Preparing for large-scale planting

An essential step in the successful development of large-scale agricultural crop cultivars is testing how they perform when planted in different adaptation zones in target growing areas. The cultivars that D1 develops will need to be field-tested and then scaled up for use in large-scale planting.

This process is known as "Product Placement". The objective is to comparison test the relative local or regional performance of different cultivars in small plot trials, measuring the key performance characteristics of the crop. For jatropha the key performance characteristics are seed and oil yield, and disease and insect resistance. The best performing cultivars are then selected for commercial release and multiplication of commercial seed/seedlings. This process is ongoing, comparing new candidate cultivars produced by further breeding process with the existing commercial cultivars. In this way we can guarantee progress in the crop and the cultivation of the best performing cultivars.

In parallel with this process, selected cultivars are also tested for their performance under local agronomy practices. Depending on the strengths and weaknesses of particular cultivars, this agronomy research enables us to adapt agronomic practices to optimise the performance of individual cultivars and develop local agronomy manuals.