Prevailing vitamin A deficiency is a malnutrition repercussing retarded growth, weak immune system and night-blindness in human beings. Pro-vitamin A enriched maize hybrids could be a strategy for combating vitamin A deficiency, mostly prevailing in children and women of Nepal. With the objective to investigate superior pro-vitamin A enriched ‘bio-fortified’ maize cultivars, twice replicated experiments were laid out in α-lattice design over two consecutive growing seasons of 2019 and 2019/20 at the National Maize Research Program (NMRP), Rampur, Chitwan, Nepal. The results revealed that the difference among tested hybrids was glaring for all agro-morphological, yield, and yield components traits. Among the evaluated traits, days to 50% anthesis and silking, plant and ear height, numbers of kernel rows per cob, grains per row, and grain yield varied significantly among the tested maize hybrids. Effect of planting season was significant for grain yield where winter maize produced 32% higher grain yield than spring maize. HPO16-2, HPO49-3, HPO49-5, and HPO49-2 were the 38-61% high yielding ‘bio-fortified’ maize genotypes than normal hybrid check. Therefore, these hybrids might be the potential higher-yielding future pro-vitamin A enriched maize hybrids to resolve food insecurity, malnutrition, trade deficit on maize grains and specially to combat vitamin A deficiency in Nepal.
Maize hybrids can increase production, bridge the yield gap, and boost up domestic production in Nepal. Three-way cross hybrid introduces an alternative to produce low cost hybrid seed for resource poor farmers. A study was performed to identify promising yellow and white maize hybrids developed by International Centre for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT), Mexico in Rampur, Nepal. Nineteen three-way cross white maize hybrids with two checks and seventeen yellow maize hybrids with one check were tested in field experiments on 2017 and 2018. Treatments were replicated twice in α-lattice design with each experimental plot of 9.6-m2 (4-m × 2.4-m). AF17A-426-13/14, AF17A-426-1/2, AF17A-426-28/39, and AF17A-426-15/16 were the three-way cross white hybrids produced grain yield of more than 9000 kg ha-1. Similarly, AF17A-473-20/29 and AF17A-473-18/27 yielded about 9000 kg ha-1 among the three-way cross yellow maize hybrids. These hybrids have commercial potentials to increase maize yield in Nepal if the provided parents are successful in the seed production.
The prevalence and drug resistance of the respiratory pathogens is increasing gradually in Nepal. However, their detail study is rare in the western region of Nepal. Hence, this study was carried out to know the incidence and antibiotic susceptibility profile of the respiratory pathogens obtained at a tertiary care center located at Pokhara. 139 pathogens were isolated from 460 clinical samples included. Significant pathogens were Gram-negative bacteria 94 (67.62%), followed by 28 (20.15%) Candida, and Gram-positive isolates 17 (12.23%). The growth rate was significantly higher for sputum samples in comparison to throat swabs. Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Acinetobacter were significant Gram-negative isolates while Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Streptococcus pyogenes were Gram-positive pathogens. Sensitivity rate was higher for colistin and imipenem among Gram-negative isolates while lower sensitivity was for cefepime. Vancomycin was effective against all tested Gram-positive isolates while erythromycin and ciprofloxacin were less effective.
Malnutrition has been one of the major global health problems mainly in underdeveloped and developing world causing massive economic damage as well as distressing human life. Deficiency of useful micronutrients like vitamins and minerals including low level of availability of better quality protein causes hidden hunger which can be alleviate with the help of genetic bio-fortification of crops. Besides all the challenges, biofortified maize crops like quality protein maize along with the provitamin A and Zn hold a great future to address the malnutrition challenge combating the deficiency of malnutrtients. This is the most sustainable, cost-effective and potentially wide-reaching approach which can bridge the gap between agriculture and nutrition. Biofortification can be achieved both by agronomic and genetic approaches. The Importance, genetics and potential of bio-fotification is thoroughly reviewed to provide useful findings for new readers and researchers.
Abiotic stresses (drought, heat) are one of the major impediments to enhancing the maize productivity of marginal farmers in the facet of climate change. The present study attempts to investigate the impact of heat-tolerant maize hybrid on yield and income in the Terai region of Nepal. This study uses cross-sectional farm household-level data collected in August 2021 from a randomly selected sample of 404 rural households. We used a doubly robust inverse probability weighted regression adjustment method to obtain reliable impact estimates. Adoption of heat-tolerant hybrid increases yields by 16% and income by 44% in the spring season (a stress condition). Overall, yield increases by 12%, net income by 31%, saving of 40% in seed costs, and per capita food expenditure increases by 8.50%. Hence a conducive environment must be created for scaling up heat-tolerant maize varieties to increase productivity, minimize risk, and transform of the maize sector.
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