A selection of plants for the new breeding program was made and the layout of the new test fields is now finished. In that breeding experiments the selected plants are cultivated in plots with several equal repetitions and also at two different locations. The places for the new test-fields are located closely to the LIRE office. This makes it easier for observing the plants daily and also for showing it to interested people.

One of these places is big enough to establish four plots of Jatropha plants. At these plots, cuttings and also seedlings from the best plants will be planted similar to the other plots to make comparisons between them.  The aim is to reproduce the best 12 performing plants from the first LIRE test field and also implement 8 other good performing plants into this new program.

All seeds and cuttings will be planted at the same time. It is planned to begin with this work in the first week of December 2007. Also the field preparation will start at that time. After 7 weeks in the nursery, the plants are ready to be planted into the appropriate areas.

One of the bigger goals is to create a better seed material for follow-up trials. Moreover, LIRE wants to check the new data to compare different plant parameter such as the stem diameter, height of the plant and other things to the seed yield. Fot this purpose Thomas Pircher, LIREs agriculture expert analyzed the data package from the old monitoring program, established through Dr. Hirsinger. Mr. Pircher compared several plant characteristics with the seed yield. The highest correlation with the seed yield was the plant height and the number of branches which seems plausible.

Another focus point for establishing the new test-field is, that LIRE wants to establish teaching and training activities on this test-fields for students and other participators.