Tropentag 2019 - Student blog - Crop production systems

White flies just boarded a plane to Europe!!

Pamella Ogada — Sun, 22 Sep 2013 21:05:13 +0000

“Strict” Border Restrictions are not enough to curb Pests and Diseases!! Insane as it sounds, that is the reality of things. Pests and Diseases management has been part of scientific discussions since time immemorial with regard to agricultural production systems. With this year’s conference theme, “Agricultural development within the rural-urban continuum”, pest and diseases was not left behind, and this brought great discussion among scientist from all over the globe. Stephan Winter Leibniz-Institute, Braunschweig, Germany Amazing interactions between plant viruses, their vectors and their hosts plants was reported by Stephan Winter, a virologist from Leibniz-Institute, Braunschweig, Germany. According to Winter, plant viruses can travel long distance as far as United State from Africa, to Europe. This has been made possible by international trade of planting materials, vegetables and cut flowers, enabling pests and diseases of economic importance to cross strict boarders. Generally, several driving factors have been found to contribute to this menace, scientist are committed to find solutions for the control and containment of pests and diseases.These include, cultural measures, biological control of the pest, use of tolerant crop varieties against plant diseases among others.

Consider climate change in cultivar selection

De-Registered User — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 17:05:49 +0000

At the oral sessions on cropping system and environment, Eike Luedeling reports about "potential fruit trees production decline induced by climate change". Eike Luedeling Temperate fruit trees need winter chill in order to produce fruits. The climatic requirements during the dormancy season are poorly understood. With raising temperature production is at risk. Adaptation planning is needed in order to maintain the production. Eike Luedeling emphasizes the need for long-term adaptation strategies. He promotes the use of the dynamic model to consider climate change in cultivar selection and to find climate analogues.

Shea trees are on the way to be domesticated

De-Registered User — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 16:32:14 +0000

In the first oral presentation of the session titled " cropping system and environment", Wilfred Elegba, talks about Domestication of shea tree (Vitelleria paradoxa C. F. Gaertn) via ex-vitro propagation. He highlights the importance of Vitelleria paradoxa, contributing up to 60 % of women's income in rural sub-Sahelian regions. Providing food (fruits, shea butter), non-food products (soaps, medicine, timber, and charcoal) and protection from erosion and desertification. The main problems hindering domestication are the long juvenile phase (15-20 years), short seeds viability, late shoot emergency, and long tap root (transplanting difficulties). In order to enhance livelihood or rural women in northern Ghana, Mr. Elegba research objective was to develop a protocol for propagation of Shea tree. To fasten germination and seedling growth of the trees, mechanical scarification (fruits were de-pulped and testae removed), chemical treatments (presoaks of seeds in Gibberellic acid-GA3 concentration), as well as thermo-scarification (incubation of seeds) were studied by means of trials. The main find outs were that GA3 and thermo-scarification reduces days to seedling emergency. Testa scarification reduces radicle length compared to the control. Presoaking of seeds in 20% GA3 for 48 hours resultes in the highest mean number of leaves and seedling height.

Restoring dignity and responsibility: A bag with big intentions

De-Registered User — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:04:24 +0000

Katrin Pütz uses low-tech innovation to help rural communities establish village-level biogas systems It’s about time we give people on the margin dignity and responsibility, demands Katrin Pütz of Hohenheim University. And she has a solution: Enter the Biobag. A four layered, gas tight, one cubic meter bag that can be worn as a backpack. The Biobag is part of a greater village level biogas system value chain. The envisioned system allows for capital investment, usually from commercial farmers or other investors, to finance the construction of a biogas plant. From here small-scale farmers can sell their animal’s dung to the biogas plant owner. Village residents can then bring their reusable Biobag to the plant to fill it up with fuel. Solving rural poverty can be just this simple, anticipates Pütz.

Behind the idea

After working in Rwanda on an agricultural project with farmers Pütz saw how development aid was working. She also saw how it created dependencies. “I became angry about how people were being treated,” reflects Pütz. She started to study again, but this time doing her master’s in agricultural engineering. It was during this time she learned about biogas and knew: “This is it!”