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Grassroots Breeding of Masipag
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Masipag News & Views
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Dec 09, 2001 22:15 PST
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Grassroots Breeding of Masipag
CASE OF LEOPOLDO GUILARAN
For Leopoldo Guilaran or Nong Poldo, grassroots breeding is an essential
tool in empowering the rural populace. Seed is power, he believes.
Whoever controls the seed controls the lives of those sowing it.
Nong Poldo was raised on a farm in Tapi village, Kabankalan City of
southern Philippines’ Negros Occidental. He was only five when his
father, a foreman in a hacienda, bought the farm. Fruit trees, brought
by his father from the hacienda, were planted on it. The farm was
diverse and had contour bounds.
During the mid-‘70s, Nong Poldo’s brother took over the management of
the farm and turned it into a sugarland. The contour bounds had been
leveled and the trees cut down. Everything but one quarter of a hectare
left for rice was converted to sugarcane plantation. It was the
beginning of the sugar boom.
The situation remained that way until the sugar slump in the mid-‘80s.
The family was seriously hit by the crisis.
Rice monoculture
Some farmers started to diversify to rice unaware of the more complex
problems besetting this another monoculture farming system.
The single crop rice farming system, coupled with the costly chemical
requirements, was implemented in the province under the Green Revolution
and the Masagana ’99 programs of the government since the early ‘70’s.
Traditional seeds were replaced by high yielding varieties or HYV’s.
Farmers in Tapi lost hold on many indigenous cultivars being grown for
years in the village.
At the Guilaran’s land, corn was suggested by a government agriculturist
since most parts of the farm were upland. Hybrid corn was sown.
But the harvested seeds when replanted were no longer as good as the
first grains sown. He asked the agriculturist why, but got no response.
It was the seed, Nong Poldo knew. And since then, he realized the
importance of it.
In 1991, the myths surrounding seeds and breeding were finally
demystified. Nong Poldo, under the Masipag Program, was taught the
basics of breeding, emasculation, cross-pollination, and many other
scientific and technical knowledge on seeds and farming he once believed
to be a monopoly of the scientists.
GL Breeding
Breeding is done primarily to produce an improved cultivar. For Nong
Poldo, his objectives could be summed up into the following: produce
high yielding, early maturing, resistant to drought and diseases, and
has good eating quality cultivars. He calls his selections GL where GL
stands for Guilaran Lines.
Nong Poldo started breeding in 1993. Until today, he has made 46
selections. Most of them have been in the verification farms of members
all over the country. Parent materials were selected based on
availability and the specific objectives set for every cross.
For his first four crosses, 34 have been selected and hundreds were
discarded. They are now in their 12th filial of generation or F12. For
Masipag cultivars, F6 is already considered stable lines.
In 1996, Nong Poldo made additional eight crosses. The drought that
struck the province brought about by the El Niño phenomenon in 1997
destroyed five of these crosses however.
These crosses are now on the sixth filial of generation (F6) and are
therefore considered stable lines.
In the MAPISAN Trial Farm in the province, Nong Poldo has produced 10
crosses. Sown early November of 1998, 25 crosses were actually made but
rats ravaged the field destroying 15 of them.
Except for M1-22-1, these rice cultivars are of traditional origin.
Foremost in the objectives of these crosses is to produce an upland rice
resistant to drought and infestation and has good yield. Many members of
MAPISAN are upland farmers.
Twelve selections have been produced from these crosses bringing to a
total of 46 selections.
An additional nine crosses are made and now in their first filial of
generation (F1). For these new crosses, upland and lowland cultivars
were used as parent materials aiming to produce selections that could be
for upland (tall selections) and lowland (short selections) agriculture.
Facilitating and hindering factors
Many factors have contributed to the success as well as failure of Nong
Poldo’s breeding work.
Factors that hinder
*Lack of expertise
His first attempt in breeding was a failure – no F1 seeds were produced.
He needed more practice in emasculation. He was successful in removing
the anthers, but would remove the ovary and stigma at the same time.
*Pests
He tried in the second cropping. Cross-pollination was successful but
rats harvested the grains before he did. The following cropping, he
tried again and rats attacked once more, but this time with the help of
insects.
*Climate
In 1997, five of his eight crosses were damaged by the intense heat
brought about by the El Niño phenomenon.
Factors that facilitate
*Ratooning
The following cropping, tried of spending so much energies and not
getting the needed results, he shortcut the process by using the ratoon
crop. The plants were dug and transferred to pots with soil mixed with
compost. They were watered everyday until flowering. He then emasculated
and cross-pollinated and was successful on four crosses out of eight.
*Participatory selection
Nong Poldo’s many organizational tasks with the BUGANA Federation in his
home village and later with the MAPISAN Alliance proved too cumbersome
to take alone the responsibility of the lengthy selection process. Still
at the third and fourth filial of generations (F3 and F4), he sent the
GL seeds to network members and made the selection process a
participatory undertaking.
*Family support
While attending various organizational responsibilities including his
breeding work at the MAPISAN Trial Farm in Oringao, Nong Poldo has his
family to support him. Eldest son Dexter helps him in his breeding work
at the trial farm. He does emasculation. The third of the six siblings
works on field preparation of the family farm in Tapi. Dexter also helps
out during weekends. Aside from managing the farm, Nang Openg, Nong
Poldo’s wife, does weeding and harvesting.
Promising results
The GL selections at the Masipag back-up station in Luzon are still in
the adaptation stage. This early, however, station breeder Jimmy Gibe
noted that some GL selections in Luzon have already been showing signs
of resistance to certain pests and have promising yield.
In Negros Occidental, the high yield in the mass production farms of
some members could be attributed to seed adaptability, the breeding work
being done in the same agrozone. Some members have attested their yield
has doubled with the GL selections.
Resistance to pests and diseases, aside from good yield, has been noted
by Mindanao members.
However, the success of Masipag rice both in the fields and consumers’
tables can also work negatively for the community-based biodiversity
conservation efforts.
Already, there are reports that some commercial breeders have been
selling Masipag seeds. This phenomenon has raised alarm for many network
members. But while there is reason to worry, Nong Poldo believes that
total seed control is remote for the Masipag cultivars.
Unlike with the high yielding varieties of seeds, the Masipag seeds have
longer lasting germinating effectivity. The HYV’s will not germinate
after one or two cropping seasons.
As such, with the Masipag cultivars the traditional practice of on-farm
seedbanking is being regenerated. Seed exchange, another healthy rural
farm practice that had been responsible for the preservation and spread
of various rice cultivars before the Green Revolution, is also being
revived.
Nong Poldo’s bred seeds continue to spread across the country along with
hundreds of cultivars produced by other farmer-breeders of Masipag. But
his organizational workload restrained him from further selections. With
the network members continuing the process, breeding of the GL seeds has
become a participatory endeavor.
This enables him to do other important organizational tasks including
speaking engagements both domestic and international. And he never
ceases making rounds across the country to share with fellow farmers his
knowledge and experience in grassroots breeding.
(Today, Masipag has 685 traditional rice varieties in the
community-managed (in-situ) seed banks and adaptability farms in 200
areas of the country. Farmer-led participatory breeding has produced 300
Masipag cultivars/selections.
Leopoldo Guilaran is currently the chairperson of the Board of Trustees
of Masipag after serving as vice chair from 1995 to 2001. He was vice
chair of the Masipan Alliance for two years until 1998.)
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