Evaluation of Growth and Yield of Genetically Modified Wheat (Triticum sp.) Seed and Farmer Sourced Unmodified Seed Under Mechanized and Traditional Methods of Land Preparation

Mechanized cultivation produced slightly higher crop yields (average 7.97 metric tonnes/hectare) than traditional cultivation (average 7.65 metric tonnes/hectare). However this difference was not statistically significant. A confounding factor may have been the fact that the mechanized treatments had less fertilizer applied than the traditional treatments. Approximately 20% less fertilizer was used on the trial plots that were cultivated by the mechanized method. The seed sowing rate on the mechanized plots was also lower (125kg/ hectare) compared with the traditional plots (150-175kg/hectare). There was very little difference in yield between the farmer sourced seed genetics and the Private Seed Company Enterprise (PSE) sourced certified seed genetics, where both lines of seed had been cleaned and dressed by the PSE. Both these lines of seed produced very high yields (averages 8.9 and 8.5 tonnes/hectare respectively).The significant finding from this trial was the large difference in yield between the seed that was cleaned and dressed by the PSE (average yield 8.6 metric tonnes/hectare) and the crops produced from unprocessed farmer seed (average yield 6.23 tonnes/hectare). This difference was highly statistically significant (P>0.99)