• Coconut sector

• Breeding activities

• Agronomy –Variety testing

• Mikocheni Agricultural Research Institute (MARI)

– MARI was established in March 1996 to sustain and

institutionalize coconut research and development activities in Tanzania conducted by then National Coconut

Development Programme (NCDP)

� Most important perennial oil crop in the country

- > 265,000 ha along the coastal belt

- 3-4 nuts consumed per household daily

- Supports >300,000 households

- Important agro-forestry crop

- Known as the “Tree of Life” due to its multipurpose use

� declining production that became more apparent during the late 1960s and early 1970s

TREE OF LIFE USES OF LIFE USES OF LIFE USES OF LIFE USES –––– SOME EXAMPLESSOME EXAMPLESSOME EXAMPLESSOME EXAMPLES

Young fruit- coconut waterToddy alcohol Coconut milk

Furniture

Ropes/mats

carvings

Contd..

• Coconut Meat :coco flour, desiccated coconut chips,

candies

• Coconut Oil : soap, lard,, pomade, shampoo,

margarine, butter and cooking oil.

• Coconut leaves: quality paper pulp, midrib brooms,

hats and mats, fruit trays, waste baskets, fans,, lamp

shades, placemats, bags and roofing materials.

• Coconut roots: dyes, medicine

1. Drought due to low rainfall and bad distribution

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

J F M A M J J A S O N D

Month

Rai

nfa

ll (m

m)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Tem

p (

deg

. C)

RainfallTemp.

Annual average rain fall =1100mm

2. Lack of improved and adapted planting materials

3. Poor crop husbandry practices

Use of fire bush to

control weeds

Poor farming

practice no soil

fertility

management

4. Presence of serious pests

Aceria Mite attack on nuts Coconut bug (mbu wa mnazi

Attack of nutlets

COCONUT BUG /mbu wa minazi

Damage

caused by

coconut bug

Coconut bug

RHINOCEROUS BEETLE /Chonga

Beetle damage

in young

coconut

seedlings

Leaf damage by

beetlebeetle

5. Presence of Lethal Disease - LD

• Pathogen: Phytoplasmas– Transmitted by insects (leaf

hoppers)

� Symptoms

• Yellowing of leaves

• Blackening of inflorescence

• Premature nut fall

• Death within 2-3 months

Dead leaves

Blackening of the

inflorence

Pre mature

Fallen nuts

Coconut palms killed by Lethal Disease

Dead coconuts

after disease

attach

• National Coconut Development Programme (NCDP) .

In 1979/80 was established by Government of the United Republic of Tanzania to reverse the status of

declining productivity

• This document covers in work in breeding and

agronomy research activities from 1979 to 2004.

Background

� major constraints to coconut production in Tanzania

• a lack of high yielding coconut varieties that are adapted to the prevailing local

conditions of drought and lethal disease.

– before establishment of National Coconut Development Programme some work to breed for improved coconut varieties in Tanzania included:

• Selection of East African Tanzania (EAT) in Zanzibar and Chambezi Research

Station in 1930’s and 1960’s

• Investigation of general combining ability of EAT and Pemba Red Dwarf (PRD)

at Livestock Breeding station (LBS) in Tanga. EAT x PRD cross was found to

be the best.

– however, these efforts were not sustained. With the establishment of the NCDP, a Seed Multiplication and Breeding Section was set up with the objective to breed for higher yield, resistance to lethal disease and tolerance to drought stress.

Main objective

� to breed high yielding planting materials

that are resistant to lethal disease and

tolerant to drought or moisture stress.

Main activities

The main activities of the breeding section over the

past twenty-five years(1979/80-2004) were:

A. Germplasm maintenance, characterization and evaluation.

B. Introduction of exotic germplasm to widen the coconut genetic base.

C. Establishment of seed farms.

D. Improvement of EAT through selection.

E. Production and evaluation of breeder’s test materials

F. Embryo culture

A. Germplasm maintenance, characterization and evaluation

� Main coconut varieties grown in Tanzania: EAT & PRD

I. EAT

– EAT is a wild type similar to coconuts on the Indian sub-continent, have thick-husked and slow germinating coconuts.

– EAT cross pollination, fruit wt 750-1450g, fruit is oval shaped with thick husk shows differences in morphological traits like colour(red, yellow, green and brown; but most of palms bear green or brown) fruits, size, and fruit shape;

– Nuts are oblong, thick shell

– 1st bearing comes 6-8 years after field planting.

– yield per year ranges between 40-80 nuts under rain fed conditions, higher yields can be obtained under more favourable moisture regimes.

– The palm is relatively drought tolerant.

EAT contd.

• The palm can grow up to 30m tall.

• Crown shapes are variable, semi-circle or Circular. Peduncles are long taking the fruit and petiole colour.

