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Which Maize variety to grow? Kenyan farmers get expert advice via SMS
Disease pressure and trial sites
Going to Mali
WHAT DO USERS OF AFRICA TRIAL SITES NEED?
The Internet and cell phones: pillars for location-specific agriculture

AfricaTs.org is a network for cultivar trials in Africa, promoting variety evaluation for crop improvement. Find environmental data and results of trials on this site. Visitors are encouraged to create an account to use the full functionality of the site. Please contact us for further information

AFRICATS keeps on growing

Africats keeps on growing. This week another 60 stations dedicated to evaluating germplasm in Africa, in this case wheat (, were added to the database and dynamic maps. They are part of IWIN (International Wheat Improvement Network)and results of the evaluation trials can be accessed online through the IWIS (International Wheat Information System) of CIMMYT. As many countries in Africa are interested in growing wheat due to high expenditures for imports access to information on performance and exchange of germplasm in a wide range of ecologies will be crucial. We hope to contribute to this through this website and the offered tools and data. The Africats team is planing to be adding more stations in the near future covering more crops and larger areas and populations in Africa.

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Which Maize variety to grow? Kenyan farmers get expert advice via SMS

The Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS www.kephis.org)has launched a service for maize farmers all over the country. Many farmers know that commercial or improved seeds can increase their chance of higher yields and thus bigger incomes but they don't always know which one to buy best suited for their environment. Extension officers who could provide this service are often not presnet or not easily reachable. But now the farmers can text maize and the name of the administrative division to a number paying 10 KSH (about 10 cents USD)and they receive names and info about the most suited maize varieties for their location. A problem according to Kephis personnel is that admin divisions can often contain extreme changes in topography and thus agro ecological zones. So advice can't be as accurate as it should be in some cases. There would be the need to include more accurate location information, like through a gazetteer for locations within a GIS or to use smaller admin units so that the KEPHIS system can be fine tuned to better serve the rural users. Read about a farmer's experience and his dialogue with a Kephis employee under: here

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Last Updated (Tuesday, 09 February 2010 13:16)

The Internet and cell phones: pillars for location-specific agriculture

Information and communication technologies (ICT) play a critical role in location-specific agriculture. For both research and development, we won’t get very far without it. The Internet and cell phones are the two key pillars of ICT for Africa. Most would agree that Internet access and cell phone coverage could be much better in Africa. But what will it take to get there? An article in today’s New York Times suggests that at least we are started on the path to a better Internet for Africa. Over the next year the SEACOM consortium will build 10 new undersea connections to Africa. The article points out that these connections will be the Internet highways. You still have to build the last 10 kilometers, but this is a big step in the right direction. Hopefully, expanded cell phone coverage won’t be far behind. Piet Buys and his colleagues report in this month’s World Development that simply changing competition policies could improve cell phone coverage by 100% in Africa (the report includes highly detailed maps of recent cell phone expansion and the probability of coverage). There is a lot of talk about how these developments in ICT are going to have important economic impacts. Location-specific agriculture will surely be one of the biggest winners.

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Last Updated (Monday, 01 February 2010 20:45)

Why is variety adoption so low?

Mali agronomists tell us that adoption of improved varieties in the country is around 5%. The reasons are familiar. The agricultural extension service needs to be expanded if the ministry of agriculture is ever going to reach farmers.Many farmers lack connection to the major towns and cities. Improved varieties usually need to be adopted in conjunction with other technologies, like fertilizer or irrigation. One key barrier to adoption is simply that the improved varieties are not adapted to local conditions. Strengthening trial sites can help agricultural scientisits test which varieties are best adapted to which specific sites. The Africa Trials Sites project aims to help African farmers overcome this barrier by supporting cultivar testing. In the attached photo a Mali farmer explains his participation in on-farm participatory trials of maize, groundnut and sorghum. To the left of him is Africa Trial Sites colleague and IITundefinedA scientist Kai Sonder.

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Last Updated (Monday, 01 February 2010 20:48)

Disease pressure and trial sites

www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2009/september/cassava.htm
Here is an interesting article about the ongoing battle against major cassava diseases. This story shows the importance of factoring in disease pressure, when conducting trials. The Africa Trial Sites network should consider adding information about the disease and pest pressure of each trial site.

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Last Updated (Monday, 01 February 2010 20:49)

WHAT DO USERS OF AFRICA TRIAL SITES NEED?

Agricultural scientists involved in the Africa Trial Sites project held a brainstorming session during the Generation Challenge Program's (GCP) Annual Research Meeting (ARM). Some key points that came out of the session were:

People working in crop improvement need information on regulatory issues related to exchanging germplasm for testing in multi-location trials.

There is a strong need for training in how to characterize trial sites and use computer tools to support phenotyping

The Africa Trial Site network needs multi-language capacity to reach farmers throughout the continent. The web site is under development in English. The next version will include a French translation. Future versions should include Portuguese and possibly other languages.

Agricultural scientist need to know about the biotic and abiotic stresses of a particular trial site. A drought experiment may have careful control over water in the trial. But if the trial is strongly affected by pests and diseases, the results may be of little value

Each trial site should have information on sowing dates and the crop calendar. In general, there should be more information specific to the crop.

Project researchers should develop a minimum data set for characterizing trial sites. Many sites will lack information on climate, soil and other variables. How can we deal with this missing data?

Many trial sites lack data on soils. This bottleneck will be difficult to overcome given the lack of resources to carry out soil analysis in many countries. Soil water holding capacity is a key variable needed for analysis of cultivar trials.

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Last Updated (Monday, 01 February 2010 20:49)

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