Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
former has five times as much ascorbic acid as the latter. None the less,
M.
floribunda
may have a role in the future and has been included in germplasm
collections.
The improvement programme planners decided to concentrate on an
ideotype with four components (Pinedo
et al
., 2004): high ascorbic acid
content (at least 2 g/100 g), high yield, precocity (at least 0.5 kg at 3 years from
seed) and fruit size (at least 10 g). The Japanese importers demand at least
1.8 g/100 g of ascorbic acid, which can generally be obtained from wild
populations, but collecting from the wild makes quality control more difficult.
Germplasm with the desired characteristics existed in the
ex situ
collections and
had been evaluated, but vegetative propagation techniques were inadequate
and had to be developed in order to get the programme started.
Initially, farmers' perceptions and preferences were not considered,
principally because most of them had no experience with the crop. Recently
farmers have started to identify plants that do not grow too tall, have large
fruits and good yields that are stable year-to-year, as well as plants that yield
out of season. The research team from IIAP now does participatory plant
evaluation with farmers in numerous communities along the Ucayali River, as
well as a few others elsewhere.
A collaborative participatory improvement plan designed by IIAP and INIA
started in 2000 to build on previous on-station and participatory work. The
plan was designed principally to meet the criteria of the Japanese market, as
local demand does not have stringent quality requirements. The participatory
aspects include:
●
The farmer identifies plants with elite characteristics (see above) and a
research team collects samples (both seeds and cuttings).
●
After propagation on-station, the research team returns some of the plants
to the farmer and the remainder is incorporated into on-station clonal and
progeny trials (there are no on-farm progeny or clonal trials).
●
The farmer also propagates his best plants from seed to expand his
orchard, and he is encouraged to trade seed and seedlings with other
farmers as well.
●
Seed from F
2
INIA selections (taken from long-term progeny evaluation
trials) are also distributed to interested farmers, who plant them in the
same plot as their own selections where abundant cross-pollination will be
expected.
●
Farmers participate in the evaluation of all progenies on their farms, both
their own and INIA's selections.
Technologies are being transferred with the improved seed and cuttings.
Each time a research team visits farmers they discuss pest control practices and
the use of legume ground covers, seeds of which were provided free of charge
and with appropriate management instruction.
EXPECTED IMPACTS IN PERU
At present, the supply of fruits is insufficient to meet
the demand of the Japanese importers. During the 2005-2006 harvest, only 500 t
of frozen pulp was exported, which was less than 10% of the stated demand
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