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The purpose of this chapter is to provide information on improving food crop production in arid and semi-arid regions, especially in the semi-arid Medi-terranean region of Turkey, which is influenced by multiple abiotic stresses. In particular, the authors focus on the diversification of crop production and introduction of new climate-proof crops a...
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... According to Angeli et al. (2020), among the causes that increase the cost of manual production of quinoa 2are the cost of the labor force, the consumption of water for washing quinoa, and the use of energy (gas and electricity) for drying the seeds. During agricultural campaigns in Morocco and other Mediterranean countries, farmers will become familiar with the quinoa crop, and production costs will be optimized by obtaining high yields (Yazar et al. 2013 This study revealed that females have more knowledge about quinoa, which can be explained by the role of women in the purchase decision-making of household commodities but also their interest for healthy products. It also revealed that quinoa price in Morocco remains high as perceived by more than 60% of customers. ...
Agriculture faces many challenges such as climate change, droughts, and salinity, which requires urgent interventions for fast adaptation and diversification of the sector. In this context, introduction of new crops that tolerate stresses and generate high added value such as quinoa would allow simultaneously to address two interlinked challenges: abiotic stresses that limit agricultural production and poverty that impacts negatively the rural people. The quinoa Rehamna project funded by the International Development Research Centre aims to contribute to the development the quinoa value chain toward achieving food and nutritional security of rural poor communities. The obtained results from the farmer’s survey show that 14% of surveyed farmers already grow quinoa and 2/3 never heard about quinoa, among them 96% are interested to grow quinoa. The marketing study reveals that the psychological price that satisfies most of consumers is ranging between 2 and 2.6 USD/500 g of processed quinoa seeds. The findings indicate that quinoa has a great potential for both producers and consumers in Morocco and can be a judicious solution toward achieving food and nutritional security.
... In the context of semi-arid and arid Mediterranean region, where water scarcity is a constraint to agricultural production, scientists considered quinoa as an alternative crop to sustain seed crop production (Rao and Shahid, 2012;Benlhabib et al., 2015;Dost, 2015;Choukr-Allah et al., 2016). Several studies were carried out in the northern Mediterranean countries (e.g. in Italy (Pulvento et al., 2015), in Turkey (Yazar et al., 2015) and in Greece (Noulas et al., 2015)), as well in most of the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) countries (Choukr-Allah et al., 2016). However, to the best of our knowledge, very limited attempts related to quinoa cultivation in Syria were conducted (Lavini et al., 2014;Jbawi et al., 2018). ...
Citation: I. Mubarak, M. Janat (2020) Quinoa response to different transplanting dates and nitrogen fertilization levels in an arid environment. Italian Journal of Agrometeorology (2): 77-89.
Abstract. Quinoa is recognized as a water-stress tolerant crop. Nevertheless, few findings are presently available on fully-irrigated quinoa growth and productivity grown in arid Mediterranean area. Field experiments conducted in Syria for two growing seasons (2017/18 and 2018/19) determined the response of quinoa crop (ICBA-Q5 cultivar) to five different transplanting dates (TD) (December, January, February, March, and April) and four nitrogen fertilizer levels (0, 90, 180 and 270 kg N ha-1). Main findings showed that quinoa had a good adaptation (up to 5.30 and 15.9 t ha-1 of seed and dry matter yields, respectively) to very low N-inputs, with a high capacity to evapotranspirate (ETc), resulting in high crop coefficient (kc). ETc and kc varied in the range of 590-1136 mm and 0.37-2.05 among the TDs, respectively. Moreover, quinoa growth and productivity were highly affected by TDs, and varied from year to year, influenced mainly by temperature. Emphasis in future experiments should probably be given to TD in December, which exhibited a high degree of consistency over years with high crop performance, and to TDs in January and February, which performed extremely well in the first year.
