PlantwisePlus Blog

Contributed by Léna Durocher-Granger and Kate Dey
Are you perhaps a coffee expert, a research scientist, post-graduate student in crop management, an extension officer working at the Ministry of Agriculture? Would you like to contribute to the plant health system of your country, bring the Plantwise methodology to your institute, help us with the translation of content so it can be used locally or improve your extension writing skills?
Well, we have made it easier for you to get involved with the development of essential extension materials and enhance pest management and control information for your country. You now have the power to download and edit Green Lists– a type of Pest Management Decision Guides (PMDGs) which provide simple and vital prevention, management and control information for extension workers and farmers. They contain generic non-chemical and non-hazardous advice such as cultural and mechanical control.

We need your help in adapting Green Lists and adding country-specific information and chemical advice in the yellow section. Therefore, we have added an exciting new feature. This allows you to download a zip folder containing the text of a Green List in an Excel template format, along with the associated images and instructions on how to process your content and get it published on the Plantwise knowledge bank.
To find out more, take a look at the image and instructions below:
blog-green-list2
The 6 steps to create your country-specific Green and Yellow List are easy:

  1. After searching for the crop or pest that you need, click on the following icon next to the selected Green List to download the zip file: icon-zip
  2. Edit the text in the green columns by adding local information such as sowing time, variety names, biopesticides available in your country, vectors or alternative hosts, environmental conditions favouring the pest or best time for monitoring.
  3. Remove advice not relevant to your region or country and replace it with new advice, or add missing information.
  4. Add relevant pesticide information in the yellow columns with the associated restrictions. Have a look at the Plantwise Pesticide Red List and at your national list of registered pesticide to only include safe and approved pesticides.
  5. If you would like to add your own images, change the description and the author credit.
  6. Send us your customized Green and Yellow List in the Excel template, the images and your institution logo at plantwise@cabi.org.

Once we have received your files, we’ll send them to an expert to review the information and we’ll contact you if any edits are needed.
By making the content of Pest Management Decision Guides downloadable and editable, the Plantwise knowledge bank supports capacity building of extension workers by providing the tools for anyone who would like to learn the fine art of writing short and concise advice on one page.
This new feature will also allow extension workers and the Ministry of Agriculture to quickly respond to new alerts about pests which are causing major problems. As an example, responding to a pest alert in Bangladesh within recent weeks, the knowledge bank has produced a Green List on wheat blast which has been turned into a Green and Yellow List specifically for Bangladesh through a great collaboration with M. Tofazzal Islam from the Department of Biotechnology, BSMRAU. This will allow the dissemination of vital knowledge to as many extension workers and farmers as possible in time for early prevention of the disease, as the wheat growing season is starting in October.
Now that more than 150 Green Lists have been published on the knowledge bank in English, Spanish, French, Chinese and Portuguese, you can start your own PMDG and keep looking for new Green Lists to be published soon.
The Plantwise knowledge bank team is looking forward to receiving your Green and Yellow Lists!
 
 

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