Plantwise Most Read 2019

A plant scientist looks through a micrscope while a close-up of a plant displays in the screen next to him,
As 2019 draws to a close, we have crunched the numbers and present 2019’s most read articles. Plus a few firm favourites. Plantwise work on the ground has proven a popular topic, particularly with regard to reducing pesticide risk, as well as our work in digital development with the launch of the new-look Plantwise Knowledge…
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Education on safe pesticide use crucial for farmers in rural Kenya

Young farmer spraying pesticides on crop without proper protective clothing
A team from CABI,  AMPATH  and Corteva recently visited an area in the Rift Valley and discovered alarming evidence that farmers are unaware of the harmful effects of agricultural pesticides. Through indiscriminate use, poor handling, storage and application of pesticides, farmers in the area are harming consumers and themselves.
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Update: New Pest & Disease Records (5 December 2019)

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 reports on a new pathogenic fungal species in Iran and new records of needle nematode and a novel Schizomyia species in China.
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Microloans make farming profitable for Kenyan smallholders

This article was originally published on SciDev.Net This article is supported by the CASA programme. For 40-year-old Beatrice Mulwale, a smallholder farmer from western Kenya, poor yields and low income had been par for the course for most of her farming life.
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Farmers helping farmers to solve crop problems in Nepal

female farmer in Nepal
A farmer has to organize a thousand things before getting the final returns from the crop they planted. Choosing the right season and variety of crop, managing the labour forces during the critical crop periods, water management or waiting for rainfall, crop nutrient management, harvesting the crops, managing the post-harvest losses, and then finally selling…
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Test your plant health knowledge

Birdseye view of a plant clinic in Peru. A plant farmer gives advice to a farmer on a crop sample.
>> 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…
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Plantwise and Syngenta Foundation India train rural youth to be agri-entrepreneurs

Plant samples on a table being assessed by plant doctors in India
In August this year, Plantwise signed a partnership statement with Syngenta Foundation India (SFI) to collaborate on their flagship programme, Agri-Entrepreneur Enterprise. Under the programme, mentors who support agri-entrepreneurs – known as AEs – in achieving a sustainable enterprise form a fundamental part in capacity building. Plantwise and SFI collaborated on training the mentors who…
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Improving water storage capacity in low-quality soils in sub-Saharan Africa

A recent study published by an international team of researchers has demonstrated how the use of novel water storage technology can improve soil conditions and promote crop production in low-quality sandy soil areas.
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Update: New Pest & Disease Records (12 November 2019)

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 reports on a species of aphid new to the Netherlands, the first records of Diaporthe gulyae, D. phaseolorum and D. eres in Russia and reports of a new defoliator species, Nematus…
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Submit your plant health, agriculture or bioscience papers!

PHAB 2020 banner
As many of our readers may be aware, the United Nations have declared 2020 as the International Year of Plant Health. CABI is pleased to announce that to promote a global conversation about plant health and the future of sustainable agriculture, we are organising a conference in collaboration with Koppert Biological Systems and Wageningen University…
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