Genetic resources for optimal input technology—ICARDA’s perspectives

Abstract

With steadily increasing population pressure on natural resources, the primary challenge to agricultural research in the drylands will be to generate technologies which can sustain increased yields through judicious use of inputs and without risks of instability of production. The deployment of genetic resources to improve and stabilize crop production in the face of biotic and abiotic stresses is a key component in ICARDA’s strategy to develop appropriate technology for stressed areas.

The high input technologies, while effective in areas for which they were developed, i.e. stress-free crop growing conditions, are rarely successful in the more severely stressed environments. Factors which reduce productivity such as drought, temperature extremes, salinity, low soil nutrients, diseases and pests are common in West Asia and North Africa. In the past breeders searched for desirable genes in exotic germplasm which may not be adapted to a given target environment. Relatively less effort has been devoted to producing cultivars that can provide stable yields under low to moderate input conditions. Landraces, primitive forms and wild progenitors could be used in reconstituting genepools of available genetic resources suitable for improving tolerance to stresses and minimizing losses through yield stability in low input dryland agricultural systems. The effects on cereal production of seeding rate, nitrogen fertilizer rate, use of different cultivars and timing of grazing by small ruminants have been studied and responses to various levels of chemical inputs have been measured. The exploitation of genetic variability for desirable traits within indigenous genetic resources which can fit in a specific agro-elecological zone is also reported here.