EXTENDED ABSTRACT Urban Agriculture is crucial to the supply of food especially fresh vegetables in many urban areas including Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. In addition to the supply of food, it serves as a source of employment and income for many urban dwellers. However, the intensive and continued growing of vegetable on same piece of the land tend to trigger enormous pests pressure of diverse species which calls for the most effective and robust pest management practices. As such, most urban...
ABSTRACT Fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) are listed among the major fruit pests distributed in all fruit growing areas of the world. Fruit flies compete with human beings for food resources by causing direct damage to fruits and vegetables. The damage they cause brings about negative economic and social impacts to man since he depends on fruits for important food nutrients, employment and income. The fruit fly problem in Tanzania and Africa has been aggravated since the invasion of the ne...
EXTENDED ABSTRACT Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is one of the most important cereal crop and staple food of over half the world’s population that provides 45-60% of the dietary calories. The global climate changes including increased heat affect negatively rice production and other crops resulting in increased food insecurity. The analysis of Induced gamma rays mutations from upland rice mutant lines was done to discover mutations in heat-tolerant genes (HSPs genes). Out of 64 putative heat HT mu...
ABSTRACT Despite the potential of improved sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.) varieties in both root and fodder production, farmers are persistently cultivating local types without considering proper intensity and frequency of leaf removal to optimize both quality and quantity of roots. A study was carried out to determine growth responses of improved sweet potato varieties (Simama, Kiegea and Mataya) following leaf harvests; determine the effect of leaf harvest intensity on sweet potato root...
ABSTRACT A study was undertaken to assess the soil nutrients status on selected maize growing areas and determine combinations of nutrients to optimize yield. Soil samples were collected from10 villages where maize is the main food and cash crop. These areas were; Kipera, Lolanguru, Itema, Nyangahe, Farmnyamwezi, Malolo, Mpenge, Mawiti, Lyaudusi and Msange. Two composite samples were made from each village resulting to 20 samples. Field experiment was conducted at two villages (Kipera and Ny...
ABSTRACT Improvement of cowpea, pigeonpea and sorghum can be enhanced by knowledge of genetic diversity available between and within accessions. This variability is the foundation of all three crop improvement programs. A total of 85 accessions as 22 cowpea, 32 pigeonpea and 31 sorghum from Tanzania and Kenya gene banks were used for this study. Quantitative and qualitative traits such as, grain color, grain coverage, seed shape, days to 50% flowering, plant height, days to 50% maturity and ...
ABSTRACT Sorghum smut disease is one of the serious constrain in sorghum production especially when seeds are not treated before planting, where grain yield loss of up to 80% is reported in different parts of the world. A study was conducted to increase the potential of sorghum productivity by enhancing smut disease management in Central Zone of Tanzania. The field experiment was laid out in 6 x 4 (Sorghum varieties x fungicides) factorial in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with fo...
EXTENDED ABSTRACT Bacterial wilt disease is a very serious problem for Tomato growers of the Morogoro region. The objective of this study was to identify the status and pathogenicity of Ralstonia solanacearum causing Tomato bacterial wilt disease in the Morogoro region. Most of the farmers 71.7% had a farm of less than 1 ha. The majority of the farmers 32% were growing both hybrid and OPV while the reasons for variety preference differed across the villages. Most of respondents 79% were know...
ABSTRACT Nitrogen deficiency and planting low yielding varieties are common problems at Kilombero Estate mill area, and are known to be the major causes of yield decline. An experiment was laid out in split plot in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications to evaluate the effect of N- fertilizer on yield and quality of introduced varieties in the commercial farms at Kilombero sugar estate during the 2015/16 season. The main plots were varieties and the sub plots were ...
ABSTRACT Field experiments were conducted at the Teaching and Research Farm of the Department of Crop Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Nigeria, Nsukka to commence the process of developing high yielding maize with resistance to stem borers in a humid environment. The specific objectives were to (i) screen some maize genotypes for agronomic traits and stem borer resistance (ii) estimate some genetic parameters of the genotypes studied. Twenty maize genotypes used comprised twelv...
ABSTRACT An assessment of quality parameters of farmer saved pigeon pea seeds was conducted in Babati and Karatu Districts in northern Tanzania. Pigeon pea seed samples were collected from 80 households (farmers), 40 from each district; for testing of their physical and health quality status with respect to three post-harvest handling practices (storage, pre storage seed treatment and seed sorting) following ISTA procedures. Results were then compared with national standards of pigeon peas s...
ABSTRACT The study was carried out on station at Agricultural Research Institute- Uyole and onfarm at Mwandobela during the 2011/12 cropping season. The objective of this study was to improve crop productivity and soil fertility of smallholder farmers through use of five different leguminous cover crops. The study was carried out in two phases. The first phase was aimed at determining biological nitrogen fixation of the cover crops. The second phase was aimed at determining the rate and pat...
ABSTRACT Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is mainly cultivated because of its starchy storage roots and it is considered one of the most important staple foods in tropical countries. High dry matter contents and starch yields are the most important traits for commercialized cassava starch production. The experiment aimed at identifying suitable cassava scheduled planting, harvesting and varietal performance to maximize starch production across the three locations in Eastern and Southern z...
ABSTRACT Field surveys were conducted from December 2011 to January 2012 in Kagera, Mwanza and Mara regions to assess the current status of banana Xanthomonas wilt (BXW) disease. Twenty eighty banana samples with BXW disease symptoms were randomly collected from a total of 147 surveyed fields. Farmers’ knowledge of BXW disease was assessed using a checklist, discussions and direct field observations. Isolation of bacteria was done on Yeast Peptone Glucose Agar and identification was done b...
ABSTRACT The experiments were conducted at the Department of Crop Science Analytical Laboratory and green house of Faculty of Agriculture, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Experiment one was an analysis of the nutrient contents of fermented and unfermented plant waste materials using the official method of analysis of Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC). Experiment two was on assessment of the effects of plant wastes and different forms of organic manure fermented for one or two...