rainfed uplands of eastern and western India.
• In India, in chickpea the semi-arid rainfed (residual soil moisture in the post-rainy season) production systems are targeted. 
• In Ghana, cassava growing regions (forest agriculture interface).

The current use of COB may be limited in terms of crops, countries and organisations but in terms of potential outputs (varieties) from COB the scale is large. In the case of rice alone, the COB targets at least 1 M ha of there 1.5 M ha of rice in Nepal and can produce varieties suitable for much of the 14 M ha of rice in Bangladesh and for at least 10 M ha in India.

We have reason to believe that elements of the process are still spreading as awareness of the method increases through publications from the PSP research.  Many of the publications in the area have just been published (2006), are in press, or will be published in 2007 (or later).

Policy and Institutional Structures, and Key Components for Success:

The rice breeding programme in Nepal is an interesting example of the adoption of the process of COB. LI-BIRD, the NGO, has completely adopted all of the elements of the breeding scheme. NARC, through its National Rice Research Programme (NRRP) collaborates in this programme. It tests varieties from COB in its disease nurseries and enters them into its on-station yield testing. It also provides its own varieties to LI-BIRD for testing in PVS trials. However, its own rice breeding programmes have been less affected and they continue on more traditional grounds although there is evidence that the NRRP now makes fewer, more carefully chosen crosses. The NRRP is also a co-proposer on varieties bred by COB such as Barkhe 3004.

Key factors in the success in Nepal have been specific collaboration in research related to COB over a long period of time and the putting in place of a formal collaboration with LI-BIRD and NRRP. This enabled breeders in the NRRP to officially collaborate on more participatory approaches and allowed many opportunities for NRRP scientists to learn of these approaches.

In the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Sciences (IAAS), Tribhuvan University, Rampur, some uptake of the concept of COB is evident at both the graduate and postgraduate level, e.g., COB concepts are included in assignments, seminars and examinations but are yet to be included formally into the curriculum of the University.

Lessons Learned and Uptake Pathways

Promotion of COB is still being undertaken by CAZS-NR in the form of publications on COB that describe its effectiveness, and its input on training courses for African Plant Breeders (see Annex 1). In addition, CAZS-NR is promoting these methods in Ethiopia through projects funded by Ireland Aid.

LI-BIRD continues to promote COB by its advocacy and its ongoing COB programme.

Promotion is also occurring through what is now a Rockefeller funded project in eastern India for the client-oriented breeding and dissemination of upland rice in eastern India.

The Gramin Vikas Trust continues to promote COB and other related methods through its continuing involvement with State Agricultural Universities and the Madhya Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Project (MPRLP).

Scientists in SAUs in Bihar, Gujarat, Rajasthan and MP have been trained in COB techniques. The extent of adoption was assessed (Gill et al., 2006) and there was some adoption.

Some, but not all, of the organisations that have directly worked with RNRRS projects have adopted the COB process but they have not taken steps to promote it with others so there is a lack of awareness of the new approaches. This is, in part, because evidence has only recently been produced on the effectiveness of the COB approach. Key papers are only 'in press' in 2006 and others are still under review. As with PVS, a huge barrier is the mindset of breeders who have been taught about the effectiveness of the classic 'green revolution' approach that involves on-station breeding for wide adaptation and the making of hundreds of relatively poorly chosen crosses each year. This poor discrimination is an inevitable consequence of making many crosses; as the number goes up the quality has to go down as the best choices have already been made.

The most important factor to remove the barriers are the changes in mindsets through wide scale training of GO and, to a lesser extent, NGO staff in the COB process to appreciate the impact that it can have.  There is a limited human resource capacity, particularly in GOs, on participatory approaches to research.  In NGOs there is a limited capacity on seed-related issues and most would regard plant breeding as being well beyond their capabilities. We do not believe this to be true since the COB methods are highly simplified and adapted for use by NGOs that have no access to a research station. Moreover, NGO/GO collaboration has been shown to be possible and effective for COB.

Policy makers need to be brought into this dialogue about breeding methods as they are rarely involved.

There needs to be changes in curricula in Universities to mainstream participatory, client-oriented approaches to plant breeding.

