Employing Phenology to Delineate Wheat Agro-Climatic Zones in Afghanistan

M Qasem Obaidi ,M H Azmatyar,Elias Mohmand,Rajiv Sharma

doi:10.5539/jas.v9n1p218

Abstract

<p>Afghanistan grows wheat on about 2.5 million hectares with an average annual production of about five million tonnes. The local research and development efforts make use of country wide research results to recommend varieties and other technologies. Afghanistan has wide ranging climatic variability and its wheat acreage therefore needs to be delineated into wheat climatic zones. A set of 10 different types of wheat varieties were scored for average number of days to 50% flowering (ADF) at 10 locations to delineate Afghan wheat acreage into homogeneous wheat climatic zones based on ADF values. The results obtained hinted at creating eastern, northern, south western and a highland zone for conducting research and recommending wheat technologies.</p>

Highlights

Afghanistan is a wheat eating country where per capita wheat consumption stands at over 200 kg/annum
The Afghan agricultural research is spearheaded by Agricultural Research Institute of Afghanistan (ARIA) which constitutes Afghanistan’s national agricultural research system (NARS)
It is imperative that country is categorized into all possible wheat climatic zones to fine-tune production management and identify best adapted varieties for each zone

Summary

Introduction

Afghanistan is a wheat eating country where per capita wheat consumption stands at over 200 kg/annum. Decades of war have inhibited growth of both research and development in all fields and more so in agriculture sector as intervention involves moving physically into insecure country side. This has not prevented work of CG canters including CIMMYT, and its germplasm introductions led to development and release of several wheat varieties in the country in recent past (Obaidi et al, 2011, 2014, 2015). Though adequate number of wheat varieties are available, their dissemination to farmer fields is severely hampered on account of inefficient seed production providing for a less than five per cent seed replacement rate for wheat. Phenological traits mainly days to flowering is a reflection of agro climatic features of any location and can be aptly employed to characterize different agro climatic zones (Diaz et al, 2012; Pearce et al, 2016)

Methods

Results

Conclusion