For this study, 201 consumers from Touba Senegal, were invited to evaluated four new flour products in comparison with the conventional pearl millet flours: instant pearl millet flour, instant pearl millet flour pearl millet flour, instant pearl millet flour with added dry mango and carrot powder (Food-to-Food fortification), and the previous product with added conventional chemical added dry mango and carrot powder (naturally fortified), and the previous products with added conventional chemical micronutrient premix and the food-to-food fortification. Consumers' acceptance was measured with affective tests on all the products, prepared as porridge, on five sensory traits: appearance, aroma, texture, taste and overall- score, using a five-point Likert scale (1 = dislike very much, 2 = dislike, 3 = neither dislike nor like, 4 = like, 5 = like very much. Willingness to pay (WTP) for the products was elicited through experimental auctions, in particular the BDM mechanism. Participants were randomly divided into two information treatments: in the first group the WTP was first elicited without information on the product’s content, followed by the same WTP experiment after providing information; in the second group information was given directly followed by the WTP experiment.
The economically important post flowering stalk rot (PFSR) disease of maize known as Fusarium stalk rot (FSR) is caused by Fusarium verticillioides. A genome wide association study (GWAS) was conducted with 342 maize lines for identification and validation of genomic regions associated with FSR resistance. The genotypic and phenotypic data used for the analysis are included in this dataset and the results are reported in the accompanying article.
In this study 220 urban consumers of Eldoret were asked i) about socioeconomic characteristics and nutritional knowledge, ii) evaluate five flours with two preparations using affective tests, iii) to provide willingness-to-pay for the five flours using with experimental auctions. The data contain a set for each of the three objectives. The first data set contains ID number and socioeconomic information of the participants, with one line per person (N = 220). The second data set contains the results of the affective tests. Five flours were used in the affected test: sifted conventional maize flour, sifted mixed (maize and sorghum flour) conventional flour, instant sifted mixed flour, instant whole mixed flour, and instant sifted mixed flour with food-to-food fortification. From each of the flours, two products were prepared: ugali (stiff porridge) or uji (liquid porridge). All participants were asked to evaluate the 5 x 2 = 10 preparations on five traits: appearance, texture in hand, aroma, texture in mouth, taste, and overall. The results are presented in one line per participant per product (220 x 5 = 1100 lines), with the results for ugali and uji in different columns. The third data set contains the WTP, elicited through an experimental auction using BDM, for the five flours. Participants were split into three information treatments: A1: WTP without information, A2: repeat WTP now with information, B: information from the start, each with 110 participants, so in total 3 treatments x 110 x 5 products = 1650 observations.
For this study, 296 consumers from Dakar, Senegal, were invited to evaluated five pearl millet flours: (a) conventional, compared to four instant-porridge flour products; (b) sifted; (c) wholegrain; (d) sifted with premix; (e) wholegrain with micronutrient premix and food-to-food fortified (FtFF). Consumers' acceptance was measured with affective tests, and their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for the products was elicited through experimental auctions under two treatments: firstly without information, then with information.
The efficiency of genomic selection methodologies can be increased by sparse testing where a subset of materials are evaluated in different environments. Seven different multi-environment plant breeding datasets were used to evaluate four different methods for allocating lines to environments in a multi-trait genomic prediction problem. The results of the analysis are presented in the accompanying article.
New and improved maize hybrids, developed by the CIMMYT Global Maize Program, are available for uptake by public and private sector partners, especially those interested in marketing or disseminating hybrid maize seed across South Asia and similar agro-ecological zones. Following a rigorous trialing and a stage-gate advancement process culminating in the 2020 and 2021 Stage 5 trials, CIMMYT advanced one new elite maize hybrid in South Asia in 2022. Phenotypic data collected in Stage 4 and Stage 5 trials for the selected hybrid as well as information about the trial sites are provided in this dataset. These trials were conducted through a network of partners, including NARS and private seed companies, in South Asia under various management and environmental conditions.
Genomic prediction (GP) can be used in the breeding of polysomic polyploid plant species. Different models can be used to generate the genomic prediction including single trait and multi-trait models. The data provided in this dataset were used to investigate the accuracy of four different genomic prediction models use for several traits in potato. The results of the analysis are reported in the accompanying journal article.
