Skip to main content

Cowpea in Nigeria

Patrick Ongom, IITA

  1. Why did you use Tricot?

We decided on tricot when we realised that the traditional approaches were limited. Tricot mimics the normal experimental design in research, making it easier to fit into the breeding process. With tricot, decisions can be made on statistics, data is easily summarized, and it also allows you to cover large numbers of farmers for better representation of varietal performance. Data is easily captured, summarized and stored compared to other methods.

  1. What lessons did you learn using tricot?

We learned that once you understand the process it is simple, and it was successful. We also learned that if the field agents are not well trained you can have technical issues. That is why at the beginning there needs to be some supervision and monitoring of agents regarding software and data capture.

  1. Did you learn anything about logistics and partnerships?

We made important connections with farmers groups in the cowpea growing area and met with field extensive agents and local government officials who are key in promoting the crop. They will be key in taking the varieties to the farmer and consumers.

  1. What new insights about cowpeas did you get from the trials?

We found that traits related to cowpea grain colour, seed size and pest and disease were the most important to farmers. This allowed us to adjust our product profiles and breeding program so that these traits are captured. Importantly, we also used the results of the tricot trials to make decisions on which varieties to release. Tricot has guided us to restructure our breeding pipeline to align it better with market classes. This is moving us in the right direction for breeding for consumer demanded traits.

  1. What advice do you have for someone who wants to use tricot?

I would tell them that tricot is a powerful and useful technology. Compared to traditional methods, farmers find the method very easy to work with, having only 3 varieties to score. Breeders also find it easy as the access to data is instant and it is easy to summarize through functions in the software. It is easier to scale out and work with many farmers, and you are not limited to small sample size.

  1. Do you think the tricot approach is appropriate for variety evaluation and release?

Yes. Tricot can be instrumental in several stages in the breeding program. For cowpea we are using it at the later stage when material have already been tested, and we use tricot to get farmers opinion on that material. We have also used it in earlier stages in development phase.

  1. What are the challenges that need to be addressed?

We experienced a few challenges. From the user side, sometimes we have duplicate entries from the same farmer. But thankfully there is an option in ClimMob to fix the errors. It would be great if there were more mechanism to fix common errors made in the field. Also, the more familiar people are with the tools, the better the results.