• The EAT has numerous sub-populations. Has a close

resemblance to the Mozambique Tall (MZT) and to some other tall varieties from the Indian Ocean Islands such as Madagascar,

Comoros and Mauritius.

• The distinctive identity of EAT is the fruit shape and fruit

components is Figure 1.

Fig. 1 East African tall and fruits characteristics

– local name of Kitamli suggesting it was introduced by the Tamil traders to East Africa.

– PRD occurs everywhere along the Tanzanian and Kenyan coastal area, also in Mozambique, Madagascar, Comoros and Mauritius under the same name.

– PRD bears no bole, has a thin stem measuring 15cm in diameter at 20cm above ground level, and 20 cm at 1 m above ground level. The stem is narrow at the base and the diameter increases slightly as you go higher towards the girth.

– Top leaves are erect and straight,

– Reproductive system is self pollinated.

– PRD produces medium size oval shaped fruits. The husk is thin and the average fruit weight is 690g.

�II. Pemba Red Dwarf (PRD)

Description of PRD contd..

• PRD palms have a close resemblance to some varieties, such as the Cameroon Red Dwarf from West Africa, the Papua New

Guinea Red Dwarf, or the King Coconut from Sri Lanka.

• The fruits are oval and fruit colour is golden. The bunch stalks

are long, holding the fruits of all ages at the same distance from

the stem.

• Molecular DNA studies have shown that the Pemba Red

Dwarf and the Cameroon Red Dwarf are closely related. However, according to the observations made in Tanzania,

where the two varieties are available, PRD fronds do not droop as those of CRD. Peduncles are longer than other red or yellow

dwarfs but shorter than those of CRD.

Description of PRD contd..

• The nut is oval in shape and weighs about 500g.

• Under favourable edaphic and climatic conditions, PRD is highly precocious coming to first bearing in 2-3 years after field planting. Produces 30-70 fruits/palm/year under rain fed conditions.

• Mainly grown for its sweet and tasty liquid endosperm. The lowoil and sugar content in the solid endosperm makes it of low importance in copra production. It is a very good ornamental palm.

• PRD is sensitive to drought and this may be the reason that it is mostly found around homesteads. Pemba Island (its primary source in Eastern Africa) provides optimal growing conditions for the dwarf in Tanzania.

Figure 2. Pemba Red dwarf (PRD) and fruits characteristics

�Use of molecular markers in germplasm characterization

• One limitation of using morphological parameters for germplasm characterization is that they are influenced by the environment.

• Through participation of institute in various projects research networks in biotechnology. The coconut germplasm in Tanzania has been characterized using molecular markers. The results are:-

• Validation of the genetic similarity of West African Tall (WAT) from Côte

d’Ivoire, Laccadive micro(LCM) from India and the EAT from the East

Coast of Africa.

• Confirmation of the Pemba Red Dwarf (PRD), collected from Pemba, is

more related to the Asia-Pacific coconuts.

• Collection s showed 2 clusters of local EAT sub-populations i.e., Bagamoyo

(central part of the coastal belt) and those from the southern districts of Lindi

and Mtwara regions and while the second one consisted of the sub-

populations from the Tanga region only (northern part of the coastal belt)

B. Introduction of exotic germplasm to widen the coconut

genetic base.

• at beginning of the NCDP a survey wad done on existing coconut

genetic base results showed coconut genetic base in the country was

narrow.

• Based results, and that coconut breeding is a long-term (30yrs) and

costly activity, it was recommended to take advantage of technologies

developed in other countries.

• Importation of different genetic materials (dwarfs, talls and hybrids),

most of which came from Côte d’Ivoire. A total of 9 dwarfs, 14 talls

and 22 hybrids were imported

• Besides the imported germplasm, 30 EAT sub-populations and five

dwarfs were collected locally. The germplasm collection has been

established at Chambezi (Bagamoyo) and Kidichi (Zanzibar) 29 ha

C. Establishment of seed farms

• Long-term nature of coconut breeding, a decision was made at the beginning of NCDP to adapt technologies that had been

developed else where in order to minimize costs and time

required for research. It was assumed that some of the introduced hybrids would perform better than the local East

African Tall (EAT) coconut population.

• While the performance of these hybrids was being evaluated in

the field under Agronomy Section, seed farms for hybrid production were also established in Mafia and Zanzibar islands.

These sites were selected because of their higher and better

rainfall pattern and absence of the lethal disease.

D. Chambezi EAT Improvement

• Between April 1991 and November 1992 a 54 ha EAT seed farm was established at Chambezi Research Station seednuts for the

establishment came from six localities in Tanga Region: (, Vuo,

Boma, Mwambani, Boza and Madanga)

• these sub-populations chosen based on the history of planting

and the lethal disease, and early performance in disease resistance trials where they expressed tolerance/resistance to LD and

associated with the longer history of coconut cultivation in areas north of Pangani as compared to the southern part.

