Product Innovations
Climate Fast Varieties
Climate change has brought about various challenges in the production of crops and has affected the development and delivery of seed crops.
Our mandate and goal as Seed Co Zambia Limited is to ensure the development of crop varieties that are better suited to our ever changing climatic conditions.
Seed Co Zambia has endeavored to supply high quality seed crops with very good tolerances to both leaf and cob diseases. To fulfill this mandate, a research station was established in 2004 in the high rainfall area, Northern part of the country to facilitate the screening and evaluation of germplasm. The main aim of the station was to breed and enhance the germplasm tolerance to cob rot diseases caused by Stenocarpella maydis and leaf diseases like Gray Leaf Spot (GLS; caused by Cercospora Zeae-maydis).
Top Left Hybrids
Due to frequent unpredictable weather patterns, Seed Co released varieties that combine high yield with a low duration. These commercially introduced top left hybrids varieties such as, SC303 and SC419, allows the farmer to practice double cropping.
Yield Thrust
With a mission and commitment to Breed, Seed and Feed Africa, our goal is to give farmers hybrids that are adapted to climate change and give the greatest yield.
To achieve this, testing of crop varieties is carried out across different agro-ecologies (throughout Africa) to generate extensive genotype by environment interaction data.
Hybridization
Prior to 1960 before the green revolution in Asia, farmers were growing open pollinated varieties which would bring very low yield. However, in 1960, Seed Co produced SR52 which is the first single cross maize hybrid to be commercialised in the world and forms the basis of maize breeding in Southern Africa region.
Disease Tolerance
Maize
Maize cob rots caused by Stenocarpella Maydis can drastically reduce the yield and quality of maize. Varietal resistance is the most feasible option in the management of maize cob rots. In 2013 Seed Co Zambia released SC 647, the first ever cob rot tolerant hybrid combining good yield with good leaf disease tolerance. Six years later, in 2019 a long season maize hybrid combining cob rot tolerance with high yield and leaf disease tolerance was released.
Soya Beans
Soya beans importance and demand has increased exponentially in the recent past. This can be attributed to its productivity per unit area, the oil and protein content attributes and the increase in livestock farming. To meet this demand Seed Co Zambia embarked on the journey to meet this demand and thanks to the wide germplasm and enhanced evaluation network which led to the release of one of the highest yielding soya beans variety in the history of the country. SC Spike boasts of a high yield potential of up to 6 tons per hectare combining with good leaf disease tolerance and exceptional good standing ability. All Seed Co soya beans varieties exhibit a minimum of 20% and 40% oil and protein content respectively.
Wheat
Wheat in Zambia is a crop which is grown in winter i.e., from mid - April to mid - June. It is grown under irrigation and to date it is a commercial farmers crop as most farmers do not have wide area irrigation capacity.
Through the years, Seed Co Zambia Limited has strived to deliver quality wheat products unto the market. This quest has been made possible by enhanced disease screening at our research stations and good trialing network.
In 2011 Seed Co Zambia released SC Shungu to complement our SC Nduna variety, which proved to be one of the farmers best choices on the market. SC Shungu has exhibited good yield potential equal to SC Nduna and, matures slightly earlier. It also combines good leaf disease tolerance with good baking qualities.