(3 minutes read)
An integrated pest management technology, developed by Ghana’s Crop Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR-CRI), is said to hold the promise of effectively reducing the prevalence of pests and diseases in rice production.
The new integrated pest and disease control management technology, which is being piloted in rice demonstration farms in some selected rice-producing communities, is part of strategies by CRI to reduce pest infections in rice farms and thereby, increase sustainable rice production in the country.
The development of the technology is being sponsored by Korea Programme on International Agriculture (KOPIA), Ghana Center, under the KOPIA Rice Diseases and Pests” project.Pest and disease Management is crucial in rice production. Any attempt to make Ghana self-sufficient in rice production needed effective integrated pest and disease management technologies that would stand the test of time to help increase the yield and quality of the grain.
Dr Kofi Frimpong Anin, a Senior Research Scientist at the CSIR-CRI explained that at the inception of the project, researchers monitored the pests and diseases incidents over the cropping period – thus, from nursery to maturity and harvesting. From this, the study identified distinct types of pests and diseases, the stages of the rice that they appeared and the exact times the crops were being attacked. He explained that once these issues were uncovered, researchers developed an integrated management technology to be able to address issues of pests and diseases.
Because CRI wanted it to be an integrated approach, it used all technologies available for rice production. This included seed selection, water management, fertilizer application, weed management and the application of chemicals to control diseases and pests. Dr. Anin stated that on the fields, researchers established several plots with some imitating what the farmers were already doing, also control plots (with no intervention) and another that applied the packaged technology developed by the CSIR-CRI.
Read Also:
https://trendsnafrica.com/windfall-for-cocoa-farmers-in-ghana-government-increases-prices-by-64/
https://trendsnafrica.com/ghana-launches-project-to-support-540000-smallholder-farmers/
https://trendsnafrica.com/ghana-could-cost-1-7-per-capita-gdp-due-to-climate-change-says-fm/
The outcomes had been that the technologies introduced by CRI had a stand of rice forming many tillers (about 15 compared to the farmer’s own which had as low as five). Again, the grains produced from the CRI technologies were more than those produced under the farmers’ practice and the control system. These demonstrations were on a pilot basis, researchers would refine the technologies and when they received enough funding, upscale to other rice-producing areas in Ghana.
