18 MILLET VARIETIES INTRODUCED TO FARMERS... In Upper West (page 20, oct 28)

THE Savannah Agricultural Research Institute (SARI), in collaboration with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Mali has introduced 18 varieties of millet to farmers in the Upper West Region.
The varieties are to motivate farmers to choose the high yielding ones which are more beneficial than the local millet.
The Head of the Wa Station of SARI, Dr Jesse Naab, disclosed this during a field day organised for selected 60 farmers to evaluate the varieties.
He said the best five varieties to be selected would be further evaluated next farming season and three eventually selected for multiplication and division.
“Preliminary observation showed that one variety flowered in 30 days, 10 between 60 and 65 days and seven between 65 and 77 days. The local variety that flowered early did so in 65 days while the late local variety flowered in approximately 90 days,” he stated.
Dr Naab said the use of participatory variety selection approaches could ensure that improved varieties got to farmers within two seasons.
He said the first two seasons would be used for the observation and selection of desirable genotypes.
“These genotypes could then be multiplied, possibly under irrigation during the off-season and made available for planting during the third season,” Dr Naab said.
He said it was not likely that a variety would be found with the full complement of the characteristics desired by the farmers, adding, “Whatever complementary characteristics that would be found in a particular variety, high potential cannot be sacrificed”.
Dr Naab said most of the constraints facing farmers in the production of millet in the region would be addressed through the recommendation of varieties with the desirable characteristics while others such as declining soil fertility and rainfall pattern would be tackled through extension of fertility improvement and time of planting respectively.
He said a baseline survey of millet production in the region showed that all the local millet varieties took between five to six months to mature, and as a result, farmers had stressed the need for earlier maturing varieties with high yields.
Millet is an important food crop in households in northern Ghana, with more than 90 per cent of the annual cultivated area in the three northern regions getting planted with the crop.
The Upper West Region runs second in the production of millet after Northern Region and contributes about 12.5 per cent of national output.