‘Improved maize seed not for carbohydrate alone’

You are the chief executive officer (CEO) Romarey Seeds Venture, how many varieties of maize seeds do you have at Romarey? Our maize varieties are many. These days maize varieties are many and a lot of work had been done on maize. As you know, maize has become the common food of ordinary people and […]

You are the chief executive officer (CEO) Romarey Seeds Venture, how many varieties of maize seeds do you have at Romarey?
Our maize varieties are many. These days maize varieties are many and a lot of work had been done on maize. As you know, maize has become the common food of ordinary people and the research institutions have worked on them. Like in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, you now have Sammaz 14, Sammaz 15, Sammaz16, Sammaz 29, Sammaz 26 and many other varieties. I think there over 13 to 20 different improved varieties of maize seeds.
But the key thing for all these varieties is the one with QPM, that is the Quality Protein Maize. This one is the maize with protein content. Maize now is not just to produce carbohydrate alone, they have worked on it; they have worked on the gene of the crop so that the protein content is high. And when somebody is eating maize, he is not only taking in carbohydrate but also having protein as well to build the body. Seeds like Sammaz 14 are a good example with such feature. There is high content of protein in that variety.
Under Romarey, how many different improved varieties of maize do you have?
Under Romarey we have Sammaz 14, 15, 16 and 26. Those are the key ones we have here.
What are the characteristics of the improved maize varieties you have?
The main characteristic is the yield. If the yield is high, you know the farmer wants something that can produce high yield, so quality in terms of the yield is very important. We also have ones that are drought tolerant, like Sammaz 26 is designed to have drought tolerance, you find out that their maturity period is not long. It may just be three months from planting to harvest.
It is made in such a way that areas, like some places in the far North where they experience drought, such crop if you plant it you make something out of it.
Another variety is the one that is designed to tolerate and resist striga, a weed which is one of major diseases that when it comes in, it can dry the whole farm. You could lose a lot of harvest and the yield will be very low. Those are the type of challenges they are looking for: drought resistance, high yield and strigar resistance. These are things that the breeders are looking for; a trend that will be useful to the people. Even the quality in terms of presentation of the seeds, something like Fenboras, is another insect that can go easily and affect the yield of the crop. These are some of the things incorporated into the production of the seeds.
Which, among the new variety of maize seeds, requires more fertiliser to have high yield?
Maize is a high feather; high feather in the sense that it requires high nutrient content, unlike crops like soybean that are leguminous plants that feed nitrogen into the soil. The quantity of fertiliser that you put for soybean is not the same with maize and the quantity of fertiliser you put for millet is not the same with maize. Millet is a crop that can resist drought, it needs little nutrient and perform well. Crops like maize naturally need fertiliser because they are high feather.
In some quarters, government is accusing seed companies of producing seeds that are not effective, what is your response to that?
Well, it is possible to have bad seeds because once you have many companies, they are bound to have different motives. Some companies use other farmers to produce seeds for them, so if they don’t supervise them well you may not get what you are looking for, the quality can be adulterated.
At Romarey we produce seeds directly from our company and we have our farm where we monitor quality; we make sure that the seeds we are planting, if we are going for foundation seed, it is a breeder’s seed. If you don’t have a good breeder seed, you cannot get good foundation seeds; if you get poor seeds, you produce poor crop. If you don’t check properly there will be adulteration and the quality of the crop will be tampered with.