Data for: On-farm Performance and Farmers’ Participatory Assessment of New Stress-Tolerant Maize Hybrids in Eastern Africa
Description
On-farm Performance and Farmers’ Participatory Assessment of New Stress-Tolerant Maize Hybrids in Eastern Africa Two sets of varieties, one with 12 early-to-intermediate maturing (EI) hybrids and the other with 13 intermediate-to-late maturing (IL) hybrids, were evaluated on-farm under smallholder farmers’ conditions. The varieties included pre-commercial CIMMYT test hybrids, internal genetic gain checks, popular commercial hybrid checks, and one farmer’s check variety. The on-farm trials were conducted in 2016 and 2017 in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda under rainfed conditions and farmers’ management, except at KALRO-Kiboko station where supplementary irrigation was used. The EI varieties were evaluated at a total of 60 environments (site-year-management combinations), the IL varieties were evaluated at 54 environments; grain-yield data were collected successfully at 42 and 40 environments, respectively. For each entry, field weight was recorded from all ears in the four central rows (15 m2), and grain yield (t ha-1) was estimated. To evaluate new maize hybrid varieties, farmers were invited to observe them in the field, at mid-season and at harvest. Participants were shown one replication of the trial, containing one variety per plot. The evaluation was double blind, and the order in which plots were evaluated were randomized. The tool a questionnaire with three components: socioeconomic characteristics, plant traits, and overall performance evaluation. The first component included socioeconomic characteristics of the respondent and maize production characteristics. The second component was a table with a list of traits. For each trait, participants quantified its importance on a scale of 0 (not important) to 3 (very important). The third component was a continuation of the same table, with one column for each variety, identified by the plot number in the column head, and a row for each trait. The participant was asked to score each variety on a five-point Likert scale, where A = like strongly, B = like, C = neither like nor dislike, D = dislike, E = dislike strongly. In the final row, participants scored the variety for overall performance. A total of 2,025 farmers took part in the evaluations. The data of these trials were assembled in five data files (Table 1). Since the data cover different years and sites, where site numbers may have been repeated and randomized across the districts, key variables are to be considered together in the identification of unique records, as explained in the table below. # File Key variables 1 Respondent characteristics END_SERIAL_NO and SITE_NUMBER 2 Criteria for importance END_SERIAL_NO and SITE_NUMBER 3 Participatory evaluation END_SERIAL_NO, SITE_NUMBER, CATEGORY, YEAR and VARIETY 4 Plot level data yield and mean pve trait scores SITE_NUMBER, CATEGORY, YEAR and VARIETY 5 Regional On-Farm Trials (roft) early-intermed site and randomization SITE_NUMBER, CATEGORY, YEAR Plot and VARIETY