Dear All
The drought QTL discovery project trials are ongoing in Red Soil in Takfah. Myself and Suchat today visited the trial ( trial planted in early December 2014).
The trial consists of two irrigated (D4block ) and two Drought replications (D5 block).
The crop health in general is very good, but the uniformity of the trial is not as per the requirement of discovery projects. Especially in the D4 block , there are many bad spots. The spacing also is very erratic (some pictures attached for reference). D5 block has comparatively better condition. It seems not enough time was available to prepare the fields for the same.
This was discussed during the last year trials also, that we really need very uniform population phenotyping so that we discover robust QTLs. We need to ensure the uniformity of the trials otherwise our resources are being not utilized properly ( especially in these days of AOL).
I don’t know if something can be done at this stage, but this will certainly affect the quality of the data coming from the trial and finally the QTLs identified and implemented in the breeding programs.
Best Regards
Aparna