E. Production and Evaluation of Breeder’s Test Materials

(BTM)

• Introduced hybrids did not perform well under local conditions. Following the disappointing performance, emphasis was put on EAT selection and breeding for resistance to LD and drought tolerance. The strategy was to use the survivors from the disease resistance trials in a cross breeding programme and to test the general combining ability of the resulting crosses with respect to yield, LD resistance and drought tolerance.

• BTMs were produced between 1991 and 1994 by controlled hand pollination techniques. The basis of selecting the crossing partners was the percentage of palms that had so far survived lethal disease at Kifumangao, Chambezi and Pongwe where disease incidence is very high. In Zanzibar the main objective was to impart the good characteristics (adaptability to local conditions) of EAT by crossing EAT with other tall and dwarf varieties.

• The BTM trials were planted at Chambezi, Kifumangao which are Lethal Disease (LD) infested areas), Mkuranga and Selem (LD-free) and in a number of on-farm trials in Tanga, Dar es Salaam and Coast regions between 1992/93 and 1994/95 to evaluate their performance with respect to yield, resistance to lethal disease and tolerance to drought.

Figure Status of Bearing and number of nut set /tree at Chambezi and

Mkuranga at 61

(MYD=Malayan Yellow Dwarf, MGD= Malayan Green Dwarf,

MRD=Malayan Red Dwarf,, CRD= Cameron Red Dwarf, PRD Pemba

Red Dwarf)

• 61months after planting (MAP), the results showed varieties performed differently from each other with respect bearing percentage and number of nuts harvested at Mkuranga and Chambezi

0

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40

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60

70

80

90

Chambezi Mkuranga Chambezi Mkuranga

MYDxEAT MRDxEAT CRDxEATPRDxEAT MGDxEAT EAT exLBS

�Disease incidences of EAT crosses

• All breeders’ test materials produced by crossing

survivors of Lethal Disease (LD) sustained heavy losses

to the disease

• at Kifumangao (93.7-100%)

• while at Chambezi losses were lower, ranging from

4.2% to 49.9 %.

• It can therefore be concluded that the strategy of

breeding for resistance to LD by screening and crossing

survivors of the disease with each other was not

successful, probably because the survivors were not

resistant but had rather escaped the disease

F. Coconut Embryo Culture

use of in-vitro techniques are one of the most appropriate

procedures for germplasm collection and exchange.

For this reason, MARI collaborated with other COGENT member countries to evaluate different protocols used by different

institutions in coconut embryo culture procedures and acclimatization with the view to improve the efficiency of in-vitro

culture of zygotic coconut embryos.

Agronomy research aimed at addressing agronomic

problems facing the coconut farmer by developing

improved and sustainable coconut based farming

systems that are appropriate for the small scale farmer

in Tanzania. The main activities included:– Variety trials

– Intercropping and crop rotation trials;

– Fertilizer trials;

– Soil moisture conservation trials.

• To achieve this, extensive on-station and on-farm agronomy trials were conducted in different agro-ecological zones to determine the effect of fertilizer, spacing, intercropping, crop rotation, mulching and weeding on the growth and yield of different coconut varieties.– Experiments were carried out at seven sites representing major coconut

soils (Chambezi for coastal sands, Mkuranga for red brown sandy loams, Maramba and Mlingano for red brown, Selem for white sands, Bambi for red brown clay loam over limestone(Zanzibar) and Ng’apa in Lindifor valley bottoms).

– Recommendations on improved crop husbandry practices were made and disseminated to farmers through the extension services.

– the major conclusions and recommendations include• Intercropping and crop rotation;• Soil fertility (fertilizer rates recommendation for coconuts) ,

improvement and maintenance• Soil moisture conservation techniques.

• Varieties: hybrid PB 121 and EAT other hybrids were represented at the sites.

The varieties were planted at a space of 9m x 9m triangular (143 trees/ha)

The following vegetative and reproductive measurements were made:

rate of leaf production, Flowering /precocity, nut set, yield.

Variety Trials: Results contd.

Bunches/tree by Dec 1987 (71 MAP)

Nut set per palm , June 1987 (63 MAP)

Variety Trials: Results contd.

Bunches/tree by Dec 1987 (71 MAP)

Harvested nuts/palm/year 1990/91 (99MAP)

Variety trials I: Yield and drought effects contd.

Yield comparison of varieties at

different datesDrought effects (% of palms with wilting

symptoms/plot) at different dates

F1 hybrid at 4.5yrs after planting Drought affected palms

Ng’apa Variety trials (Valley bottoms)

Thank you very much for your attention