{"id":16014,"date":"2026-06-20T12:48:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T12:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.iita.org\/news-item\/iita-scientists-develop-multiple-stress-tolerant-maize-hybrids-with-high-levels-of-pro-vitamin-a\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T20:08:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T20:08:15","slug":"iita-scientists-develop-multiple-stress-tolerant-maize-hybrids-with-high-levels-of-pro-vitamin-a","status":"publish","type":"news-item","link":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/news-item\/iita-scientists-develop-multiple-stress-tolerant-maize-hybrids-with-high-levels-of-pro-vitamin-a\/","title":{"rendered":"IITA scientists develop multiple stress tolerant maize hybrids with high levels of Pro-Vitamin A"},"content":{"rendered":"Vitamin A deficiency is a major health problem in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).\u00a0<em>Striga hermonthica<\/em>\u00a0(Giant Witchweed) and drought are two major constraints to maize production in the sub-region. Development and deployment of multiple stress tolerant maize hybrids with high levels of Pro-Vitamin A (PVA) offers a solution to food insecurity and malnutrition in SSA. The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.harvestplus.org\/\">HarvestPlus<\/a>\u00a0Challenge Program has established 15 \u00b5g\/g as the breeding target for PVA maize hybrids and open-pollinated varieties, however, only a few released PVA maize hybrids have attained this level of PVA.\n<div id=\"attachment_4126\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 819px\">\n\n<a href=\"https:\/\/iita.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/stress-tolerant.png\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-4126\" src=\"https:\/\/iita.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/stress-tolerant.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"819\" height=\"867\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4126\" \/><\/a>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-4126\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>(L-R) Abidemi Talabi and Program Lead, Baffour Badu-Apraku. Cobs of some Pro-Vitamin A maize hybrids<\/em><\/p>\n\n<\/div>\nA team of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/\">IITA<\/a>\u00a0maize scientists and molecular geneticists coordinated by the IITA early and extra-early Maize Program Lead,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/iita-staff\/badu-apraku-baffour\/\">Baffour Badu-Apraku<\/a>\u00a0have developed extra-early PVA maize inbred lines and hybrids with very high levels of PVA. The chemical analysis carried out in the Food and Nutrition Science Laboratory in IITA-Ibadan has revealed the following results for the extra-early PVA maize inbred lines: TZEEIOR 202 (23.98 \u00b5g\/g) and TZEEIOR 205 (22.58 \u00b5g\/g).\n\nFurthermore, crosses involving the high PVA maize inbred lines resulted in the development of PVA hybrids TZEEIOR 197 x TZEEIOR 205 (20.1 \u00b5g\/g) and TZEEIOR 202 x TZEEIOR 205 (22.7 \u00b5g\/g), containing about double the amount of PVA of the commercial PVA hybrid check, TZEE-Y Pop STR C5 x TZEEI 58 (11.4 \u00b5g\/g).\n\nResults of multilocation trials under drought, artificial\u00a0<em>Striga<\/em>\u00a0infestation, and optimal environments in Nigeria during the period 2015\u20132017 have shown outstanding agronomic performance of the PVA maize hybrids. The hybrid TZEEIOR 197 x TZEEIOR 205 with PVA level of 20.1 \u00b5g\/g yielded 2723 and 4263 kg\/ha across stress (<em>Striga<\/em>\u00a0and drought) and non-stress environments, respectively. In contrast, TZEEIOR 202 x TZEEIOR 205 with PVA level of 22.7 \u00b5g\/g yielded 1637 kg\/ha across stress and 4051 kg\/ha across non-stress environments.\n\nThe new PVA hybrids out-yielded the commercial PVA top-cross hybrid check; TZEE-Y Pop STR C5 x TZEEI 58 had a yield of 1205 across stress environments and 2611 kg\/ha across non-stress environments. These interesting results open a great opportunity for breeding and releasing PVA maize hybrids with 50 percent higher levels of PVA than the target of 15 \u00b5g\/g set by the HarvestPlus Challenge Program. Commercialization of these hybrids should contribute to food security and improved nutrition in West and Central Africa.\n\nThe collaborators on this research are Principal Scientist\/Maize Breeder and Geneticist, Badu-Apraku; Research Administrative Manager, Abidemi O. Talabi; and Molecular Geneticists including\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/iita-staff\/garcia-oliveira-luisa\/\">Ana Lu\u00edsa Garcia-Oliveira<\/a>\u00a0et\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/iita-staff\/gedil-melaku\/\">Melaku Gedil<\/a>.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vitamin A deficiency is a major health problem in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Striga hermonthica (Giant Witchweed) and drought are two major constraints to maize production in the sub-region.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":16015,"template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}}},"tags":[1601],"science-area":[],"program":[],"location":[32],"news-type":[],"hub":[61],"crop":[],"impact-areas":[],"item-year":[197],"class_list":["post-16014","news-item","type-news-item","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-iita-news-no-2463maize","location-nigeria","hub-western-africa","item-year-197"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item\/16014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news-item"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item\/16014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26126,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item\/16014\/revisions\/26126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16014"},{"taxonomy":"science-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/science-area?post=16014"},{"taxonomy":"program","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program?post=16014"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=16014"},{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=16014"},{"taxonomy":"hub","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hub?post=16014"},{"taxonomy":"crop","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/crop?post=16014"},{"taxonomy":"impact-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/impact-areas?post=16014"},{"taxonomy":"item-year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/item-year?post=16014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}