Tuesday theme 1 1105 1120 large briefing room komen

1. A paper presented during the 10th APA
Conference, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: October 9- 13
S. Komen
Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service, Nairobi,
Kenya
Email: skomen@kephis.org

2.  Introduction
 Bilateral agreement
 National Performance trials
 Varieties tested and released
 Challenges and opportunities
 Conclusions
 Acknowledgement
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3.  The potato (S.tuberosum L.) is the world’s fourth most
important food crop
 Annual production range from 322 - 324 million tonnes
in about 140 countries (> 100 countries are in the
tropics and sub-tropics
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4.  Second most important staple food
 Currently on 161,000 hectares and production of 2-3
million tonnes worth about US $ 396-495million p.a
 Employs approximately 800,000 growers and about 2.5
million people as intermediaries
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5. Constraints:
 Low yields(7.7 -9.5 ton/ha against over 40 ton/ha
 poor quality seed (95%)
 Poor agronomic practices
 Low level of disease control(late blight, brown rot,
and viruses)
 Limited number of varieties (15 in the last 50 years)
 Limited processing varieties only Dutch Robjin)
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6. Goal
Increase and diversify potato varieties to meet the dynamic market
demands and food security and
Specific objectives
1) Evaluate potato varieties from Dutch breeders for
commercialization
2) Broaden the potato varietal base for the emerging market
niches
3) Improve potato production technologies in Kenya
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7. Approach
 Exchange visit by government delegations
 Constituting team of experts from both countries
 Drawing of terms of references
 Conducted Pest Risk Analysis (PRA)
Bilateral agreement cont.
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8. Exchange visit by government delegations:
 Meeting of Ministers of agriculture from the two
countries
 Facilitation of potato import into Kenya while
respecting national and international laws and
regulations( WTO/ IPPC and UPOV)
 Constituting team of experts from both countries to
agree on determination of pest list
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9. Pest list was based on to ISPM11 and 19)
 New pest list for importation based on
certified seed potato of Kenya to be complied
by Netherlands
Imports shall be free from quarantine pest
except those non-quarantine covered in
certification of the two countries
Each import shall be accompanied by a
phytosanitary certificate specified by the
agreement
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10. Potato by Law must be evaluated for Value for Cultivation and
Use in national Performance Trials (NPT) before any
commercialization is affected.
Agreement considered:
 Varieties released in Kenya be imported (Dutch Robjin,
Kerr’s pink and Desiree
 Been tested but not released by ADC may be submitted
 Any new varieties may be submitted by interested seed
company
 Conducting Variety evaluation at NPTs
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11. Evaluation
 Two submission deadlines as 15th February and 31st
August for season 1 (S1) and season 2 (S2),
respectively.
 Fill in the forms,
 Submit the tests materials and
 ay prerequisite testing fees
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12. Materials and methods
Upon receipt of seed tubers,
 Samples are taken to seed health laboratory
(confirmatory tests)
 Pack seed according to sites and replicate
 Dispatch to testing sites
 Randomization- R C B Design and replicated three
times at seven sites (for conventional) and three (
intensive).
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13. Planting and management
 Four rows of eleven tubers each variety are planted at
75cm inter-row and 25 cm intra-row spacing per
replicate.
 Fertilizer rate DAP and no side dressing.
 Normal agronomic practices are employed as per the
local recommendations
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14. Parameters
 Days to plant emergence,
 number of plants per plot,
 Incidence and severity of diseases,
 Number of marketable and non-marketable
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15.  Data analysis and report writing of two season’s mean
 Discussion by National Performance Variety
Committee (NPTC).
 Decision about the candidate varieties
 Official release by National variety release
committee
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16. Release criteria:
 Varietiesyielding higher than the mean yield of the checks (P= 0.05)
(automatic release).
 Yielding similar to mean yield of checks (P= 0.05) and 5%, above
numerical yield advantage and confirmed special attribute
 Varieties for crop species where none is officially released and
yielding statistically (P= 0.05) similar to mean yield of all the
candidates and 5% above numerical yield advantage over mean of
the candidates will be recommended for release
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17. Protection and commercialization
 Upon release, the breeder may apply for protection
 All imported seed should be accompanied by
OECD/UNICE or equivalent NAK seed scheme labels
specific to classes
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18. In last 5 years (2011 – 2015)
 69 (conventional) and 62 (intensive)varieties have
been tested
 In 2012, S1 had the highest candidates tested and
higher compared to S2.
 16 (Conventional) and 32 ( Conventional)
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19. 19

20. Tuber yield:
Tuber yield comparisons
 The mean tuber yield of all the checks and candidate
varieties some what upward trend
 S1-yields higher compared to S2 due to
 Seed dominance- Apical dominance
 Inoculum build up (Late blight)
 Predisposing weather conditions
Varieties tested and released cont.
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21. 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
2012 S2 2013 S1 2013 S2 2014 S1 2014 S2 2015 S1
MEANTUBERYIELD(t/ha)
SEASONS OF TEST
CHECKS NR-CANDIDATES R-CANDIDATES
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22. Tuber yield comparisons
 Tuber yield of released candidate varieties were higher
than the checks
 Means of seasons of tests for checks and released
candidate varieties were compared since 2013, there is
7 % tuber yield
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23. Seasonal comparisons
Year S1 S2
Checks Released candidates Checks Released candidates
2012 - - 16.56 17.34
2013 22.67 24.49 17.95 18.3
2014 19.92 20.3 12.65 14.82
2015 21.88 24.02 21.88 24.02
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24. Changes in production technologies
Comparison- conventional viz intensive
 Other than S2 of 2012 and S1 of 2015, there has been
positive gain in tuber yield, irrespective of the NPT
trial
 Mean tuber yield of checks rose from16 - 21 t/ha in
conventional while
 Intensive 15 t/ha to 52 t/ha.
 Graphically, there is consistent rise over the period
from 130 % in S1 to 191 % in S2 of 2013
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25. -50
0
50
100
150
200
250
-10
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
2012 S2 2013 S1 2013 S2 2014 S1 2014 S2 2015 S1
%GAIN
MEANTUBERYIELD(t/ha)
SEASONS OF TEST
CHECKS CONVENTIONAL INTENSIVE GAIN IN CHECKS % GAIN IN CHECKS
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26. Challenges
 Introduced varieties require high level of management
 Local market is poorly developed
 Lack of good storage facilities like cold stores
 Low level of awareness of new varieties and their attributes
 No suitable storage at local farm input stores, only for dry seeds.
 Existence of knowledge gap by the stockists is still an issue.
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27. Opportunities
 Huge demand of certified seed potato
 Surging population and changing food habits
 Investment in cold seed potato storage facilities at
strategic client location
 Machinery and potato equipment, chemicals
 Training
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28. 1. The release of over 33 and three new varieties from the
Netherlands and Kenya respectively in a record time of 5 years
2. The introduction of Intensive NPT to test candidate varieties in
addition to conventional one that has been in use
3. Most varieties were released through intensive than under
conventional NPT
4. It is possible to raise the productivity of local varieties from
the current 7.7 t/ha to over 30 t/ha; about three fold by
improving agronomic practices
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29.  KEPHIS for source of data and analysis and permission to
the conference
 Syngenta Foundation for sustainable Agriculture for
funding my presence at this conference.
 Kenya-Dutch Project (CDI- Wageningen)
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THANK YOU