... The grain yields realized in these environments were as high as those reported in the environments of South America, while yields in some environments of Kenya were higher. High quinoa yields within the range of 4 to 9 t/ha have been reported in several trials within and outside the Andean region, i.e. 6.07 t/ha in La Paz, Bolivia, 6.1 t/ha in Chile, 9.33 t/ha in Neuva, Mexico of USA (Bhargava and Ohri, 2015) and Turkey (Yazar et al., 2015). These results show that under fertile and optimal conditions (such as water, temperature and radiation), high quinoa grain yields can be achieved. ...
Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) is an emerging crop around the globe, with great potential to contribute to Africa’s food and nutrition security. Its important gain in popularity over the last seven years is attributed to the impact of activities carried out within the framework of the International Year of Quinoa (IYQ2013), which significantly raised awareness of the crop’s multiple nutritional benefits and its growing global cultivation.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) championed the IYQ2013 since the first solicitation of Bolivia. FAO is working with developing countries outside the Andean region that are struggling to meet food and nutrition security goals to introduce and promote the cultivation of quinoa. Production and utilization of quinoa are expected to reduce food and nutrition insecurity in a significant way and help farming communities adapt to climate change impacts. Among the FAO’s quinoa-related activities are those of the Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP) project – “Technical assistance for the strengthening of the food system of quinoa” (TCP/SFE/3406) - implemented in the period 2014 to 2015. This project was designed to support the institutional capacities of seven countries (Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda and Zambia) in the production, evaluation, management, utilization and marketing of quinoa under diverse farming systems and agro-ecological zones. The project was implemented and led by the FAO Subregional Office for Eastern Africa (SFE). Quinoa evaluation trials conducted across multiple sites in the participating countries served as pilot adaptability studies for the crop in Eastern Africa and Zambia. The project also drew experience from quinoa introductions and adaptability studies previously conducted through bilateral collaborative projects in Ethiopia, Kenya and Malawi. A synthesis of the results showed that the following technological, institutional and policy considerations need to be made to facilitate the introduction and adoption of quinoa in farming communities of different agro-ecological areas in Africa:
1) 1) Varieties (or genotypes) evaluated vary in their plant-growth and grain-yield performance across different environments in the region. Therefore, for quinoa production to be possible across different ecological zones, varieties adapted to specific ecological regions or zones need to be selected locally and for local farming systems. Quinoa yields as high as or even higher (one to five tonnes per hectare) than those realized in traditional production areas of quinoa are possible. There are also some genotypes whose protein content and quality (balance of amino acids) vary with soil nutrient status across environments.
There is a need for further testing of the varieties in the seven countries as data generated so far are from a single season with the exception of Malawi (where seven varieties were released in 2017 for use by farmers) and Ethiopia (where quinoa genotypes have been evaluated for more than one season and one variety has been released). Several gaps in seed quality, pathology, physiology, agronomy and genetics remain for the researchers to understand quinoa as a potential crop for introduction into the African food systems. Expertise needs to be engaged to address all these research gaps as multilocational trials are extended to include more agro-ecological zones. There is a need for capacity building of both scientists and technicians in quinoa crop research, which can either take the form of short training courses or visits to countries more experienced in quinoa research in the region or to the Andean countries. Support for undergraduate and postgraduate research on quinoa crop agronomy and utilization needs to be included to promote sustainability of the quinoa ‘revolution’ in Africa.
2) Low seed viability constrained plant establishment in all sites of the evaluation trials under the FAO–TCP project. Seed quality will therefore be a key factor for successful adaptation trials of quinoa as well as for promotion of the crop. A seed system for quinoa needs to be developed (certification and standards) focusing on seed multiplication and maintenance of varieties to support the efforts of quinoa introduction and promotion. The seed system also needs to be aligned with national selection and plant breeding requirements for the development of local varieties.
3) 3) The adaptation trials that have been conducted in the past, such as those in Ethiopia, Kenya and Malawi as well as the FAO–TCP project, have created a ‘start up’ capacity to drive the introduction and promotion of quinoa on the African continent. The researchers who were engaged in the trials represent the human capacity that has been built – they are now knowledgeable and have gained basic experience in quinoa growing.
