Education on safe pesticide use crucial for farmers in rural Kenya
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.
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.
Farmers helping farmers to solve crop problems 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…
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 (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…
Submit your plant health, agriculture or bioscience papers!
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…
Personalised plant health advice from sowing to harvesting at plant clinics in India
It has been proven that access to extension services is one of the key pathways to enhancing technology uptake, promoting innovations, and improving production among smallholder farmers. These studies have pointed out the very high rates of return (13-500%) of extension as an economically viable way to increase productivity and income. In fact, the same…
Soil microbiome linked to disease resistance in crops
A recent study has unearthed the mystery of how plant disease resistance is linked to the soil microbiome. This new area of research will open up new possibilities for a more sustainable food production system and help combat global food security threats.
Registration of red list chemicals halted in Pakistan thanks to Plantwise
Pakistan’s Department of Plant Protection (DPP) promotes the transition to sustainable crop protection systems. It promotes an integrated approach for crop protection policies and practices within the framework of Sustainable Food and Agriculture. Through a series of meetings with officials of DPP, CABI’s Plantwise team has urged the department to enforce the regulations to minimize…
A new pesticide is all the buzz
Bees’ fuzzy yellow bodies and hairy legs are custom-built for picking up pollen. Nothing can distribute the yellow powder more efficiently—something farmers that shell out for commercial beehives every growing season know all too well. And starting with this fall’s growing season, bees may be given some cargo to carry on their outbound journey to the blossoms: pesticides.