• 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
10
20
30
40
50
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