The consortium that was created in quinoa research needs to take advantage of the experience acquired and momentum gained to develop a regional quinoa project that will help countries accelerate the commercialization of quinoa, which may be slow with individual country efforts.
4) 4) National agricultural research institutes (NARIs) that conducted the quinoa evaluation trials have a network of research infrastructure across agro-ecological zones in most of the countries, making them well-positioned for the introduction, testing and promotion of quinoa. Agricultural universities played an important role to introduce quinoa and conduct adaptability and on-farm studies. Certain non-governmental organizations that are working with farming communities as well as with women on nutritional programmes have emerged as effective partners in the promotion of quinoa production and its utilization, as in the case of Total Land Care (TLC) and the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR) in Malawi. Such partnerships facilitated on-farm trials of introduced quinoa varieties conducted across different agro-ecological zones, leading to approval by the Agricultural Technology Clearing Committee (ATCC) and the release of seven varieties in Malawi in August 2017.
Where possible, the current NARIs should continue leading quinoa research and promotion in their countries and capitalizing on the existing network with international research institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and farmer organizations as well as with the private sector to promote production and utilization of quinoa. A multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional team of researchers is likely to accelerate adoption of the new crop. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), in this case the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), was fundamental in supporting FAO in coordinating the regional project based on its successful track record in coordinating research partnerships, a good example being the Pan Africa Bean Research Alliance (PABRA) that comprises 31 NARIs and over 350 other partners that contribute to different components of the common bean value chain.
5) Awareness creation initiated among technocrats, policy-makers and the public needs to continue to promote quinoa as a healthy food crop with high potential to contribute to food and nutrition security in the countries that participated in the project.
Cross-cutting issues such as gender and HIV/AIDS need to be included in project activities promoting quinoa utilization. In many African societies, food insecurity is generally localized in social groups and aggravated by gender inequalities that disadvantage specific sections of the population such as women and children.
6) 6) A regional approach of introducing quinoa crop (thus acquisition of germplasm from Peru through the FAO regional office, characterization of testing sites, experimental design and analyses and nutrient analysis of seed samples grown from the testing sites) was effective as it provided a platform for sharing information and experience that would not otherwise have been possible. Individual countries had to adapt their season of planting/sowing according to the rainy season as this varied from country to country.
The regional quinoa research network championed by FAO needs to continue to serve as a platform for the exchange of information and discussion among various stakeholders in the region.
7) Engagement of stakeholder institutions in the early stages of introducing quinoa crop increased awareness in most of the participating countries in Eastern Africa and Malawi. Farmers in Malawi appreciated the importance of quinoa grain and explored the use of the leaves as a vegetable.
8) In many countries, agricultural research and production policies emphasize or are biased towards a few major cereal and legume crops (such as maize and common bean) for food security, while many indigenous food crops (neglected and underutilized species) that have played an important nutritional security role in the farming households in past centuries have been neglected by research and extension. Introduction of quinoa at national levels should be done in full recognition of its unique nutritional contribution, thus ensuring that it doesn’t suffer the same fate as the neglected and underutilized crop species.
National agricultural research and production policies need to envisage funding for promotion of emerging crops like quinoa to meet specific domestic and export market needs.
... In this regard the United Nations declared the International Year of Quinoa in 2013 (Bazile and Santivanez, 2015). Quinoa cultivation has been expanded globally (Bazile and Baudron, 2015) in Europe, Africa, and Asia such as Italy (Pulvento et al., 2015a(Pulvento et al., , b, 2013, Turkey (Yazar et al., 2015), France (Piva et al., 2015), Greece (Noulas et al., 2015), Morocco (Azaykou et al., 2018;Benlhabib et al., 2015), India (Bhargava and Ohri, 2015) and the Mediterranean regions (Choukr-Allah et al., 2016) due to proper and modernized irrigation systems. ...
