Increase rice production through improved varieties cultivation in Côte d’Ivoire

Rice (Oryza sativa and O. glaberrima) is among important cereal widely consumed in the world, with wheat and maize. Due to its high demand, increase rice production, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa countries such Côte d’Ivoire remains a key issue to reduce rice imports. Consequently, rice breeding programs improve and release new rice cultivars to the farmers. This study was aimed to evaluate the agroecological zone effect on the new improved (IRV) and adopted (ARV) rice varieties’ yields. The experiment was conducted in a split-plot design. Data collected on five parameters, including yield and yield components, were collected and analyzed. Means comparison was done with Dunnett’s test using WITA9 means as control. The results showed significant difference between moisture content, grain and straw yields and harvest index of improved rice and the ones of adopted rice’s means. The means of grain yield of IRV of 6.82 t ha-1 was higher than that of ARV of 2.87 t ha-1. The grain yield of the control variety WITA9 was 6.56 t ha-1. The Dunnett’s test showed that only the grain yield of AR043H was significantly higher than that of the control with 8.15 t ha-1. The varieties GT11 (5.03 t ha-1), Soungrouba (4.62 t ha-1), Djoukemé (2.80 t ha-1), Marigbè (1.54 t ha-1), Palawan (1.53 t ha-1), Danané (1.38 t ha-1), Demamba (0.97 t ha-1) and Kouiklonlé (0.95 t ha-1) had significantly lower yields than the yield of WITA9. The result from this experiment showed the role that improved varieties could play in increase rice production in Côte d’Ivoire.