These e-Plant Doctors Can Help Solve Farmers’ Crop Woes in Minutes. Here’s How.
This article was originally published on ‘the better india’ When K Pathi noticed the notorious Fall ArmyWorm attack his corn plants, he didn’t rush to get pesticides. He did something entirely different. When 49-year-old K Pathi, a farmer in Maramadakki village in Pudukkottai district of Tamil Nadu, noticed the notorious Fall ArmyWorm (locally known as…
An inter-country workshop and an experience-sharing session on a virtual platform
Our experiences in Nepal during the global COVID-19 pandemic have been both positive and negative. On the positive side, this difficult time has made us realize the value of coming together and being connected as a community. But the pandemic has also put people’s lives and livelihoods at risk. In Nepal, COVID-19 is now spreading…
Lockdown unlocking technology for India’s farmers
This article was originally published in indigenus, a blog from Nature India Rural communities grappling with livelihood issues and looking for support for farming activities are increasingly embracing technology for survival. Jayashree Balasubramanian, who heads communication at the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) in Chennai, talks of her experience with farmers attending virtual ‘plant clinics’.
Test your plant health knowledge
>> Latest quiz just added Plantwise plant doctors are at the heart of our plant clinic network providing advice and information to farmers, logging their data for the Plantwise Knowledge Bank, and always adapting to new outbreaks and technologies. Think you’ve got what it takes to be a plant doctor? Take our online plant health…
Update: New Pest & Disease Records (08 June 2020)
We’ve selected a few of the latest new geographic, host and species records for plant pests and diseases from CAB Abstracts. Records this month include the first report of the fungal pathogen Alternaria alternata on Sambucus ebulus in Iran and the first report of the moth Dervishiya cadambae on grapevine Vitis vinifera.
Africa’s smallholders to bear the brunt of COVID-19
This article was originally published by SciDev.Net Governments need to support millions of smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa as the agriculture sector bears the brunt of COVID-19 lockdowns and trade restrictions, scientists say. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Africa Agriculture Outlook 2016-2025, smallholder farms form about 80 per cent of all farms in Sub-Saharan Africa and directly employ more…
Test your plant health knowledge
>> Latest quiz just added Plantwise plant doctors are at the heart of our plant clinic network providing advice and information to farmers, logging their data for the Plantwise Knowledge Bank, and always adapting to new outbreaks and technologies. Think you’ve got what it takes to be a plant doctor? Take our online plant health…
Pests in a pandemic? India’s plant doctors will see you online now
This article was originally published by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. During coronavirus lockdown, Indian farmers have been able to join ‘e-clinics’ to get a diagnosis of problems plaguing their crops, helping limit the damage When Victor, Mary’s husband, decided to travel abroad for work, he left her a plot of land to cultivate in southern…
The importance of plant clinics to Nepalese smallholder farmers
Nepal has immense diversity in its agro-climate and its crop production, thanks to the variation in its physical landscape. However, it faces a major constraint on its agricultural production, due to pests. Various studies indicate that about 35–40% of pre- and post-harvest losses in Nepal are caused by pests. Several types of chemicals are used…
Call for content: Knowledge Bank factsheets
The Plantwise Knowledge Bank is a gateway to practical online and offline plant health information, and reinfocing agricultural advisory services around the world that provide plant health advice to farmers. It includes diagnostic resources, best-practice pest management advice and plant clinic data analysis for targeted crop protection.