Rice is the third most important crop in Niger and showsthe most rapidly increasing consumption. Rice importsgrew from 40,000 t in 1995 to 210,000 t in 2005 at a costof US$ 71.4 million in a country where nearly 60% of thepopulation lives below the poverty line [1,2]. Rice is produced mainly in the region of Tillabéry (75% national production) where about 1/7 of Niger’ s population live [3,4].With 100,000 ha of arable and irrigable lands, this regionof Tillabéry has nearly 50% of the country’ s irrigable land.There are 29 irrigated rice schemes (with double cropping each year) that cover 7,432 ha (85.3% of the nationalirrigated schemes) in Tillabéry. The average rice grain yield in this agrosystem is 3.5 to 4.5 t ha−1[5,6]. This intensive system, under the control of local farmer unions andsupervised by the Office National des Aménagements Hydro-Agricoles (ONAHA), currently produces 30,000 to
35,000 t year−1. Private irrigated systems with individual
water pumps are also found in this area. The irrigated ecosystems are planted only with improved Asia-type (Oryzasativa) cultivars. The traditional rice growing in the Tillabéry region accounts for about 62.13% of lowland rice production.
A detailed description of the plant was proposed around 1750 by Michel Adanson, a French botanist who spent several years in Senegal, and took samples to Paris. Adansonia digitata is the scientific name proposed by Carl Von LINNE and Bernard de Jussieu. It is a secular tree belonging to the Bombacaceae family, imposing by its size, it is the most massive of all known woody species, unlike other species of the genus Adansonia endemic to Madagascar or Australia (Adansonia grandidieri Baill., Adansonia madagascarensis Baill, Adansonia suarezensis H. Perrier and Adansonia Baill, etc.). It is mainly present in the sub-humid and semi.