From Tamil Nadu, news of a farmer who has developed a very promising, high-yielding hybrid coconut. Has anyone pulled together similar examples of farmer breeding?
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From Tamil Nadu, news of a farmer who has developed a very promising, high-yielding hybrid coconut. Has anyone pulled together similar examples of farmer breeding?
Fascinating! I’d be interested in hearing of other cases. And I see no mention of participatory in the entire article. Even better.
Andy
Sorry to disillusion you.
My guess is that the farmer in question has made the cross-pollinations correctly and is growing a relatively small number of hybrids under excellent conditions. Someone else, the news reporter perhaps, has counted 20 nuts on one bunch and knows that coconuts have 10-12 bunches per year – and calculated “a hybrid variety of coconut tree one that yields 200 to 250 coconuts per year starting from the third year itself.” He then projects that result from a few palms to give a six-fold increase on an acre and speculates that “this method of cultivation can be implemented on 6,32,000 acres of land across Tamil Nadu.”
Plant breeders know that the results from one or a few plants do not
represent the average of a larger number. After the first few years even hybrids settle to a lower annual production figure.
Hugh
Yes perhaps I was a bit too quick off the mark on that one. Calling it “promising” may have been a bit premature! But it is interesting that the farmer can make hybrids with apparently no training. Or is that a fairly widespread skill among coconut farmers?
Many coconut farmers take their seednuts from selected female parents but the male parent is generally an unknown neighbour (self-pollination is possible, but uncommon, for tall varieties and common, but not 100%, for dwarf varieties). The technique was first described by Marechal in Fiji in 1928 (I’d like to know more about him) but the number of seed produced is low. It was not until the mid-70s, when mass production methods were developed in Jamaica and Ivory Coast, that F1 hybrid coconuts became available in commercial quantities. Again, the techniques are simple and have been used on both public and private farms.
Hello;I would like to know how tall are these trees,I have seen trees in jamaica that are 5 feet tall ,do you know which breed are these.