Maize in Rwanda

Elyse Tuyishime, One Acre Fund, Rwanda

1. What was the goal of the project?

To identify potential varieties of maize to scale out to farmers.

2. Why did you use tricot?

We used tricot for three main reasons. Firstly, it allowed us to test many varieties (up to 15) in a single season. Secondly the high number of varieties allow us to identify high performing varieties faster and scale out quicker. Thirdly, there is less follow-up than other approaches, such as fewer visits to farmers and less time required to complete trials.

3. What lessons did you learn using tricot?

We learned that blind testing minimises bias and increases farmers’ curiosity to know the outcomes of trials. We realized how reliable the ranking data is, giving us new insights on what matters to farmers, e.g. grain size. We saw that with tricot farmers liked how easy it was and often participated in more than one tricot trial. We learned that tricot is better for testing crop varieties than for testing practices. This is because when testing practices the training for farmers is usually more complicated.

4. How has tricot helped in decision making?

Yes tricot has helped breeders refine their variety catalogs because it identifies traits that drive farmer preferences. E.g. maize grain size. Also tricot helped us produce maps with variety prioritization in each zone which helps target recommendations for variety adoption. Lastly tricot helped use filter our options, resulting in 1 to 3 more powerful varieties to scale out.

5. What advice do you have about using tricot approach?

In general, people using traditional approaches don’t trust tricot because ranking data seems less precise and they are unfamiliar with how to analyse ranked data. I would tell them to think of tricot as the farmers’ best choice. Also that ranking data shows differences over data collected with traditional methods and that farmers can evaluate any trait, no matter how complex. Tricot can help breeders determine which trait is worth improving or not and if new varieties are better than existing varieties.

6. Is tricot approach good for variety evaluation and marketing?

Yes it is, because tricot consolidates the perspectives of many farmers that would be difficult to achieve with traditional approaches. Also tricot shows which traits farmers are aware of and which may need more marketing for better awareness.

7. What challenges need to be addressed?

The challenge with tricot is that it involves a series of sequential steps that cannot be skipped, which can sometimes be complicated. It also requires a field based team to engage with farmers.