Using Rogers (2003) diffusion of information as a framework for the lessons learnt:

1. The relative advantage of a technology compared to what it is replacing; This is extremely high as it enables varieties to be bred where classical plant breeding has failed to deliver. For example, Ashoka 200F and Ashoka 228 rice varieties produced by COB are the first to be adopted in the upland ecosystem on any scale in eastern India on a potential area of over 5 million ha (PSP16).
2. The compatibility of the technology with existing systems and ways of doing things, which is closely related to culture; The compatibility is low as the breeding strategy is very different from those generally accepted. However, the changes required are simple and very cheap to adopt as they actually reduce the resources required.
3. The complexity of the technology in terms of what people need to learn to make it work; The complexity is low as the breeding methods are much simpler than those used conventionally.
4. The observability of a technology in terms of how easy it is to demonstrate and observe performance; The observability is high once outputs are produced from COB.
5. The trialability of a technology in terms of how easy it is to test it before deciding to adopt. It does take a long time to test a new breeding method. However, it can be accommodated as part of a conventional programme to provide a 'side by side' comparison.

Hence training of scientists is the most important factors in getting this research into use with target institutions.

Impacts On Poverty

India

1. Virk, D.S., Bourai, V.A., Choudhary, A., Misra, M. and Witcombe, J.R. (2003). Participatory crop improvement in eastern India: An impact assessment. PSP Annual Report 2003 Section 1: Introduction and General Overview. Research Outcomes. pp 26-33.
2. Virk, D.S., Bourai, V.A., Choudhary, A., Misra, M., Mottram, A. and Witcombe, J.R. (2005). Highly client-oriented breeding: The impact of two upland rice varieties in eastern India. CAZS Discussion Paper 7, pp. 1-11. Available at www.dfid-psp.org
3. Mottram, A. (2005). Impact of new upland rice varieties in eastern India from client-oriented breeding: evidence from whole village surveys. Available at www.dfid-psp.org  pp. 1-15.
4. Virk, D.S., Bourai, V.A., Choudhary, A., Misra, M. and Witcombe, J.R. (2004). Participatory crop improvement in eastern India: An impact assessment.  Plant Sciences Research Programme: Highlights & Impact. Participatory crop improvement. Pp. 87-96. Available at www.dfid-psp.org

Nepal

5. Witcombe, J.R., Joshi, K.D., Gyawali, S., Devkota, K. and Subedi, A. (2002). An impact assessment of participatory crop improvement in the low-altitude regions of Nepal. PSP Annual Report 2002. Section 1: Introduction and General Overview. Research Outcomes. pp 11-18.
6. Witcombe, J.R. Joshi, K.D., Gyawali, S., Devkota, K. and Subedi, A. (2004). Participatory crop improvement in the low-altitude regions of Nepal. Plant Sciences Research Programme. Highlights and Impact. Participatory crop improvement. pp 21-50. Available at www.dfid-psp.org

Bangladesh

7. Joshi, K.D., Musa, A., Johansen, C., Harris, D., Devkota, K.P., Gyawali, S. and Witcombe, J.R. (2004). Short duration rice varieties for the high-barind tract of Bangladesh: the initial impact of varieties from client-oriented breeding and selection in Nepal. CAZS Discussion Paper. Pp 1-33. Available at www.dfid-psp.org

Financial analysis: As one example of economic benefit from COB we calculated the benefits of the production of two upland rice varieties for eastern India. By 2010 the benefits were estimated to be in the region of £20 million using a 10% discount rate (see PSP16).

How the Poor have Benefited (including gender and other poverty groups):

The yield gains in all of the COB programmes clearly show that the participating farmers benefited from the new varieties (Table 1). The increased yields increased household food self-sufficiency and in food surplus households cash income increased from additional grain sales. Outcome assessments showed improvements in health care, schooling and nutrition.

One example of manifold impacts is:

Impacts (shown in rectangles) of the adoption of Ashoka 200F and Ashoka 228 in eastern India. Direct effects (bold), multiplier effects (italics) and farming system effects (underlined). Source Mottram (2005).

