New Maize Varieties Resistant to the Large Grain Borer

Scientists from the Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) have developed maize varieties resistant to the large grain borer. The new maize varieties will be nominated by KARI maize breeders to the Kenya national maize performance trials run by the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services (KEPHIS). They will also be distributed for evaluation by interested parties in other countries in 2008 through the CIMMYT international maize testing program.

An uninvited guest in maize aid shipments during the 1970s drought in Eastern Africa, the grain borer was first seen in Tanzania. Attempts to control its spread through its natural predators was not successful. To make matters worse, the borer lives in the corn cob which is the traditional African way of storing the kernel.

Marianne Banziger, the director of CIMMYT's Global Maize Program, said that the use of the new varieties will be more advantageous to farmers since the resistance is in the seed itself. There will be no added workload or expense to farmers, and no longstanding practices or habits to change.

Read more at http://www.cimmyt.org/english/wps/news/2007/sep/borers.htm For more information contact Stephen Mugo at s.mugo@cgiar.org