Project 3: Innovative crop protection
Project leader: Barbara Ekbom
Sub-project 1: The importance of landscape and local structure for biological control
Principal investigator at SLU: Barbara Ekbom, Department of Ecology
Popular summary
This project brings together participants from a large area of East Africa. Through this project cooperation and collaboration between SLU, Makerere University in Uganda, ICIPE (an international institute that specialises in insect research), and the Vi-skogen project in East Africa will be strengthened. The overall aim of the project is to contribute to improved livelihoods for smallholder farmers in East Africa through development of sustainable agricultural production systems. We will explore the importance of landscape context and management options for enhancing productivity and resilience under an increasingly variable climate. Our focus will be on the study of mechanisms that enhance biological diversity and show potential for improving biological control of insect pests.
Biological pest control is one ecosystem service that is threatened by agricultural intensification. For example, the diversity and abundance of natural enemies and natural enemy attack rates have often been found to be lower in landscapes dominated by agriculture. However such results are not universal and we still know little about the mechanisms behind such landscape-pest control relationships. Moreover, the relationship between natural enemy diversity and biological control is far from straightforward. We also don’t know to what extent natural enemy biodiversity can provide an insurance against fluctuating environmental conditions.
We will explore the relationships between agricultural land-use at different scales, the structure, diversity and variability of natural enemy-pest relationships and the value of biological control. Our study system will include maize and coffee cropping systems. Using these two crops the possibility of combing a tree crop with an annual field crop in an agroforestry system can be explored. This research should lead to a more secure production system as measures to prevent pest attack and damage will form the foundation of the system. Reactive measures such as insecticide use would then very seldom have to be used. Production will not only be higher, but more sustainable.
Sub-project 2: Epidemiological studies to determine the impact of resistance in controlling plant diseases
Principal investigator at SLU: Jonathan Yuen, Department of Forest Mycology and Pathology
Popular summary
The main goal of this project is to improve disease management strategies for key food crops in the East African region, primarily through an assessment of the impact of host plant resistance. Primary efforts will be directed towards potatoes and potato late blight, where a newly developed methodology to measure susceptibility will be validated, and the interaction between environmentally-friendly pesticides and host plant resistance will be studied. In connection with visits in the region, discussions will be initiated to start pilot studies on diseases of small grains such as yellow rust in wheat.
The main method in the project will be a researcher field school (Gildermacher et al., 2007) where researchers from different countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi) meet and discuss the the goals and practical details of field experiments. After this, similar experiments are conducted in the different countries. At the next workshop, the results of the experiments are analyzed together, along with planning for the next set of experiments. The goal is better cooperation between the scientists from different countries, along with joint publication of a common set of experiments. An introductory workshop has already taken place at ILRI in Ethiopia in connection with another workshop on seed potato production. The diversity in the P. infestans (the pathogen that causes potato late blight) will also be measured in connection with the experiments, but this will be coordinated with with similar projects in the region to avoid duplication. The other partners in this project include CIP (Centro Internacional de la Papa) in East Africa, Haramaya University in Etiopien, and the national agricultural research institutes in Etiopia (EIAR), Rwanda (ISAR), Burundi (ISABU), and Uganda (NARO).
Sub-project 3: Integrated pest management in high value crops – I
Principal investigator at SLU: Ylva Hillbur, Department of Plant Protection Biology
Popular summary
Horticultural produce contributes strongly to economical development through increased export and restoration of the balance of payments in sub-Saharan countries. Being largely small-farming driven, horticulture also contributes directly to creating employement opportunities and poverty alleviation. Insect pests endanger the potential of horticultural production, decreasing yield and limiting export. This project focuses on development of integrated management strategies against such pest insects. Insect pests require regional research, coordination and action. This is stimulated by linking our efforts with four East African institutes, Addis Ababa University and the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research in Ethiopia, and icipe and ICRAF, international research institutes with responsibility for insect science and agroforestry, in Kenya. Senior scientists, postdocs and PhD students will work together in three subprojects. The first subproject tackles management and spread of the African invasive fruit fly (AIF), Bactrocera invadens. AIF was introduced in East Africa in 2003 and is now one of the major regional threats to fruit production, especially mango and citrus. We also actively connect East and South African efforts. The second subproject deals with intercropping as a method to reduce insect damage in tomato production in Ethiopia. Finally, the regional interest for development of apple production in temperate areas is the basis for the third subproject. In this project we will investigate constraints insects put on the development of apple production a cash crop in East Africa.