CHAPTER 3: COLLECTION AND PHENOTYPIC CHARACTERISATION OF RICE LANDRACES
3.5 D ISCUSSION
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69 The diversity of O. glaberrima was hidden when it was pooled with O. sativa. But the diversity was revealed when O. glaberrima was segregated from O. sativa into its own group and analysed alone. O. glaberrima and O. sativa are two different species and should be evaluated separately. In the characterisation process, some of the O. glaberrima accessions developed secondary panicle branches. However, they remained with erect or semi-erect panicles as with all of the O. glaberrima accessions. Such O. glaberrima cultivars were not identified in rice collection from Guinea (Barry et al., 2007b). Likewise, O. glaberrima cultivars with white grains were also found. O. glaberrima accessions with white pericarps have not been found in O. glaberrima samples from Senegal, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Sierra Leone, Togo and Ghana (Nuijten et al., 2009). Therefore, the O. glaberrima cultivars from Burkina Faso developed certain traits found nowhere else, underlining the richness of this collection. Attention should be paid to the collection for the thorough investigation of particular landrace cultivars in O. glaberrima and O. sativa.
3.5.2 Regional diversity study
The overall diversity of the collection depicted by the Shannon-Weaver Index (0.6) highlighted the diversity of this Burkina Faso rice collection. This index is higher compared to the ones obtained by Nuijten and Treuren (2007) and Sanni et al. (2008), who studied the genetic diversity of upland rice in Gambia (0.31) and the agro-morphological diversity of the O. sativa rice landraces of Côte d‘Ivoire (0.47), respectively. More than 50% of the accessions were collected in the CC Region. Rice cultivation abounds in this region due to favourable rainfall and the presence of lowland areas. However, the diversity is less than that of the BM Region. This is understandable because 50% of the rice landraces were collected in a small area in the CC Region, whereas 15% were collected over an extensive area of the BM Region. The movement of varieties is facilitated by short distances between villages.
Moreover, as in The Gambia (Nuijten and Treuren, 2007), in the CC Region, women control rice cultivation, rice processing and commercialisation. Through marriage, women bring the favourite varieties of their mother to the village of their husband or share a valuable variety of their mother-in-law with their sisters. Likewise, in Gambia, when women visit relatives, they often bring new rice varieties back to their village (Nuijten and Treuren, 2007). This is supported by the fact that women‘s names are often assigned to traditional varieties in the CC Region. Consequently, women are more active agents in rice moving from place to place than men.
70 Varieties tended to have different names across villages (Nuijten and Treuren, 2007). This practice appear to increases rice names diversity at village level, but the genetic diversity at the regional level will not change if the varieties come from within the region. The Baguera and Kangoura villages, where the highest number of varieties (19 varieties each) was found, are located in the CC Region. However, overlapping of varieties does not contribute to increasing diversification. Hence, this could provide an explanation for the fact that, although half of the collection came from the CC Region, the samples of this region were found to be less diversified than those of the BM Region. The BM Region hosts a large share of the total phenotypic diversity and should be considered to be providing informal in situ conservation.
As the National Agricultural Research Systems of Burkina Faso lack proper infrastructure for long term storage, the identification of a region or an area harbouring the rice diversity of the country would be of great value. The diversity could be conserved in dynamic form in a field and constitute a gene-pool for national and international rice breeders. This requires an active support for the ongoing production of landraces.
There were relatively few landraces and a low diversity in the SO Region. Low diversity in the SO Region could be due to farmers cultivating similar varieties. However, significant differences were not found between landraces from SO and CC. The two regions share the same climatic conditions and are the wettest parts of the country, with rainfall exceeding 1,000 mm per annum. A variety from CC could be easily introduced to SO and vice versa.
Moreover, people from CC and SO regions share a strong traditional link. They joke together and there is easy communication between the ethnic groups of the two regions. They still respect the alliance set by their ancestors to live in peace. The adherence to this treaty, sealed many decades ago, facilitates the exchange and the sharing of seeds between these two regions. Consequently, it is not surprising if there is little difference between the landraces of the two zones. In addition, Rice landraces are declining in the SO Region due to the wide- spread adoption of modern varieties. The reports of Projet Riz Pluvial (PRP, 2007) and Projet d‘Appui à la filière Riz (PAFR, 2004) documented that in total 7,531.52 ha; 2,674.40 ha;
1,209.74 ha and 566.88 ha of rice areas have been developed in SO, HB, BM, and CC regions, respectively. These projects introduced modern varieties and encouraged farmers to cultivate them, which contributed to the decrease of the traditional varieties. According to Sié (1984), SO Region was ranked second in terms of the number of rice samples collected (after the CC Region) in 1984. In 25 years, the number of rice landraces has decreased drastically.
71 Local rice is endangered in this region. Hence, specific samples collected in this region must be conserved carefully to avoid the loss of landraces coming from this region.
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