A large database of individual farmer field data (n = 4,107) for rice production in the Northwestern Indo- Gangetic Plains of India was used to decompose rice yield gaps and to investigate the scope to reduce nitrogen (N) inputs without compromising yields. Stochastic frontier analysis was used to disentangle efficiency and resource yield gaps, whereas data on rice yield potential in the region were retrieved from the Global Yield Gap Atlas to estimate the technology yield gap. Rice yield gaps were small (ca. 2.7 t ha 1, or 20% of potential yield, Yp) and mostly attributed to the technology yield gap (ca. 1.8 t ha 1, or ca. 15% of Yp). Efficiency and resource yield gaps were negligible (less than 5% of Yp in most districts). Small yield gaps were associated with high input use, particularly irrigation water and N, for which small yield responses were observed. N partial factor productivity (PFP-N) was 45–50 kg grain kg 1 N for fields with efficient N management and approximately 20% lower for the fields with inefficient N management. Improving PFP-N appears to be best achieved through better matching of N rates to the variety types cultivated and by adjusting the amount of urea applied in the 3rd split in correspondance with the amount of diammonium-phosphate applied earlier in the season. Future studies should assess the potential to reduce irrigation water without compromising rice yield and to broaden the assessment presented here to other indicators and at the cropping systems level.
A field study was framed in rice crop under conservation agriculture (CA) based rice-wheat system at experimental farm of Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA)-CIMMYT, Ladhowal, Punjab, India during kharif 2019. In the present study, nine treatments were imposed out of which four are CA-based treatments (ZT-N0, ZT-N50, ZT-N75 and ZT-N100), four are CA coupled with subsurface drip fertigation (CA+) based treatments (SSD-N0,SSD-N50, SSD-N75 and SSD-N100) and puddled transplanted rice (PTR) treatment as farmer’s practice. The findings of the study showed that PTR treatment out yielded in terms of yield attributing characters and biological yield than other treatments. CA+ treatment (SSD-N100) resulted higher biological yield (2.8%) than CA-based treatments (ZT-N100). SSD-N100 dominated ZT-N100 and PTR treatment in terms of plant N content (both grain and straw), total N uptake and N harvest index. PTR treatment resulted 22-33% higher ANUE than ZT-N100 and SSD-N100 treatments.
Asia. Conventional tillage-based and flood irrigated puddled transplanted rice (PTR) is a major contributor to faster depleting aquifers. Urgent actions are therefore warranted to develop alternate productive, profitable, water and N-use efficient rice production practices for rice-wheat (RW) cropping system. Conservation agriculture (CA) based direct-seeded rice (DSR) has been advocated as a potential alternative to PTR. Further, bundling CA with precision water and N management using sub-surface drip irrigation (SSD) has demonstrated significant benefits over CA-based flood irrigation (FI). However, for more efficient use of water, water budgeting is needed which is a challenging task as it requires expensive tools, and time, and efforts. Information about complete water budgeting in high water demanding crops like rice grown under CA-based SSD, FI, and PTR are not available. We deployed HYDRUS-2D model for estimating water budgeting of rice under CA+ (CA-based SSD), CA-based FI, and PTR-based systems. The objective of our study was to calibrate and validate the HYDRUS- 2D model to simulate water dynamics in rice grown under CA-based SSD and FI compared to PTR and to design water and N- use efficient production practices for rice cultivation in western IGP. Five treatments comprised of PTR+FI with 120 kg N ha 1 (PTR), zero-till direct-seeded rice (ZTDSR)+FI without N (ZT-N0), ZTDSR+FI with 100% of N recommended dose (ZT-N100), ZTDSR+SSD without N (SSD-N0), and ZTDSR+SSD with 100% of Nrecommended dose (SSD-N100) were compared. The result showed that the HYDRUS-2D model satisfactorily simulated the soil moisture content with low root mean square error (RMSE) (0.014–0.028), high coefficient of determination (74–92%), and model efficiency (59–87%) during the simulation period (80 days: 35–114 days after sowing). The highest grain yield (7.18 t ha 1) was observed in the PTR treatment, which was statistically similar to SSD-N100 (6.54 t ha 1) and significantly higher than ZT-N100. During the simulation period, PTR plots received 131.7 cm of water (rainfall + irrigation) which was 27.3% and 50.1% higher than ZT-N100 and SSD-N100 plots, respectively. Out of the cumulative water applied, PTR transpired only 18.4% of applied water, compared to 24% in ZT-N100 and 36.3% in SSD-N100. Interestingly, SSD-N100 plots recorded 20.6% and 23.5% less evaporative loss and 45.0% and 66.0% less water loss by deep drainage than ZT-N100 and PTR, respectively. Thus, conversion to CA+ system with 100% N-recommended dose saved 50.1% and 31.3% of water, and consequently attained 2.0 and 1.45-times higher biomass water use efficiency than PTR and ZT-N100, respectively. Based on the results, CA-based SSD could be recommended for precise utilization of water and to curtails the unproductive water loss components such as evaporation and deep drainage.
