INTRODUCTION

Maize being the highest yielding cereal crop in the world, is of significant importance for countries like Pakistan, where rapidly increasing population has already out stripped the available food supplies.In Pakistan maize is third important cereal after wheat and rice. Maize accounts for 4.8% of the total cropped area and 3.5% of the value of agricultural output. It is planted on an estimated area of 0.9 million hectare with an annual production of 1.3 million tonnes. The bulk (97%) of the total production come from two major provinces, NWFP, accounting for 57% of the total area and 68% of total production. Punjab contribute 38% acreage with 30% of total maize grain production. Very little maize 2-3% is produced in the province of Sindh and Balochistan. Though not included in Pakistan official statistics maize is an important crop of AJK with about 0.122 million hectare of maize being planted during kharif. Similarly a very growing and high yielding sector of maize, the spring maize area and production in Punjab is not accounted for , which covers around 0.070 million ha with about 050 million tonnes of maize grain being produced

Germplasm Development:

National Coordinated Maize Programme organize, acquire and distribute the exotic and local germplasm from different sources and agencies to the maize growers in the country. This germplasm provide source of genetic material to be used for development of varieties and hybrids Upto date NCMP has acquired about 9800 germplasm sources and distributed to various research scientists in the country.

Fertilizer Use in Maize:

Official fertilizer use figures for maize are not specifically recorded by the agricultural statistics services. However, extensive farm level surveys conducted by PARC/CIMMYT in various districts of NWFP and in the central Punjab reveal that approximately 66% of all maize growers now use chemical nitrogen fertilizes (70 kg N/ha) and about 25% use phosphorus (18 kg P/ha).

Mechanization:

While mechanization has been widely adopted in Pakistan for certain production operation i.e. land preparation & shelling, the use of tractors in planting, interculture and harvesting has not been optimized. The use of tractor is widespread in low and mid-land altitude area in NWFP and Central Punjab. More than 80% of maize farmers in both areas use mechanical sheller.

Training Manpower:

NCMP has played and still doing the important responsibility of training manpower throughout country. Over the past two decades, the programme has trained 5 Ph. D scientist and have provided short term training (local and abroad) to 165 young scientists, extension workers and interested growers.

CURRENT SEED SITUATION AND COVERAGE BY IMPROVED SEED

Although the formal commercial maize seed production system in Pakistan produces limited tonnage of certified seed, the nation public research service have attempted to produced and diffuse the seed of improved varieties through various adhoc seed multiplication campaigns. These campaigns have relied on planting of small demonstration seed multiplication plots on farmers fields. They have been effective in stimulating farmer to farmer distribution of improved seed to some extent.

Pakistan like many developing countries still depends largely on open pollinated varieties based on public seed organizations. Currently both the public and private sector are involved in promoting the seed production system. More recently the individual seed producers and community production/distribution system is being encouraged. These seed growers have been offered serial incentives i.e. door step availability of inputs i.e. pre-basic seed, insecticide, plating machinery etc, the complete disposal of seed with the help of extension agents and frequent consultation by technical staff to solve the confronting and new emerging problems.

The present situation regarding maize seed production and marketing is as follows:

Total seed produced 3175 metric tonnes

Hybrid seed 2050 "

QPV's Seed 1125 "

QPV's Seed

MRI (Sahiwal) 800 "

Punjab Seed Corporation 150 "

CCRI (Pirsabak) 50 "

ADA 100 "

NARC 15 "

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Total 1125 "

Hybrid Seed

Cargill Pakistan 850

Rafhan CPC 400

Pioneer Seeds 450

ICI Pakistan 100

MMRI (Yousafwala) 100

CCRI 70

Noradas 80

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Total 2050

The seed produced by above mentioned agencies and individual seed growers is hardly sufficient to cover 10-15% area under maize, while about 26-30% of the total area is planted to improved seed of advanced generation. The remainder 50-60% is covered by either local or sort of mixture of local within proved germplasm.