Chris O. Ojiewo

International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center

Author Statistics

Papers

Citation

H-Index

i-10 index

Research Trends

Author Order

Document Type

Co-Authors

Rajeev K. Varshney

Murdoch University

Essègbémon Akpo

Université d'Agriculture de Kétou

Asnake Fikre

Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research

Geoffrey Muricho

International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center

Stephen Gaya Agong

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology

Jean Claude Rubyogo

International Center for Tropical Agriculture

Peter Masinde

Meru University of Science and Technology

Pooran M. Gaur

International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics

Masaharu Masuda

Kansai Rosai Hospital

P. Okori

Makerere University

Cooperative Institutions

International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics

Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research

International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics

Mikocheni Agricultural Research Institute

International Institute of Tropical Agriculture

University of KwaZulu-Natal

International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center

World Vegetable Center

International Institute of Tropical Agriculture

Author Statistics

Papers

Citation

H-Index

i-10 index

Research Field

Advances in Sorghum Improvement for Climate Resilience in the Global Arid and Semi-Arid Tropics: A Review

Agronomy (2024)

Andekelile Mwamahonje Zamu Mdindikasi Devotha Mchau Emmanuel T. Mwenda Daines Nicodem Sanga

Sorghum is a climate-resilient crop which has been cultivated as a staple food in the semi-arid areas of Africa and Asia for food and nutrition security. However, the current climate change is increasingly affecting sorghum performance, especially at the flowering stage when water availability is critical for grain filling, thus lowering the sorghum grain yield. The development of climate-resilient, biotic and abiotic stress-tolerant, market-preferred, and nutrient-dense sorghum varieties offers a potentially cost-effective and environmentally sustainable strategy for adapting to climate change. Some of the common technologies for sorghum improvement include mass selection, single seed descent, pure line selection, and marker-assisted selection, facilitated by backcrossing and genotyping using molecular markers. In addition, recent advancements including new machine learning algorithms, gene editing, genomic selection, rapid generation advancement, and recycling of elite material, along with high-throughput phenotyping tools such as drone- and satellite-based images and other speed-breeding techniques, have increased the precision, speed, and accuracy of new crop variety development. In addition to these modern breeding tools and technologies, enhancing genetic diversity to incorporate various climate resilience traits, including against heat and drought stress, into the current sorghum breeding pools is critical. This review covers the potential of sorghum as a staple food crop, explores the genetic diversity of sorghum, discusses the challenges facing sorghum breeding, highlights the recent advancements in technologies for sorghum breeding, and addresses the perceptions of farmers on sorghum production under the current climate change conditions.

Staple food

10.3390/agronomy14123025

Cite

Citations (0)

Polyploidy Breeding of African Nightshade (Solanum section Solanum)

Chris O. Ojiewo Kenji Murakami Peter Masinde Stephen Gaya Agong

The perception of African nightshades (Solanum section Solanum) as “healthy” foods, supported by documentation of their high nutritional and medicinal benefits, has led to a sudden and steady upsurge in their consumption, demand and monetary value in Africa and most parts of South-East Asia. However, due to very low leaf yields, production of these vegetables remains on small-scales, resulting in acute shortages and escalating prices, especially in urban areas. Apart from local variants or landraces selected in some regions where these plants are utilized as food and/or medicinal plants, there are no improved cultivars developed through conventional plant breeding techniques. Species belonging to this section, generally referred to as “Solanum nigrum-complex” are predominantly autogamous, favouring production of many small fruits and seeds, which compete with leaves for photosynthates. S. nigrum-complex constitutes a polyploid series, with diploid (2n=2x=24), tetraploid (2n=4x=48), hexaploid (2n=6x=72) and rarely, octoploid (2n=8x=96) species, a trait that can be exploited for cultivar development. This review outlines the possible evolutionary mechanisms and modes of origin of the polyploids, breeding strategies to produce heteroploids such as triploid (2x=3x=36), pentaploid (2n=5x=60) and heptaploid (2n=7x=84) from existing or induced polyploids and envisaged advantageous properties of the novel polyploids or heteroploids over their wild-type progenitors. With few exceptions, heteroploidy is known to cause sterility or highly reduced fertility of both pollen and ovules. The African nightshade heteroploid series would putatively be male- and female-sterile, thus eliminating fruit- and seed-set and enhancing leaf productivity.

