Can you guess this plant clinic?
Take a close look at the photo below. Can you guess where in the world this plant clinic is located? It is one of hundreds of clinics, operated by national partners in local markets and meeting places, where farmers can find the plant health advice they need. Click ‘Read more’ for the location answer….
Update: Plant Health News (14 Aug 13)
Here’s a taste of some of the latest stories about plant health, including foot rot disease attacking basmati crop in Punjab, Australian authorities intercept citrus pest on curry leaves and the ants that are threatening cocoa crops. Click on the link to read more of the latest plant health news!
Could Food Insecure Africa Have Found a Saviour in Farming God’s Way?
Proponents term it the long awaited messiah that food-insecure Africa has been yearning for! ‘Farming God’s way’ promises to end fertilizer woes of resource-poor farmers in the continent by providing a cheaper and less labour intensive farming method. Food security remains the number one major challenge that citizens across the African continent contend with. While…
Black Sigatoka Ravages Caribbean
Caribbean banana farmers are abandoning fields where crops have been badly affected by Black Sigatoka disease. Black Sigatoka has badly affected several countries in the region, including Dominica, St. Lucia, Grenada and Guyana. Black Sigatoka is considered the most destructive disease of bananas and plantains and is caused by the fungus Mycosphaerella fijiensis. It first arrived in…
Makerere University brings Plantwise to class
Contributed with content from Joseph Mulema, CABI in Africa Since 2005, Plantwise has been supporting the establishment of plant clinics and knowledge bank access in Uganda. But recently, plans to expand clinic operations to each sub-county have led to increased demand for trained and knowledgeable plant doctors. To answer this call, and provide a promising…
Update: New Pest & Disease Records (07 Aug 13)
We’ve selected a few of the latest new geographic, host and species records for plant pests and diseases from CAB Abstracts. Records this fortnight include fungi associated with boll and lint rot of cotton in Iran, leaf spot-causing pathogen Nigrospora sphaerica found on mango for the first time and Bursaphelenchus koreanus found in packaging wood from South…
Video Interview with Sierra Leone’s Minister of Agriculture
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzwblzjR2pA&w=560&h=315] Recently Melanie Bateman of CABI Switzerland and Dr IMO Shamie, Sierra Leone’s Director of Crops and Plantwise National Coordinator, had the unique opporunity to sit down for a meeting with Sierra Leone’s Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security, Dr Joseph Sam Sesay. During the meeting, Dr Sesay told his story of being the first…
Update: Plant Health News (31 Jul 13)
Here’s a taste of some of the latest stories about plant health, including reports of citrus greening (huanglongbing) in Paraguay, the discovery of genes resistant to Phytophthora sojae in soybeans and a computer model that gives early warning signs of crop failure. Click on the link to read more of the latest plant health news!
Two million red palm weevils removed without the use of pesticides
In the first half of 2013 two million red palm weevils were removed from farms in Abu Dhabi using pheromone traps. The large number of red palm weevils in the area prompted the launch of the initiative, which forms part of the Abu Dhabi Farmers’ Services Centre’s (ADFSC) Integrated Pest Management project. The project was…