Assessment of Farmers’ Saved Seed and Improved Seed on Maize Productivity in South Western Nigeria

Availability of good quality seeds of crop varieties is still the major constraint for farmers in the South Western Nigeria in spite of the existence of national seed program for decades. Farmers have been using their own saved seeds for cultivation without completely knowing its properties and thus incurring losses. Therefore, this study aim to assess the benefits of using improved seed of maize over farmers’ saved seed.

The experiment was carried out in 4 states of the South Western Nigeria representing three different agro-ecological zones. 10 farmers growing maize were randomly selected from each state to make a community group. Five varieties were planted out of which four were improved seeds and the other variety was farmers’ seed. Planting was done on 20 meters by 5 meters at 75 cm by 50 cm on farmers’ field in wet season of 2015. Fertilizer application at the rate of 120 kg of Nitrogen, 60 kg of Phosphorus and 60 kg of potassium was carried out in two splits.

Grain weight per plot was obtained by shelling all ears harvested from each plot. Partial budgeting was used as analytical technique which includes Net Benefit (NB), Incremental Net Benefit (INB) and Benefit- Cost Ratio (BCR). Varietal mean showed highest yield of 3.93 metric tons in ILE-I-OB and the least yield of 3.020 metric tons was recorded by the farmers’ varieties (Local). The partial budget analysis revealed that there is increase in the net benefit of maize varieties across the ecologies. The local variety gave on the average the lowest net benefit of N 73, 580 while ILE-1-OB variety has the highest net benefit of N 122,720.

It was concluded that maize varieties namely ILE-1-OB and BR9928DMR-SR-Y should be adopted by farmers in the study area for short and long run economic benefits.