More examples of impact are outlined in the following PSP clusters:

Environmental Impact

Direct and indirect benefits:

• The wide scale adoption of the COB process will reduce national wastage associated with the breeding and testing of varieties that farmers would ultimately reject.
• Increased productivity per unit area without the use of additional external inputs especially pesticides is environmentally beneficial. The new varieties have better nitrogen use efficiency and nitrogen is an important pollutant and its synthetic production is a significant contributor to global warming (IPCC, 2001).
• Increased productivity will reduce the pressure to increase the area under cultivation (Evenson and Gollin, 2003).
• Varietal diversification will help reduce crop loss due to pests and diseases and thereby reduce the use of pesticides. Introduction of new varieties always increased on-farm diversity as farmers adopted many cultivars for different niches.
• The better disease and pest resistance of the new varieties can reduce the use of water and soil polluting agro-chemicals. Reduced use of pesticides and insecticides will also reduce the risk to human life and will help to create a more balanced pest-predator cycle.

Any adverse environmental impact is unlikely in the present case as the new varieties are scale neutral and do not require any special cultural, management and production inputs.

Earlier maturing varieties have increased the resilience of farmers by making available extra time for other operations, lower cost of production, reduced use of water and nutrients besides, in some cases, increasing cropping intensity (two crops a year in the place of one). 

Varietal diversification is a means of coping with climate change. For example, the staggered deployment of varieties that take different times to mature reduces the risks from drought, diseases and pests, and adverse weather (high winds, hail, and floods). The new varieties do well under low irrigation but respond to better conditions thus increasing the resilience of farmers to cope with variation.

Annex

References

Evenson, R.E & Gollin, D. (2003) Assessing the Impact of the Green Revolution, 1960 to 2000. Science 300: 758 - 762.

Fischer, K.S., Lafitte, R., Fukai, S., Atlin, G., Hardy, B. editors. (2003). Breeding rice for drought-prone environments. International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Philippines

Gill, G., Stirling, C.M. & Katyal, J.C. (2006). Western India Rainfed Farming Project Impact Assessment of Component C: Participatory Technology Development. Report Commissioned by DFID India.

Gyawali, S., Sunwar, S., Subedi, M., Tripathi, M., Joshi, K.D. & Witcombe, J.R. (2006). Collaborative breeding with farmers can be effective. Field Crops Research (in press).

IPCC (2001). Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [eds: Houghton, J.T.,Y. Ding, D.J. Griggs, M. Noguer, P.J. van der Linden, X. Dai, K.

Joshi, K.D. & Witcombe, J.R. (2003). The impact of participatory plant breeding (PPB) on landrace diversity: a case study for high-altitude rice in Nepal.  Euphytica 134: 117-125.

Joshi, K.D., Sthapit, B.R., Subedi, M. & Witcombe, J.R. (2002). Participatory plant breeding in rice in Nepal. In: Farmers, Scientists and Plant Breeding: Integrating Knowledge and Practice, David A Cleveland & Daniela Soleri.

Joshi, K.D., Musa, A.M., Johansen, C., Gyawali, S., Harris, D. &  Witcombe, J.R. (2006). Highly client-oriented breeding, using local preferences and selection, produces widely adapted rice varieties. Field Crops Research (in press).

Mackill, D.J., Coffman, W.R. & Garrity, D.P. (1996) Rainfed lowland rice improvement. International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Philippines.

Mottram, A. (2005). Impact of new upland rice varieties in eastern India from client-oriented breeding: evidence from whole village surveys. Available at www.dfid-psp.org  pp. 1-15.

Rogers, E.M. (2003). Diffussion of innovations. 5^th Edition. New York: Free Press.

Tiwari, T.P., Virk, D.S & Sinclair, F.L (2001). Participatory crop improvement for intercropped maize on bari land terraces with trees. Paper presented in an international symposium on participatory plant breeding and participatory plant genetic resource enhancement: An exchange of experiences from South and South East Asia held at Pokhara, Nepal from 1-5 May, 2000.

Tiwari, T.P., Brook, R.M. & Sinclair, F.L.  (2004). Implications of hill farmers' agronomic practices in Nepal for crop improvement in maize. Experimental Agriculture 40: 397-417.

