Participatory Definition of Farmers’ Preferences to Guide Plant Breeding for Durum Wheat, Barley, and Lentil

Aligning plant breeders’ objectives with farmers’ preferences is essential for improving the adoption of new crop varieties. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a Participatory Weighted Selection (PWS) index, previously developed from a survey of 869 Moroccan farmers, by comparing it with biophysical Participatory Variety Selection (PVS) trials conducted on 19 farms across four agroecological zones in Morocco. Novel CWR-derived lines of durum wheat, barley, and lentil were assessed alongside commercial checks, and both male and female farmers were interviewed to gather PVS preferences. The results showed no significant gender differences for the top-ranked varieties across crops, with minor variations in some zones. Jabal emerged as the preferred durum wheat variety overall, while Zagharin2 was favored in favorable zones. Furat-3 was generally preferred for barley, except in certain mountain and favorable zones, and Bakria was the top lentil variety across most sites. Farmers’ PWS responses clustered into three groups, emphasizing consistent prioritization of high yield potential, abiotic stress tolerance, and good nutritional quality. Comparison of biophysical performance with PVS and PWS revealed strong alignment for durum wheat; however, the highest yielding genotypes for barley and lentil were not always the most preferred. Overall, these results demonstrate that the PWS approach effectively captures farmers’ preferences and provides a reliable tool for guiding breeding decisions. These findings reveal that integrating PWS with on-farm biophysical and PVS evaluations provides a robust, farmer-informed framework for prioritizing genotypes and improving the relevance of breeding decisions across diverse agroecological contexts.