Proceedings of the Third Asian Regional Maize Workshop

Abstract

The main activity of the Asian Regional Maize Program of CIMMYT (ARMP) is the collaboration with the National Maize Programs in the region in the development of improved technology conductive to the increase of production and productivity of maize in the farmers field. To achieve the objectives, the ARMP strategy has been to strenghten the National Program's research capabilities through: a) Distribution of improved maize germplasm generated by CIMMYT and by National Programs in and outside the region. b) Improvement of National Program's staff research capabilities by making available to them scholarships for in-service training at CIMMYT's headquarters and by partially financing their in-country training. c) In collaboration with the National Programs, cosponsor workshops, scientific gatherings, in country seminars, etc., where local and regional scientists can get together and exchange information, methodologies and germplasm. The ARMP cooperated with Kasetsart University, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Agricultural Extension, Thailand, in the organization of the I Asian Regional Maize Workshop (1981) and with the Indonesia's Agency for Agricultural Research and Development (AARD), Indonesia (1986) in the organization of the II ARMW. This year, the III Asian Regional Maize Workshop was organized in cooperation with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) ant hosted at Kunming by the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences (YAAS), and at Nanning by the Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences (GAAS), People's Republic of China. Previous to the meeting, the ARMP had requested from all national programs and from several private seed companies in the region a sample of representative entries of their best germplasm, either at experimental or at commercial stages. The materials were planted in observation nurseries both at Kunming and at Nanning. Scientists from all national programs and from several private companies in the region were invited to participate in this Workshop. Special guest speakers were invited to give leading presentations on breeding for specific stressenvironments, on maize agronomy, entomology and pathology. At both Kunming and Nanning, participants could see the performance of: 1) The germplasm they had submitted, 2) Selected germplasm from CIMMYT which was planted together with the entries from the national programs and 3) Entries supplied by the private seed companies. Exchanges of methodologies and approaches to solve specific problems in certain environments were widely discussed in the field. Much time was spent by scientists of the YAAS and GAAS in showing and describing to all participants their breeding and agronomy-production programs. We sincerely hope that this event fulfilled the interests of all participants and we expect these Workshops to become a tradition in the Asian Region. We feel this is an excelent way to understand the research problems in national programs and pave the road for a closer cooperation and assistance between scientists of the various national maize programs in the Asian region. In closing, these Proceedings represent the final step in a very successfull III Asian Regional Maize Workshop. We include all country reports which could not be presented in the 1986 Workshop and the specific leading papers on topics assigned to some scientists from the Asian Region. It should be mentioned that in editing these documents, we take no responsibility of the content of the papers and of the minor changes required to improve readability and style of the manuscripts.