Bhutan is one of the 13 member countries for the Asian Food and Agriculture Cooperation Initiative Project on ‘Vegetable Variety Development in Asia Region’. It is funded by the Rural Development Administration in Korea with technical support from the World Vegetable Center in Taiwan. The project was initiated in November 2019 and is in its 3rd and final year of implementation.
Through the project, the National Center for Organic Agriculture evaluated around 50 accessions of tomato in 2 years; 40 accessions sourced from the Worldveg center and the rest from local and other sources.
The accessions were evaluated for disease resistance, high yielding ability and other desirable traits. From the 50 lines evaluated, 7 best lines were selected for evaluation through Nationally Coordinated Trial (NCT) at research centers across the country in 2022. This will also be backed up by on-farm trial at a model organic village and participatory varietal selection involving farmers in the vicinity of the research center.
The ultimate aim of the project is to register and release 2-3 potential cultivars for commercial cultivation by farmers as the 2 existing open pollinated varieties (Roma and Ratan) were released more than 2 decades ago and farmers complaint that the seeds have degenerated and they hardly get any good crop. The potential varieties will be proposed for release during the Variety Release Committee Meeting in 2023 based on the results of the research.
Accordingly, Bhutan has been recognized as the country with the ‘Most Outstanding Performance’ in 2021 based on the achievements and outputs.
“We stand nowhere in terms of infrastructure and advanced technologies for breeding as in other member countries but our extra initiatives for the benefit of farmers in our own small ways was applauded and recognized. For instance, we were able to develop a booklet exclusively on Tomato Cultivation; a leaflet on Tomato Pruning and Training in addition to the online videos on various management aspects of tomato. We also conducted participatory varietal selection involving farmers, local government officials and researchers last year. In addition, we ran an on-farm promotion of tomato cultivation under low-cost rain shelters involving around 60 farmers in Yusipang and this is expected to cover Hongtsho as well this year. We are also planning a parallel trial of tomato cultivation under hydroponics system based on our observation trial last year”, stated the country Principal Investigator (PI), Mrs. Tashi Gyalmo.
Discussions are underway on the prospect of project extension into its second phase. The major focus of the second phase will be on Tomato Breeding and hybrid development in the country.
The country PI acknowledged the combined and dedicated efforts of all involved in making the project journey so far, a successful one.
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