September 2020
Depletion of phosphate rock reserves and world food crisis: Reality or hoax?
Phosphate rock (PR) deposits are the major source of phosphate (P) fertilizers for soil fertility replenishment. The demand for P fertilizers in the year 2014 was 42,706,000 tons and was expected to reach 46,648,000 tons in 2018. Majority of PR deposits are found in only a few countries including Morocco, USA and China. There is however conflicting information on the extent of world PR reserves, therefore, complicating...
September 2020
Growth performance of royal purple and white guinea fowl varieties and their crosses under an intensive management system
Commercialization of guinea fowl production in many countries is growing and the demand for their meat is high. The study evaluated the growth of crossbred royal purple x white variety relative to purebred royal purple and white varieties. Twenty pure-bred white, 20 purebred royal purple and 20 cross-bred keets were housed together in 4 houses resulting in 4 replications. The keets were fed broiler starter crumbs from...
September 2020
Pastoral farming system and its temporal shift: A case of Borana zone, Oromia National Regional State, Ethiopia
The study was conducted in Borana zone, which is located at about 570 km from Addis Ababa with the objective of understanding the farming system of Borana pastoral area. The primary data was collected using survey questionnaires from 160 households selected using multistage sampling design. The study confirmed that the farming system in Borana pastoral area has been increasingly diluted, unlike the earlier decades where...
September 2020
Evaluation of blended fertilizer on growth performance and yield of onion (Allium cepa L.) at irrigated conditions Tselemti District North Western Tigray, Ethiopia
Onion has economically important crop in the study area. However, its low production is due to poor soil fertility management. Thus, the present study was initiated to determine the optimal rate of blended fertilizer required for onion production. A field experiment was conducted for two consecutive years during 2018 and 2019 at farmer's field Tselemti district, the experiment had 8 treatments arranged in a...
September 2020
Household determinants of food security in rural Central Uganda
This study contributes to the literature by presenting empirical evidence on the drivers of rural household food security, which is critical for food security policy implementation. We used household survey data collected from 265 households from rural central Uganda, and a binary logistic regression model to estimate the determinants of household food security. Households with more land size, no livestock, and smaller...
September 2020
Banana pest risk assessment along banana trade axes running from low to high altitude sites, in the Eastern DR Congo and in Burundi
Pests and diseases greatly contribute to the decline in banana yields, food and income insecurity in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Understanding people’s role in pest and disease spread at landscape level is crucial for effective pest and disease management. To determine this, focus group discussions (FGDs) targeting 10 experienced farmers (50% female and 50% male) were conducted in 27 villages along four...
September 2020
Enhancing maize production in a Striga infested environment through weed management practices, sowing date and improved crop varieties
A two-year investigation into the effects of weed management practices, sowing dates and maize varieties was made in a Striga endemic field at Minna, Nigeria. The treatment was a factorial combination of variety (SAMMAZ 15, 17, 37, 40 and SUWAN-1-SR-Y), weed management practices (weedy check, two hoe weeding (HW) at 3 + 6 weeks after sowing (WAS), pre-emergence (PE) Atrazine at 2.4 kg a.i ha-1 + 1 HW at 6 WAS and PE...
September 2020
Spatiotemporal hotspot patterns of wheat rust incidence and severity in Ethiopia
Wheat rusts, stem rust, leaf rust, and stripe or yellow rust are the major biotic constraints in all wheat-growing regions of Ethiopia. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to identify the temporal-spatial hot spot pattern of wheat rust incidence and severity in Ethiopia. A GIS-based hotspot analysis tool was employed to identify the spatial distribution of hot spot patterns and temporal trends using survey...
September 2020
Floral activity of Apis mellifera (Hymenoptera: Apidae) on Bidens steppia (Asteraceae), Cordia africana (Boraginaceae), Pittosporum viridiflorum (Pittosporaceae) and Psychotria mahonii (Rubiaceae) in Nyambaka (Adamawa, Cameroon)
Experiments were conducted at Nyambaka in the Adamawa Region of Cameroon, from March 2017 to November 2018, for assessing the apicultural potential of Bidens steppia, Cordia africana, Pittosporum viridiflorum and Psychotria mahonii. In order to improve the beekeeping productivity, it is important to investigate the diversity of bee plants in a given apiary site. To that end, the foraging behaviour of Apis mellifera...
September 2020
Impact of native arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi based fertilizers on to increase maize productivity in North Benin
Mycorrhizae are symbiotic associations between fungi and host plants, which confer several advantages, including good mineral nutrition. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) then present an effective alternative in order to develop a sustainable agriculture that is less dependent on mineral fertilizers. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of organic fertilizers based on native arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi...
September 2020
Effect of potassium on yield and growth of Enset (Ensete ventricosum (Welw.) Cheesman) in Dale District, Sidama Region, Ethiopia
Only limited work has been done on fertilizer requirement of Enset crop. An experiment was conducted in Dale district, Sidama region, Ethiopia to investigate the response of Enset to potassium (K) fertilizer for two years (2016-2018). The treatments were: 0, 80, 150 and 200 kg K/ha as potassium chloride (KCl), single levels of phosphorus (P) (20 kg/ha), sulfur (S) (11.15 kg/ha) and boron (B) (0.57 kg/ha) as blended NPSB...
September 2020
Field evaluation of introduced and local cowpea genotypes performance in Botswana
A set of twenty four cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp) genotypes were evaluated in field conditions for three consequtive seasons based on 13 quantitative characters. A combined analysis of variance revealed a highly significant difference among the genotypes for most of the traits (P <0.001). Introduced genotypes performed better in nine of the characters, revealing the advantage of introduced genotypes. Principal...
September 2020
Effect of different planting techniques and sowing density rates on the development of quinoa
Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) is a crop of increasing interest due to its agro-ecological adaptability and high nutritional properties. Few information is available on the adaptability of quinoa in the Sahel region, and on genotype’s phenological, morphological and agronomical responses to different planting methods and sowing density rates. To test the effect of planting and sowing methods, two separate...
Advertisement
Advertisement
