Sugar Tech (2010) 12(1) : 1-4

LETTER TO EDITOR

Participatory varietal selection in sugarcane

T. Rajula Shanthy

Received: 12 November, 2009; Accepted: 2 March, 2010

Abstract Participatory varietal selection (PVS) is a recent carried out at Sugarcane Breeding Institute Coimbatore to
approach increasingly being used in developing countries to generate new production technologies, mainly genetically
make the farmers choose the best suited variety for their improved varieties. So far at least 2800 Co varieties have been
locality. Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore released for commercial cultivation (Anon. 2008). Not all the
implemented this participatory approach in M.R.K. Co- varieties have been commercially successful. There are specific
operative Sugar Mills Ltd., Sethiathope, Tamil Nadu during characteristics in a sugarcane variety which makes it popular.
2002 to 2006. Participatory rural appraisal and agro-eco system The spread and acceptance of any variety depends on the
analysis were done with the participation of farmers to assess perception of the farmers about that variety (Rajulashanthy
the situation and identify the needs of sugarcane growers. To and Thiagarajan 2003).
start with, an action plan was charted out and implemented
with the participation of farmers. Subsequently adaptive trials Different kinds of extension activities have been
and multilocation trials were conducted in farmers’ fields and conducted to disseminate these varieties, which mainly
two sugarcane varieties viz., CoV 92102 and Co 86032 were included verification trials, frontline demonstrations, institute-
identified for alkaline soils. The paper gives a concrete idea of industry interface trials and popularizations (Rajulashanthy
the feasibility of conducting on - farm research in participatory 2009).
mode and the success thereof.
A questionnaire based country-wide varietal survey
Keywords Adaptability trial, farming communities, participatory conducted by the author during early 2000 indicated that the
varietal selection, sugarcane number of varieties adopted is less but, when adopted, they
cover quite a large area. For instance, the variety Co 86032 is
Sugarcane is one of the major commercial crops grown in widely grown in Tamil Nadu state occupying nearly 90% of
India. The crop is primarily grown for sugar; apart from its use the cane growing area (Nair 2008).
for jaggery, ethanol and other by-products viz., bagasse for
cogeneration and pulp making, fodder purpose, biocompost Witcombe et al. (1996) stated that in many developing
etc. Though sugarcane is grown throughout the country, being countries, most cultivars grown by farmers are old and only a
a tropical crop it is best suited for Southern states. In Tamil few of the released cultivars are grown widely. The reasons,
Nadu, sugarcane is grown in 1.6 lakh ha with an average among others, include inadequate exposure to new varieties,
production of 214.10 lakh tonnes of sugarcane. The state ranks despite the occasional presence of suitable ones, or the
first in productivity with 105 t/ha (Anon 2009). varieties are not adequate to satisfy farmers’ needs. In order
to alleviate this problem, one approach that has been practiced,
For the last nine decades, research activities have been mainly in resource poor farming communities, is participatory
varietal selection (PVS). It is well documented that PVS has
T. Rajula Shanthy ( ) shown success in identifying varieties preferred by farmers,
Senior Scientist & Head, Extension Section and accelerating their dissemination and increasing cultivar
Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore 641 007 diversity (Joshi and Witcombe 1996; Witcombe et al. 1996;
email: rajula.sbi@gmail.com
Mulatu and Belete 2001; Mulatu and Zelleke 2002). Results

