How we’re getting to the root of a global pest threatening potatoes in East Africa

게시됨 2020년 9월 9일

Tridge 요약

Potatoes are experiencing a surge in demand in eastern Africa, unfortunately, production levels have dropped due to pests, disease, and poor seed quality. The introduction of potato cyst nematodes, specifically Globodera rostochiensis and Globodera pallida, has caused significant yield losses. Research is underway to identify chemicals that could stimulate the nematodes to hatch, potentially leading to their demise. Other control measures include crop rotation, using disease-free seed, and exploring resistant potato varieties. A collaborative effort is being made to assess the effectiveness of these strategies.

면책 조항: 위의 요약은 정보 제공 목적으로 Tridge 자체 학습 AI 모델에 의해 생성되었습니다.

원본 콘텐츠

Demand for potatoes in eastern Africa has been growing steadily, achieving an annual growth of 3.1% between 1993 and 2020. This growth is driven in part by rising demand from the fast food industry and for processing into high value products such as crisps, chips and starch. Despite an increase of 60% in the area of cultivated land, production has been declining from an average of 20 tonnes a hectare to around 9.1 in Rwanda, 8.6 in Kenya and 4.3 in Uganda. This is way below the potential production of 40 tonnes a hectare. Farmers are thus being denied much-needed income and food. The factors contributing to the low and declining yields include losses due to attack by a range of pests and diseases. A second main reason is the repeated cropping of potato on the same land without rotation. Third is the use of poor quality or substandard seed, partly due to limited availability of certified high quality seed. Potato cyst nematodes are the most recent pest threat to emerge in the ...

출처: The Conversation