... Quinoa has responded well to deficit irrigation that was highly beneficial in various experimental locations where grain yield was hardly affected by deficit irrigation (Yazar et al., 2015;Razzaghi et al., 2012Razzaghi et al., , 2011Geerts et al., 2008a, b). Although the literatures emphasized that quinoa has good potential for water stress and harsh environments such as drought, salinity and temperature (Hinojosa et al., 2018;Choukr-Allah et al., 2016;Noulas et al., 2015;Razzaghi et al., 2011;Geerts et al., 2009), there are few studies that suggested full irrigation increases quinoa grain yield and biomass compared to deficit irrigation (Walters et al., 2016;Fghire et al., 2015;Yazar et al., 2015). ...
... Quinoa has responded well to deficit irrigation that was highly beneficial in various experimental locations where grain yield was hardly affected by deficit irrigation (Yazar et al., 2015;Razzaghi et al., 2012Razzaghi et al., , 2011Geerts et al., 2008a, b). Although the literatures emphasized that quinoa has good potential for water stress and harsh environments such as drought, salinity and temperature (Hinojosa et al., 2018;Choukr-Allah et al., 2016;Noulas et al., 2015;Razzaghi et al., 2011;Geerts et al., 2009), there are few studies that suggested full irrigation increases quinoa grain yield and biomass compared to deficit irrigation (Walters et al., 2016;Fghire et al., 2015;Yazar et al., 2015). Several attempts bred new quinoa cultivars that are susceptible for growth in the marginal arid and hot environments of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) (Azaykou et al., 2018;Hirich, 2016;Choukr-Allah et al., 2016). ...
Quinoa is well known for its great ability to tolerate water stress. However, very little information is available about its potential growth under full irrigation particularly in hot and semi-arid regions. In this experiment, a newly-released quinoa (cv. Q5) bred for hot and dry regions was grown under three planting densities (PDs) of 150,000, 185,000, and 270,000 in the drainable lysimeters, south of Iran. The highest and lowest grain yields were observed in the middle and low PDs of 3.65 Mg ha −1 and 2.86 Mg ha −1 , respectively. Quinoa showed very high crop evapotranspiration (ETc) and transpiration (T) rates. ETc and T varied in the range of 1448-1687 mm, and 777-1228 mm among the PDs, respectively. These high values resulted in high single crop coefficients (Kc) that overall varied between around 1 and 2.4 during the growing season. The basal crop coefficient (Kcb) of the dual Kc (Kc = Kcb + Ke) reached about 1.9 and 1.2 in the high and low PDs, respectively, indicating high transpiration capacity. The main reasons of high Kc and Kcb were high soil evaporation rate due to very frequent irrigations of 3-4 days and soil wetting, and the prevailing regional sensible heat advection that increased transpiration. It was concluded that quinoa has a specific physiological systems that transpire continually for allowing better leaf cooling at high temperature, which results in high water use. Moreover, a vigorous root system that extended down to 1.2 m with high root length densities in the deep layers (RLD > 1 cm cm-3) helped quinoa to supply the water use. This extensive root system down to 1.2 m could help to increase irrigation interval and reducing soil evaporation. However, the effect of PD on the root length and root mass was mainly observed in the top 40 cm, below which its effect diminished and root length and root mass were nearly identical among the PDs. Overall, it is concluded that quinoa Q5 is a super crop that not only can tolerate water stress, but also can potentially grow well and produce acceptable grain yield in the hot and semi-arid areas. Adapting appropriate PD and irrigation management such as drip irrigation (surface and subsurface), mulching, increasing irrigation interval attributed to the deep rooting system, and water-saving irrigation managements would substantially reduce soil evaporation and increase water productivity.
... The plant; tolerance to drought, soil salinity and frost events, as well as the ability to adapt to a wide range of conditions, even in marginal areas ( [18], [35]). Studies conducted in our country have determined that the Black Sea region is suitable for the quinoa cultivation [36]. Plants are cultivated in rainy seasons in countries, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, that are produced at the time of sowing ( [1], [23]). ...