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from multilocation yield trials with Tef proved that the improved delete any criteria it believed to be important but not already
varieties yield more than the farmers’ local cultivars and / or selected. Then the criteria were reduced to 14 through the
the standard controls (Tefera et al. 2001). According to Dadi focus group discussions, and pair-wise ranking matrix was
(1998), lack of awareness by farmers and unavailability of seeds used to rank the criteria. Pair-wise ranking is a kind of
are the most important factors for non-adoption of improved participatory rural appraisal technique, which is a structured
varieties, which renders the application of PVS worthwhile. method for ranking the selection criteria in priority order in a
consensus-oriented manner. The rank assignments were
In line with the above, the objectives of the present determined from the number of times each selection criterion
study were to identify farmers’ variety selection criteria’ to was preferred by the group (Lelo et al. 1995).
enable farmers to assess the performance of alkaline resistant
sugarcane varieties of their choice and to accelerate the Varietal evaluation by farmers
dissemination of farmers’ choiced varieties through exchange
among themselves. Eight sugarcane varieties that were identified by SBI as
suited for alkaline soils were taken for conducting adaptive
Farmer Research Groups trials in the two identified villages. To start with, sett materials
were provided to the factory and few progressive farmers for
A sensitization workshop and a series of village level raising seed nursery. The varieties were then planted in farmer’s
meetings were organised with farmers and cane development fields (maximum of four per farmer) on alkaline soils in plots
personnel of M.R.K. Cooperative Sugar Mill during the each measuring 0.5 acres. Recommended agronomic practices
formation of farmer research groups. Twenty three volunteer for the location including 20% higher seed rate were applied
farmers from the selected villages were included. The farmers uniformly. Farmers evaluated the varieties right from
were selected based on their interest and involvement during germination count to harvest.
the participatory rural appraisal exercise which was then
ascertained by key informants and upon the recommendations Research guidance was provided to farmers in conducting
of the cane extension personnel based on priori experience. the adaptive trials; Answers were provided to the queries of
farmers and meantime farmers explained their specific reasons
Survey for farmers’ selection criteria for the acceptance or rejection of a variety. Frequent field visits
to nearby trial farms were carried out by farmers, scientists,
A semi-structured open ended schedule was used to collect and extension agents of the concerned sugar factory; the
details on the selection criteria used by farmers to evaluate a purpose being to share their experiences. The yield data was
sugarcane variety with 47 and 52 farmers from N.Mangalam recorded after 12 months at harvest. Normally, in Tamil Nadu
and Vattathur villages, respectively. Farmers listed more than state, farmers grow one plant crop followed by at least two
21 criteria. A criterion which was mentioned by fewer than five ratoons. Hence, for the PVS trials also, the trend of one plant
farmers was excluded. Focus group discussions were held followed by two ratoon crops was taken up.
with 12 randomly selected farmers from each village. Cane
assistants of the concerned sections of the sugar factory and Farmers’ varietal selection criteria
extension scientists from Sugarcane Breeding Institute (SBI)
served as facilitators. Each group was encouraged to add/ Table 1 gives the results of farmers’ varietal selection

Table 1: Farmers’ varietal selection criteria of sugarcane varieties

S.No. Selection criteria N.Mangalam (N=47) Vattathur (N=52)
Frequency of farmers’ Pair-wise Frequency of farmers’ Pair-wise ranking
response ranking response
1. Plant cane yield (t/ha) 93.62 1 86.53 1
2. Germination % 21.27 12 15.38 12
3. No. of tillers per clump 78.72 4 67.30 4
4. Lodging 29.78 10 21.15 11
5. Intensity of flowering 23.40 11 25.00 10
6. Easiness in removing leaf sheath 59.57 8 50.00 7
7. Using plant tops as cattle feed 65.95 6 53.84 6
8. Tolerance to drought 57.44 9 55.77 5
9. Tolerance to problem soils 80.85 3 69.23 3
10. Tolerance to pests 63.82 7 401.38 8
11. Tolerance to diseases 61.70 5 36.53 9
12. Jaggery yield 17.02 13 7.69 14
13. Jaggery quality 14.89 14 9.61 13
14. Ratoon performance 89.36 2 82.69 2

