The federal government has approved the registration and release of nine hybrid crop varieties developed by scientists for farmers to boost agricultural production in the country.
Dr Sunday Aladele, Registrar, National Centre for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology (NACGRAB) made this known in a statement made available to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Ibadan.
NACGRAB is a parastatal under the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology.
He said the release of the crops was announced by the chairman, National Varieties Release Committee (NVRC), Chief Awoyemi Oladosu, at the 24th NVRC meeting held at NACGRAB.
He listed the nine successful varieties as two hybrid white yam (UMUDr/020) and (UMUDr/021); two maize hybrids (SAMMAZ 49) and (SAMMAZ 51), and one maize variety (SAMMAZ 52).
Others were two cowpea varieties (FUAMPEA 1 and FUAMPEA 2), one amaranthus or leaf vegetable hybrid (NHAMAR 1) and one okra hybrid (NHOKRA 1).
According to him, the yam varieties were developed by the National Root Crops Research Institute, Umudike, and International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Ibadan.
“The maize varieties were developed by Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR), Zaria and IITA while the cowpeas were from the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, IAR, and IITA.
“The two vegetable varieties, amaranthus and okra were from the National Horticultural Research Institute, Ibadan,” he said.
