Maize yield has been on the decline on smallholder farms, where the bulk of maize for different uses is produced in the Northern Guinea Savannah of Nigeria. This study analyzed smallholder farmers‘ constraints to maize growth and yield variability in the Northern Guinea Savannah (NGS) of Nigeria for yield optimization. It temporally covers 2017 and 2018 at 4 Weeks After Sowing (WAS) and 8WAS. For Ikara in Kaduna State and Doguwa in Kano State, 30 and 31 farmers respectively were purposively selected ...

Aflatoxins are a group of highly toxic, mutagenic, teratogenic, and carcinogenic secondary metabolites of Aspergillus species including Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus. Maize is susceptible to aflatoxin contamination; so, ogi, (fermented maize gruel) consumed as a breakfast cereal, weaning food and food for convalescents is prone to aflatoxins. Therefore, targeted fermentation of yellow and white maize, for ogi, was investigated as a means of aflatoxin decontamination in ogi. Methods ...

White Guinea yam (Dioscorea rotundata) is mainly a dioecious tuberous crop that produces flowers of varying sex phenotypes. Agronomic traits in Guinea yam differ according to the sex phenotype, but the precise interaction between the traits and sex phenotype is not clearly understood. This might be due to the high heterozygosity of yam where cultivars with different flowering sex have different genetic backgrounds, which mask the sole effect of sex phenotype on the agronomic traits. This study ...

Yellow-fleshed cassava root (YFCR) is processed into traditional products that may influence its bioactivities. In this study, the antioxidant and anti-hyperglycaemic activities of three traditional products (lafun, fufu and gari) from five genotypes (IITA-TMS-IBA070337, 182961, 182962, 182986, 183044) of YFCR were evaluated. The YFCR genotypes were grown at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) research field, Ibadan. The bioactive constituents (total carotenoids, total ...

Farmers in developing countries routinely misperceive or misreport input quality for various reasons, which introduces substantial measurement error in farm survey data. In this paper, we motivate and illustrate, both analytically and empirically, the inferential and behavioral implications of misperception and misreporting using a unique crop variety identification data from Nigeria. Using a non-parametric framework for testing the presence of measurement error, we show that crop variety ...

This article reviews the main recent applications of multi-sensor remote sensing and Artificial Intelligence techniques in multivariate modelling of agricultural drought. The study focused mainly on three fundamental aspects, namely descriptive modelling, predictive modelling, and spatial modelling of expected risks and vulnerability to drought. Thus, out of 417 articles across all studies on drought, 226 articles published from 2010 to 2022 were analyzed to provide a global overview of the current ...

Aflatoxins are toxic compounds produced by several Aspergillus species that contaminate various crops. The impact of aflatoxin on the health of humans and livestock is a concern across the globe. Income, trade, and development sectors are affected as well. There are several technologies to prevent aflatoxin contamination but there are difficulties in having farmers use them. In Nigeria, an aflatoxin biocontrol product containing atoxigenic isolates of A. flavus has been registered with regulatory ...