Items from Guatemala.

ITEMS FROM GUATEMALA

 

INSTITUTO DE CIENCIA Y TECHNOLOGÍA AGRÍCOLAS - ICTA

Programa de Trigo, Km 21.5 Carretera hacia Amatitlan, Barcenas, Villa Nueva, Guatemala, Central America.

 

Fernando Aldana, Valentin Azanon, Luis Molina, Eleonora Ramire, Juan de Leon, Jacinto Poroj, Cruz Poroj, and Fredi Herrera.

 

The Wheat Program at ICTA had a good 1997. Our program received approximately one million dollars for equipment (combines, tractors, land, and a house) through congress. The money was from the Guatemalan Wheat Commission, which was closed because of an end to the of protection over the price of wheat. A concern since 1960, our country is now trying to move to a free market economy.

1997 was a difficult year for the wheat farmers. A dry period during planting and climatic problems associated with El Niño caused problems at planting. Weed control and rain during harvest produced some sprouting. However, these obstacles benefited the breeding program, because we had the opportunity to screen many lines under these conditions. We now have two new cultivars for release later this year, Filin (pegigree: Milan/Amsel) and Ictact (pegigree: Blanqui/PF62105 //Vee"S"/Myna "S").

Other excellent results from 1997 include our anther culture project and a diallelic cross of the best ten lines (90 hybrids), which represent the 'cream of the crop' of Guatemalan wheats for disease resistance and quality. This project is producing double-haploid lines that we also irradiated with Co60 to increase the ability for anther culture of the callus. With the help of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), we also irradiated the best ten lines of our program to induce variability and select germplasm. Last year, we selected 147 families that we are going to evaluate in the advanced yield trial.

Research continued from last year included a coöperative project with CIMMYT and Dr. Matheo Reynolds. We are trying to intercrop wheat with dry beans to reduce the use of fertilizer and protect the dry beans from frost damage. Growing dry beans with wheat (between the rows) produced a nitrogen fixation rate of 80.1 kg/ha in our fields last year. The problem with the association of these two crops is weed control. However, we discovered that a herbicide (Atalan or Linuron from Agrevo in a doses of 50 grams per bomb of 4 gallons) worked well with both crops. We also used this herbicide between plots and obtained excellent results.

We evaluated the use of Agran and urea as fertilizers in 1997. In five locations, the crop grown on plots where Agran was appllied always yielded better than those treated with urea. Agran is a nitrogen fertilizer from Hydronordic, but costs about US 50 ¢ more than urea. We are going to evaluate the economic advantages of the product in 1998.

To promote more profitable wheat production, we are trying to encourage farmers to make bread so they can obtain a greater advantage from growing wheat. The price of wheat is three times higher in regions where farmers make bread.