{"id":1834,"date":"2021-10-26T09:39:11","date_gmt":"2021-10-26T09:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/104.238.170.140\/seedcogroup\/zm\/fieldcrops\/?page_id=1834"},"modified":"2024-01-16T08:06:48","modified_gmt":"2024-01-16T08:06:48","slug":"product-innovations","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.seedcogroup.com\/ug\/fieldcrops\/product-innovations\/","title":{"rendered":"Product Innovations"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>#sp-ea-1838 .spcollapsing { height: 0; overflow: hidden; transition-property: height;transition-duration: 500ms;}#sp-ea-1838.sp-easy-accordion>.sp-ea-single {margin-bottom: 10px; border: 1px solid #e2e2e2; }#sp-ea-1838.sp-easy-accordion>.sp-ea-single>.ea-header a {color: #444;}#sp-ea-1838.sp-easy-accordion>.sp-ea-single>.sp-collapse>.ea-body {background: #fff; color: #444;}#sp-ea-1838.sp-easy-accordion>.sp-ea-single {background: #eee;}#sp-ea-1838.sp-easy-accordion>.sp-ea-single>.ea-header a .ea-expand-icon { float: left; color: #444;font-size: 16px;}<\/style><div id=\"sp_easy_accordion-1760523554\"><div id=\"sp-ea-1838\" class=\"sp-ea-one sp-easy-accordion\" data-ea-active=\"ea-click\" data-ea-mode=\"vertical\" data-preloader=\"\" data-scroll-active-item=\"\" data-offset-to-scroll=\"0\"><div class=\"ea-card ea-expand sp-ea-single\"><h3 class=\"ea-header\"><a class=\"collapsed\" id=\"ea-header-18380\" role=\"button\" data-sptoggle=\"spcollapse\" data-sptarget=\"#collapse18380\" aria-controls=\"collapse18380\" href=\"#\" aria-expanded=\"true\" tabindex=\"0\"><i aria-hidden=\"true\" role=\"presentation\" class=\"ea-expand-icon eap-icon-ea-expand-minus\"><\/i> Climate Smart Varieties<\/a><\/h3><div class=\"sp-collapse spcollapse collapsed show\" id=\"collapse18380\" data-parent=\"#sp-ea-1838\" role=\"region\" aria-labelledby=\"ea-header-18380\"> <div class=\"ea-body\"><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As it has been our mandate and goal as Seed Co to ensure the development of crop varieties that are better suited to new and ever-changing climatic conditions, we have released varieties that have tremendous adaptation capabilities that increase in mean temperature and accelerate crop development, resulting in shorter crop durations and reduced time to accumulate biomass and yield. The process of breeding, delivery and adoption of new maize varieties in Seed Co is an on-going process. All our seed varieties that end with a \u20189\u2019 are adapters, suited for various climatic conditions.<\/span><\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"ea-card sp-ea-single\"><h3 class=\"ea-header\"><a class=\"collapsed\" id=\"ea-header-18381\" role=\"button\" data-sptoggle=\"spcollapse\" data-sptarget=\"#collapse18381\" aria-controls=\"collapse18381\" href=\"#\" aria-expanded=\"false\" tabindex=\"0\"><i aria-hidden=\"true\" role=\"presentation\" class=\"ea-expand-icon eap-icon-ea-expand-plus\"><\/i> Disease Tolerance<\/a><\/h3><div class=\"sp-collapse spcollapse \" id=\"collapse18381\" data-parent=\"#sp-ea-1838\" role=\"region\" aria-labelledby=\"ea-header-18381\"> <div class=\"ea-body\"><p><strong>Maize<\/strong><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">From 1994 - 1996 Gray Leaf Spot disease (GLS) caused by Cercospora zeae-maydis Tehon and Daniels) which affects maize spread to Zimbabwe from South Africa\u2019s KwaZulu Natal. Maize is predominantly grown by small-scale farmers without fungicides, hence there was need to develop GLS resistant hybrids. Seed Co became the first company to come up with SC 709, a single cross variety which was resistant to the GLS. There is limited information about the mode of inheritance for GLS resistance in regionally adapted germplasm.<\/span><\/p><p><strong>Soya Beans<\/strong><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Soybean rust is potentially one of the most significant diseases of soybean. It can spread quickly and cause leaf spots and defoliation of soybean plants. Under favourable conditions, the pathogen can cause yield losses greater than 50%. Soybean rust was first found in the continental United States in the South in 2004. Since then, the disease spread and became a global outbreak. However, Seed Co was again the first to release varieties that are resistant e.g. SC Signal, SC Saxon, and SC Sentinel.