In this study, the response of some of the quinoa genotypes (7 genotypes) to different locations was explored. Experiments were carried out in two different locations Amasya (altitude 820 m) and Tokat (altitude 560 m). Locations were distinctive for climatic, soil and adaptation conditions. The experiments were designed in a randomized complete block design with two replications. Seeds were sown with a density of 500 seed per square meter. Fertilizer rates were applied as 90 kg N and 60 kg P2O5 per hectare. This study explored some of the traits such as flowering time, plant height, the main panicle length, the panicle number per plant, hectoliter weight, the number of plant per square meter, thousand seed weight, grain yield were evaluated. The average of genotypes, locations as well as GxL interactions were significantly different for all evaluated traits. The highest grain yield was obtained from C. Quinoa Ames genotypes with 471.5 kg da-1 at Amasya location. The lowest grain was obtained from C. Quinoa (black) with 121.5 kg da-1 at Tokat location. Genotypes were changed between 76-93 days for flowering time, was also changed between 35-93 cm for plant height, 12-35 cm for the main panicle length, 9-23 for the panicle number per plant, 63-65 kg hl-1 for hectoliter weight, 17-35 for the number of plant per square meter, 1.0-3.0 g for thousand seed weight,. Amasya location had higher values than Tokat location for all investigated traits. Amasya location was more suitable for quinoa growing.
Bhutan represents typical mountain agriculture farming systems with unique challenges. The agriculture production systems under environmental constraints are typical of small-scale agricultural subsistence systems related to family farming in the Himalayan Mountains with very low level of mechanization, numerous abiotic stresses influenced by climate and other socio-economic constraints. Quinoa was first introduced in 2015 through FAO’s support to Bhutan as a new crop to enhance the food and nutritional security of the Bhutanese people. The main objective was to adapt this versatile crop to the local mountain agriculture conditions as a climate resilient crop for diversifying the farmer’s traditional potato and maize based cropping systems. Ten quinoa varieties were evaluated at two different sites representing contrasted mountain agroecologies in Bhutan and were tested during the two agricultural campaigns 2016 and 2017. Yusipang (2600 masl) represents the cool temperate agroecological zone, and Lingmethang (640 masl) the dry subtropical agroecological zone. The sowing time differed depending on the growing season and elevation of the sites. Results indicate that quinoa can be successfully grown in Bhutan for the two different agroecological zones. The grain yields varied from 0.61 to 2.68 t.ha⁻¹ in the high altitude areas where quinoa was seeded in spring and harvested in autumn season. The grain yield in the lower elevation ranged from 1.59 to 2.98 t.ha⁻¹ where the crop was sown in autumn and harvested in winter season. Depending on genotypes’ characteristics and agroecological zones, crop maturity significantly varied from 92 to 197 days with all genotypes maturing much earlier in the lower elevations where mean minimum and maximum temperatures during the growing season were higher. Quinoa is rapidly promoted across different agroecological contexts in the country as a new climate resilient and nutrient dense pseudo cereal to diversify the traditional existing cropping system with some necessary adjustments in sowing time, suitable varieties and crop management practices. To fast track the rapid promotion of this new crop in Bhutan, four varieties have been released in 2018. In just over three years, the cultivation of quinoa as a new cereal has been demonstrated and partially adapted to the maize and potato based traditional cropping systems under the Himalayan mountain agriculture. Quinoa is also being adapted to the rice based cropping system and rapidly promoted as an alternative food security crop in the current 12th Five Year national development plan of Bhutan. To rapidly promote quinoa cultivation, the Royal Government of Bhutan is supporting the supply of free quinoa seeds, cultivation technologies and milling machines to the rural communities. To promote the consumption and utilization of quinoa at national level, consumer awareness are created by preparing and serving local Bhutanese dishes from quinoa during local food fairs and farmer’s field days. In addition, the Royal Government of Bhutan has included quinoa in the school feeding programme recognizing the high nutrient value of the crop for enhancing and securing the nutritional needs of the young children.
