CGIAR Regional Program for Central Asia and the Caucasus Progress Report 2014 – 2016

Abstract

The reporting period (July 2014 – June 2016) has been fruitful in identifying improved winter wheat varieties resistant to soil salinity, frost, and heat. Varieties like ‘Buniyodkor’, ‘Gozgon’, and ‘Yaksart’ in Uzbekistan, and ‘Chumon’, ‘Alex’, and ‘Ormon’ in Tajikistan fared very well during the outbreaks of yellow rust in 2015 and 2016. New wheat varieties helped farmers not only save, but also to earn more. For instance, in Tajikistan, including the Sughd region, more than 4000 farmers benefited from cultivation and seed production of yellow rust resistant wheat varieties under a partnership grant from CRP WHEAT. ICARDA, CIMMYT, and the International Winter Wheat Improvement (IWWIP) distributed 26 International Nurseries of wheat. Similarly, ICARDA distributed 21 barley, 19 chickpea, 17 lentil, 7 fababean, and 3 grasspea Nurseries in the region. Kazakhstan-Siberian Network on Wheat Improvement (KASIB) Facilitated distribution and evaluation of more than 18000 entries in the 14th KRMTSB Nursery across 18 national breeding programs as well as 386 winter wheat lines of IWWIP across 6 locations in South-East, South, and North Kazakhstan.