Polyploid

Economic shortage

Source

Cite

Citations (7)

Sustainable intensification technologies and farm performance: evidence from smallholder sorghum farmers in Nigeria

International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability (2023)

A.Y. Kamara Oyakhilomen Oyinbo H A Ajeigbe E.O. Idowu Chris O. Ojiewo

The empirical literature on plot-level adoption of sustainable intensification technologies (SITs), as a package comprising improved crop varieties and good agronomic management practices is thin for dryland crops, such as sorghum. In this paper, we analyze the adoption and impacts of SITs on sorghum yield and net revenue using data from a sample of 1680 households and 3310 plots in the sorghum belt of Nigeria. Our estimates are based on a multinomial endogenous switching regression, which accounts for observable and unobservable sources of selection bias. We find a relatively low joint adoption of both improved sorghum varieties and good agronomic practices. In addition, we find that the adoption of only improved sorghum varieties and the joint adoption of both improved sorghum varieties and good agronomic practices led to a 56 and 102% increase in sorghum yield, respectively, and an 88 and 82% increase in net revenue, respectively. The yield and net revenue effects indicate that there are considerable missing opportunities that sorghum-producing households can harness through the adoption of SITs. Our findings reveal that policies tailored towards promoting the widespread adoption of SITs can lead to considerable productivity gains and economic returns for smallholder sorghum farmers towards improving their welfare.

10.1080/14735903.2023.2270233

Cite

Citations (2)

Analysis of Adoption of Improved Groundnut Varieties in the Tropical Legume Project (TL III) States in Nigeria

Agricultural Sciences (2020)

Benjamin Ahmed Candidus Alichenu Echekwu S. G. Mohammed Chris O. Ojiewo H A Ajeigbe

Agricultural technologies and innovations play a great role in increasing productivity, alleviating and reducing poverty and contributing to economic development and this is made possible through adoption of improved technologies and innovations. This study centered on analysis of adoption of improved groundnut varieties in the Tropical Legume (TL III) States of Nigeria. Purposive and simple random sampling techniques were used to select 1476 groundnut farmers in the project States and from whom primary data were collected using electronic data capturing instrument containing the questionnaire. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Average Treatment Effect (ATE) framework. The results showed that the breeding and promotion of improved groundnut varieties in Nigeria under the Tropical Legume Project and with the synergy of USAID groundnut up-scaling Project in Nigeria resulted in very high level of awareness of improved varieties, more than average level of access to the improved variety seeds, moderate level of utilization of the improved varieties among the groundnut farmers and the adoption rate of improved varieties increased from 8% at based line to 57% at the end of the project. The study recommends extension of the project to facilitate further access to these varieties and for state governments to take ownership of the projects in terms of financial commitments to promotional efforts for mass adoption by farmers.

Promotion (chess)

Tropical Agriculture

10.4236/as.2020.112009

Cite

Citations (9)

Enhancing Chickpea Production and Productivity Through Stakeholders’ Innovation Platform Approach in Ethiopia

Springer eBooks (2021)

Mekasha Chichaybelu Nigusie Girma Asnake Fikre Bekele Gemechu Tiruaynet Mekuriaw

Economic shortage

10.1007/978-981-15-8014-7_7

Cite

Citations (13)

Estimate of Heritability and Correlation Analysis for Nitrogen Fixation, Yield and Associated Traits in Chickpea (Cicer Arietinum L.)

Natnael Girma Firew Mekibib Asnake Fikre Gemechu Keneni N V P R Ganga Rao

Chickpea is one of the most cultivated grain legumes in Ethiopia for grain production and amelioration of soil fertility through N-fixation, and income generation. This study was conducted to estimate the heritability and correlation analysis of N-fixation in chickpea. Six F1 crosses were evaluated in lath house during the year 2014/15 using randomized complete block design (RCBD) with two replications at Debre Zeit Research Center. Heritability of the characters was estimated in F1 generations from the combining ability analysis of a di-allele cross using fixed model expectations of mean squares for GCA and SCA . The calculated narrow sense heritability was high (>0.50) for all traits except for seed filling duration, number of pod per plant, shoot nitrogen fixation, grain harvesting index and grain production efficiency. All symbiotic traits such as number of nodules, shoot nitrogen fixation, N fixed in biomass, N fixed in grain, Nitrogen harvest index (NHI), Grain N yield, Shoot N yield, Biomass N yield, Nodule dry weight, Shoot and grain protein contents and Nitrogen showed strong positive association with yield and other agronomic traits, indicating the improvement of symbiotic traits results in the improvement of other agronomic traits of the crop. The prevailing high heritability indicates the possibility of improving the traits either by selection or crossing of selected parents. This study is first of its kind in Ethiopia, and helps the future breeding and genetics in chickpea dealing with the nitrogen fixation processes.