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criteria. More than 80% of the farmers in the study area have a cane yield of 101.42 t/ha in N. Mangalam village and 98.28 t/
ranked cane yield and ratoon yield as the foremost criteria in ha in Vattathur village. The other six varieties gave a cane
evaluating a sugarcane variety. The cane growers are paid by yield of less than 100 t/ha, the range being 55.55 to 86.67 t/ha.
the sugar factories based on tonnage irrespective of all the
other cane characteristics. This would have been probably Table 2. Performance in adaptive trials during 2003-04 season
the reason for farmers to rate cane yield as the foremost criteria. Yield (t/ha)
Variety
During the focus group discussions as well, farmers opined N.Mangalam Vattathur
that all other selection criteria are considered only if the variety Co 86032 101.42 98.28
CoV 92102 120.32 115.05
is a high yielder than the existing cultivars. The other major CoV 94101 86.67 85.83
criteria included tolerance to problem soils, number of tillers CoC 90063 69.93 55.55
per clump and utility of plant tops as cattle feed. Farmers were CoC 671 86.09 81.25
Co 97009 77.49 80.00
less interested in other agronomic trials. Since majority of the CoC 98061 62.50 75.00
sample farmers were registered growers of sugar factories, CoSi 96071 70.00 75.00
their less concern of jaggery yield and quality is justified.
However, the ranking pattern varied to a lesser extent in the
two study villages. Multilocation trials

Farmers in the study area detrash the dried and partially Due to the better performance of the varieties CoV 92102
dried sugarcane leaves once during 5th month, though the and Co 86032 were considered for further trials. Multi-location
recommendation is to detrash during 5th and 7th months. The trials were laid in the alkaline patches in 20 locations of the
varieties that are self-stripping and do not have spines on the two villages during the next cropping season to observe the
leaves are preferred. Detrashing is an activity done exclusively sustainability of their performance.
by farm women and drudgery is more when it is difficult to
remove leaf sheath and has minute spines on the lamina. Table 3: Performance in multilocation trials
Village: N. Mangalam
When farmers’ selection criteria are strongly influenced Variety Yield (t/ha)
by market demand, there is a high consistency of the criteria Plant Ratoon Average
Co 86032 77.5 65.0 71.25
over years, locations and gender (Kitch et al. 1998). In the CoV 92102 80.0 67.5 73.75
case of sugarcane, cane yield and juice quality are inversely
correlated. Therefore the cane breeders strike a balance
Village : Vattathur
between cane yield and sucrose % so that the sugar factories
and the cane growers together stand benefitted. Variety Yield (t/ha)
Plant Ratoon Average
Co 86032 82.5 77.5 80.0
Participatory varietal selection CoV 92102 85.0 80.0 82.5

Table 4: Maximum yield obtained in the variety CoV 92102

Most PVS methods follow four phases; an assessment of
farmers’ cultivar needs (through participatory rural appraisal Plant/Ratoon Yield (t/ha)
or survey), a search for suitable cultivars, evaluation and Plant 202.5
selection by farmers, and dissemination of farmers’ preferred I Ratoon 162.5
II Ratoon 152.5
cultivars (Wincombe et al. 1996).

On farm adaptive trials The data indicated that the variety CoV 92102 performed
well in N.Mangalam (73.75 t/ha) and in Vattathur (82.5 t/ha)
In the present on-farm adaptive trials, we put all the available villages both in plant and ratoon crops. The yields were slightly
alkaline resistant varieties for the farmers to choose based on lower when compared to previous season due to inadequate
their performance. Searching for matching varieties with irrigation facility and other agro-climatic factors. Among the
farmers’ selection criteria may save time and reduce cost, but 20 multilocation trials, the variety CoV 92102 gave the highest
success has not always been high (Mulatu and Zelleke 2002). cane yield of 202.5 t/ha in plant crop, 162.5 t/ha in I ratoon and
152.5 t/ha in II ratoon.
The performance of sugarcane varieties in adaptive trials
conducted during 2003-04 crop season (Table 2) indicated that Visualizing a better performance by the variety CoV 92102,
the variety CoV 94012 performed well in both the villages with the variety was popularized in almost 24% of the reserved area
an average cane yield of 120.32 t/ha in N. Mangalam village during 2005-06 and in 20% area during 2006-07 planting season
and 115.05 t/ha in Vattathur village. The variety Co 86032 gave in alkaline soils to sustain the yield and recovery. The average

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