Virk, D.S. Chakraborty, M. Ghosh, J. Prasad, S.C. & Witcombe, J.R. (2005). Increasing the client orientation of maize breeding using farmer participation in eastern India. Experimental Agriculture 41: 413-426.

Virk, D.S., Singh, D.N., Kumar, R., Prasad, S.C., Gangwar, J.S. & Witcombe, J.R. (2003). Collaborative and consultative participatory plant breeding of rice for the rainfed uplands of eastern India.  Euphytica 132:95-108.

Witcombe, J.R. & Virk, D.S. (2001). Number of crosses and population size for participatory and classical plant breeding. Euphytica 122:451-462, 2001

Witcombe, J.R., Joshi, A. & Goyal, S.N. (2003). Participatory plant breeding in maize: A case study from Gujarat, India.  Euphytica 130:413-422.

Witcombe, J.R., Joshi, K.D., Gyawali, S., Musa, A.M., Johansen, C., Virk, D.S. & Sthapit, B.R. (2005). Participatory Plant Breeding is Better Described as Highly Client-Oriented Plant Breeding. I. Four Indicators of Client-Orientation in Plant Breeding. Experimental Agriculture 41: 299-319.

Witcombe, J.R., Packwood, A.J., Raj, A.G.B. & Virk, D.S. (1998). The extent and rate of adoption of modern cultivars in India. pp. 53-68 in Seeds of Choice. Making the most of new varieties for small farmers. J.R. Witcombe, D.S. Virk and J. Farrington (Eds). Published by Oxford IBH, New Delhi  and Intermediate Technology Publications, London.

Annex 1. International training courses on 'participatory crop improvement' led by CAZS-NR or with significant contributions from CAZS-NR staff

Abbreviations not found elsewhere in the text:

• AKRSP = Agha Khan Rural Support Programme
• FAO = Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN
• PETRRA = Poverty Elimination Through Rice Research In Asia
• SAU = State Agricultural University
• SoRPARI = Somali Region Pastoral and Agro-pastoral Research Institute, Jijiga, Ethiopia
• BRRI = Bangladesh Rice Research Institute 

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Relevant Research Projects, with links to the
Research for Development (R4D) web site
and Technical Reports:

R4D	Project Title	Technical Report
R6636	Nepal: Participatory Plant Breeding: Monitoring the Spread of Varieties from Participatory Plant Breeding in High Altitude villages in Nepal
R6748	Participatory Crop Improvement in High Potential Production Systems in India and Nepal
R6826	Testing drought-tolerant plant types of upland rice in Ghana using participatory methods
R7080	Assessing the feasibility of using marker assisted selection for root characters to aid participatory plant breeding (PPB) in upland rice in India
R7122	Participatory Plant Breeding in Rice for High Potential Production Systems in the Terai and low hills of Nepal
R7281	Participatory crop improvement for maize-millet intercropping in the mid hills of the Himalayan region
R7323	Participatory crop improvement in high potential production system and salt-affected areas of Patiala District of Punjab State
R7324	Participatory plant breeding in finger millet in India
R7409	Participatory varietal selection in rabi sorghum
R7438	Participatory promotion of "on farm" seed priming
R7540	Promotion of chickpea following rainfed rice in the Barind area of Bangladesh
	Uptake and impact of the promotion of chickpea following rainfed rice in the Barind area of Bangladesh
R7541	Assessing the potential for short-duration legumes in South Asian rice fallows
R7542	Participatory crop improvement in high potential production systems - piloting sustainable adoption of new technologies
R7565	Participatory breeding of superior, mosaic disease-resistant cassava
R7838	Rapid generation advancement of a chickpea population for farmer participatory selection
R8071	Participatory plant breeding in high potential production systems - an evaluation of products and methods
R8098	Promotion of rainfed rabi cropping in rice fallows of India and Nepal: pilot phase
R8099	Participatory plant breeding in rice and maize in eastern India
R8221	Promotion of rainfed rabi cropping in rice fallows of eastern India and Nepal: Phase 2
R8269	Improvement of rainfed cropping systems in the High Barind Tract of Bangladesh

 

For relevant research projects, with links to further information

Geographical regions included:

Bangladesh, India, Nepal,

Target Audiences for this content:

Crop farmers,