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- how to focus more on technology generation;
- whether to apply 'best bets' to on-farm trials whenever the level of
confidence is reasonably high, and
- how to use existing development project structures for research in
order to speed up the process of technology generation.
In the relationship between research and development activities it has to be
considered to what extent a 'parallel' rather than 'sequential' strategy can be
adapted without increasing the risk of failure to an intolerable degree. As the
pressure to speed up technology generation increases, the availability of
more information and data on multipurpose trees assumes crucial importance.
With the demand for and possible acceptability of an early partial and stepwise
transfer of technologies ('best bets') at the farm level, indications on
yields are of particular relevance. As an initial step in a bid to economize on
time, organised and objective-oriented data collection may be seen as particularly
efficient and conducive to technology development,