Source

Cite

Citations (1)

Groundnut Variety Identification Among Smallholder Farmers in Northern Nigeria: DNA Fingerprinting and Farmers Self-Reported Adoption Status

Geoffrey Muricho Collins Odhiambo Chris O. Ojiewo

Identification

DNA profiling

10.22004/ag.econ.315132

Cite

Citations (0)

Morphophysiological diversity of rhizobia nodulating pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan L. Millsp.) growing in Ethiopia

AFRICAN JOURNAL OF BIOTECHNOLOGY (2018)

Degefu Tulu Endalkachew Wolde‐meskel Adem Makka Fikre Asnake Tilahun Amede

Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.) is an important protein source grown in several tropical and sub-tropical countries, and is considered a multi-purpose plant that is resistant to the conditions where drought and salinity is a common phenomenon. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diversity of rhizobial isolates obtained from root nodules of pigeon pea plants grown in central and southern Ethiopia. A total of 116 nitrogen-fixing rhizobial strains were isolated. The bacterial isolates were characterized by 91 phenotypic traits including cultural characteristics, intrinsic antibiotic and heavy metal resistance, salt, pH and incubation temperature tolerance, and carbon and nitrogen sources utilization ability. Preliminary symbiotic properties of the isolates were also evaluated. The isolates were compared with seven reference strains of rhizobia by application of the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic means (UPGMA) using NTSYSpc Version 2.1 software program. The dendrogram constructed from cluster analysis of 91 phenotypic traits, grouped them into six clusters and eight un-clustered positions at 80% relative similarity. Cluster I contained 83% of the test isolates that were grouped together with the reference strains Bradyrhizobium japonicum (HAMBI 2314T) and Bradyrhizobium elkanii (LMG 6164), suggesting that pigeon pea is commonly nodulated by bradyrhizobia. Results from symbiotic effectiveness test revealed that majority of the isolates were found to be effective. Generally, this investigation demonstrated that rhizobial population nodulating C. cajan on the study area were phenotypically diverse and symbiotically effective. Furthermore, the result indicates the existence of strains in the collection, which can tolerate environmental stresses, thus can be developed into inoculant for pigeon pea inoculation and production in Ethiopia and beyond. Key words: Bradyrhizobium, Cajanus cajan, phenotypic characteristics, rhizobium.

Cajanus

Bradyrhizobium

UPGMA

Dendrogram

10.5897/ajb2017.16338

Cite

Citations (18)

Plant growth and leaf N content of Solanum villosum genotypes in response to nitrogen supply.

Peter Masinde John Wesonga Chris O. Ojiewo Stephen Gaya Agong Masaharu Masuda

Solanum villosum is an important leafy vegetable in Kenya whose production faces low yields. Two potentially high leaf-yielding genotypes of S. villosum, T-5 and an octoploid have been developed. Field experiments were conducted at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology to evaluate the vegetative and reproductive growth characteristics and leaf nitrogen of the genotypes under varying N levels. The experiments were carried out as split plots in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Nitrogen supply levels of 0, 2.7 and 5.4 g N/plant formed the main plots while the T-5, octoploid and the wild-type genotypes were allocated to the sub-plots. Periodic harvests were done at 5-10 days interval to quantify growth and leaf N. The octoploid plants had up to 30-50% more leaf area and up to 35-50% more leaf dry weight compared to wild-type plants. However, all the genotypes had similar shoot dry weight. The wild-type genotype had about 2-4 times higher flower/fruit dry weight as compared to the octoploid and T-5 genotypes. All the genotypes responded to N supply similarly by increasing leaf area and shoot dry weight 1.7-2.5 times. Leaf N on a dry weight basis was significantly higher in plants supplied with N, but these differences were not observed when the leaf N was expressed on leaf area basis. In conclusion, the S. villosum genotypes responded similarly to N limitation by drastic reduction in leaf area and dry matter production and maintaining the leaf N content on leaf area basis. The octoploid is a suitable candidate for increasing leaf yield of S. villosum. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Dry weight

Leafy

Source

Cite

Citations (16)

General Context of Smallholder Farmers’ Access to Seed of Improved Legume Varieties and Innovation Platform Perspectives

Springer eBooks (2021)

Essègbémon Akpo Chris O. Ojiewo Issoufou Kapran Lucky O. Omoigui Agathe Diama

10.1007/978-981-15-8014-7_1

Cite

Citations (1)