<\/span><\/p><p>&nbsp;<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"ea-card sp-ea-single\"><h3 class=\"ea-header\"><a class=\"collapsed\" id=\"ea-header-18382\" role=\"button\" data-sptoggle=\"spcollapse\" data-sptarget=\"#collapse18382\" aria-controls=\"collapse18382\" href=\"#\" aria-expanded=\"false\" tabindex=\"0\"><i aria-hidden=\"true\" role=\"presentation\" class=\"ea-expand-icon eap-icon-ea-expand-plus\"><\/i> Hybridisation<\/a><\/h3><div class=\"sp-collapse spcollapse \" id=\"collapse18382\" data-parent=\"#sp-ea-1838\" role=\"region\" aria-labelledby=\"ea-header-18382\"> <div class=\"ea-body\"><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Prior to 1960, before the green revolution in Asia, farmers were growing open pollinated varieties which would produce very low yield. However, in 1960, Seed Co produced SR52 which is the first single cross maize hybrid to be commercialised in the world and forms the basis of maize breeding in the Southern Africa region.<\/span><\/p><p><strong>Top Left Hybrids<\/p><p><\/strong><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maize hybrid seed provides farmers with varieties containing improved genetics, such as high yield potential and unique trait combinations to counter diseases and adverse growing conditions. However, the quality of hybrid seed depends greatly on field production methods, both in adherence to quality assurance standards and implementation of appropriate agronomic management and favourable weather conditions.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Due to frequent unpredictable weather patterns, Seed Co released varieties that combine high yield with a low duration. These commercially introduced top left hybrids varieties such as, SC303 and SC419, allows the farmer to practice double cropping.<\/span><\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"ea-card sp-ea-single\"><h3 class=\"ea-header\"><a class=\"collapsed\" id=\"ea-header-18383\" role=\"button\" data-sptoggle=\"spcollapse\" data-sptarget=\"#collapse18383\" aria-controls=\"collapse18383\" href=\"#\" aria-expanded=\"false\" tabindex=\"0\"><i aria-hidden=\"true\" role=\"presentation\" class=\"ea-expand-icon eap-icon-ea-expand-plus\"><\/i> Yield Thrust<\/a><\/h3><div class=\"sp-collapse spcollapse \" id=\"collapse18383\" data-parent=\"#sp-ea-1838\" role=\"region\" aria-labelledby=\"ea-header-18383\"> <div class=\"ea-body\"><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our mission is to Breed, Seed and Feed Africa. Our main vision is to dominate the seed business in Africa through developing crop varieties i.e. maize hybrids, soya beans, wheat, sorghum, sugar beans, and cowpeas, with stable performance across both environments and seasons. However, it is important to note that for Seed Co Limited, the majority of these regional markets are developing countries that are the most vulnerable to climatic change effects due to limited resources to adapt. As such, there is urgent need to give farmers hybrids that are adapted to climate change and give them the greatest yields. To achieve this, testing of crop varieties is carried out across different agro-ecologies (throughout Africa) to generate extensive genotype by environment interaction data.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Seed Co also recognises the need to develop hybrids that fit specific environmental conditions. In addition, these varieties will also be coming from a background of an intense breeding programme whose focus is to select for abiotic (heat and drought, low nitrogen use efficiency, soil acidity and alkalinity), biotic (foliar and cob diseases) and response to different agronomic practices. Resultant effort has produced a number of crop varieties that have allowed farmers to easily adapt to the effects of climatic change in their farming systems and achieve highest yields possible.<\/span><\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2576,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1834","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seedcogroup.com\/ug\/fieldcrops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seedcogroup.com\/ug\/fieldcrops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seedcogroup.com\/ug\/fieldcrops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seedcogroup.com\/ug\/fieldcrops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seedcogroup.com\/ug\/fieldcrops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1834"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.seedcogroup.com\/ug\/fieldcrops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1841,"href":"https:\/\/www.seedcogroup.com\/ug\/fieldcrops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1834\/revisions\/1841"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seedcogroup.com\/ug\/fieldcrops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seedcogroup.com\/ug\/fieldcrops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}