Cassava is an important food crop in western Kenya, yet its production is challenged by pests and diseases that require routine monitoring to guide development and deployment of control strategies. Field surveys were conducted in 2022 and 2023 to determine the prevalence, incidence and severity of cassava mosaic disease (CMD) and cassava brown streak disease (CBSD), whitefly numbers and incidence of cassava green mite (CGM) in six counties of western Kenya. Details of the encountered cassava ...

Biofortification of provitamin A in maize is an attractive and sustainable remedy to the problem of vitamin A deficiency in developing countries. The utilization of molecular markers represents a promising avenue to facilitate the development of provitamin A (PVA)-enriched maize varieties. We screened 752 diverse tropical yellow/orange maize lines using kompetitive allele-specific PCR (KASP) makers to validate the use of KASP markers in PVA maize breeding. To this end, a total of 161 yellow/orange ...

Vitamin A deficiency in sub-Saharan Africa is mainly being addressed through crop biofortification. Several high provitamin A (PVA) maize varieties have been released as part of these measures. However, these varieties are grown in areas where Aspergillus ear rot (AER) and Fusarium ear rot (FER) frequently occur, leading to contamination with mycotoxins, which in turn reduce the yield and grain quality. Chronic mycotoxin exposure leads to serious public health problems. Therefore, PVA maize varieties ...

Banana is an important fruit and staple crop, which is vital for food and income security in developing countries. A genomics initiative was undertaken as part of the Global Alliance against TR4 (Tropical Race 4 of Fusarium Wilt of Banana) Alliance, with Bayer Crop Science, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, and University of Queensland to collectively accelerate the breeding efforts in Eastern Africa. The goal of this project is to develop genomics resources to improve banana breeding, ...

Conservation agriculture (CA) represents a paradigm shift towards more sustainable and climate-smart intensification of smallholder farming systems in southern Africa. This can only be achieved with reasonably fast, widespread, and sustained adoption of CA. However, many farmers are slow to adopt CA and when they do, they often do not continue using it and eventually dis-adopt. We combine duration models and quantile regression models to study how long farmers take to adopt conservation agriculture ...

Soil salinization is a gradual degradation process that begins as a minor problem and grows to become a significant economic loss if no control action is taken. It progressively alters the soil environment which eventually negatively affects plants and organism that were not originally adapted for saline conditions. Soil salinization arises from diverse sources such as side-effects of long-term use of agro-chemicals, saline parent rocks, periodic inundation of soil with saline water, etc. In Africa, ...

Production and utilization of crop residues as mulch and effective weed management are two central elements in the successful implementation of Conservation Agriculture (CA) systems in southern Africa. Yet, the challenges of crop residue availability for mulch or the difficulties in managing weed proliferation in CA systems are bigger than a micro-level focus on weeds and crop residues themselves. The bottlenecks are symptoms of broader systemic complications that cannot be resolved without ...

Purpose The agricultural sector has experienced a transformative impact through the adoption of digital technologies, particularly mobile applications designed for farmers. This study investigates the factors influencing smallholder farmers' willingness to adopt digital application tools in Ogun State, Nigeria, focusing on the IITA herbicide calculator and Akilimo mobile applications. Design/methodology/approach Data were gathered from 572 smallholder farmers participating in the Zero Hunger ...

The cassava seed system faces challenges due to limited seed stock caused by a slow propagation rate and a lengthy growth period. Conventional methods lacking phytosanitary guarantees further compound these issues. To address these limitations, the Semi-Autotrophic Hydroponics (SAH) technology was adopted for the rapid mass propagation of healthy, disease-free cassava plants. This research aimed to evaluate the performance of cassava planting materials using different substrates for stem-cutting ...

Rhizobia diversity in the rhizosphere is one of the key promoters of biological nitrogen fixation between host legumes and microsymbionts, although related complex interaction may depend on various factors. This research was intended to assess the abundance of indigenous rhizobia isolates under various soil conditions, as well as their effectiveness to nodulate legumes such as soybeans. Factors such as soil properties and legume species influence the volume and symbiotic effectiveness of native ...