RECOVERY AND PARTICIPATORY SELECTION OF RICE CULTIVARS OF THE NGÄBE-BUGLÉ REGION. PANAMÁ

Abstract

The study was carried out in the Ngäbe Bugle Region, Republic of Panama between the years 2010 to 2016, with the objective of rescuing, selecting, evaluating and conserving rice cultivars and to promote their incorporation into production systems to increase the availability of food. In a period of three years (2010-2013) was the collection of rice cultivars used in the production of the Ngäbe-Bugle Region, for its phenotype description, separation of differentiated groups and participatory selection of the most promising according to criteria of producers between 2013 and 2016. For participatory selection, the producers and technical evaluators used the Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) methodology and the Group Interaction tool. In the participatory selection of cultivars, four evaluation criteria were defined in consensus with the producers: health, tillering, plant height and spike length. With the use of the methods of the Variety Selection Frequency, the Producer Acceptance  Index and the Interquartile Difference of the medians of the first and third quartiles, the most promising cultivars evaluated were selected, of 52 evaluated, these being: Fortuna Negro, Arroz Blanco, Chato Blanco y Guanacaste. The selection made by the producers allowed to differentiate the four best cultivars and was coincident with the morpho-agronomic evaluations carried out by the technical team.