The improvement of the old varieties of cotton produced in Mozambique is the bet of the Mozambique Agricultural Research Institute (IIAM) in Zambezia province, as a way to lead the producers to achieve a high yield production.
Currently developing an advanced program (conventional and unconventional) for genetic improvement of cotton tolerant to angular spot and other diseases, high productivity and good fiber qualities, the IIAM also has goals to be achieved in the long term.
To this end, it hopes to raise funds for research and production of basic and pre-basic seeds, release and registration of cultivars improved by the breeding program for cotton tolerant to diseases, pests and other abiotic factors, such as drought, with high yields and good quality.
According to Leonel Moiana, IIAM researcher, the old varieties are already proving to be unviable, because they are far from the standards for high yield production that is intended with this crop.
According to Moiana’s data, this crop is grown by 223,580 producers in the central and northern parts of the country, in the family and business sectors.
Most of the varieties grown in Mozambique are imported from other countries, with a different climate from Mozambique. Part of them, if not all, says the source, have not had a feasibility study regarding compatibility with Mozambican soils.
Thus, according to Leonel Moiana, the old varieties have already been studied in Namialo, Balama, Montepuez, Morrumbala and Namapa soils, districts with extensive areas dedicated to cotton growing.
“The adaptability and stability studies of cotton cultivars were done at the Cotton Seed Multiplication Research Center in Namialo (CIMSAN), on varieties coming from Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, Turkey, Brazil, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Senegal and the United States of America,” he said.
About the results, Moiana says that from the only center in the country that does cotton research it was possible to find sucker-tolerant varieties, which helps producers not to use insecticides, which is good, in the first place, for reducing the costs of acquiring these repellents.
It has also been possible to replace old (unviable) varieties with the current ones, with a yield of over 1,500 kilograms per hectare, compared with 400 to 500 for the previously grown varieties.
“Right now we are developing an advanced program for the genetic improvement of cotton tolerant to angular spot and other diseases, with high productivity of seed cotton and good fiber quality,” he exemplifies.
