To get a good
harvest, farmers have to exercise high standards of crop management and
adopt sustainable farming practices that minimize crop pests and
diseases and maintain soil fertility. It is important to plan ahead and
get equipped with the right information.
This will
prevent and tackle challenges associated with weeds, soil nutrient
degradation and pests and diseases; sustainable practices that can be
used to manage your crops:
Pests and disease management
Pests and
diseases are responsible for between 20 to 80 per cent of crop losses
but sustainable pest and disease management practices can minimize their
negative health and environmental effects.
Below are some useful tips for farmers:
1. You should
monitor and examine your crops closely to accurately diagnose and
understand the nature and source of pest and disease problems in your
farm.
2. Physical
control measures are the first options to consider. They include simple
handpicking, erecting insect barriers, using traps, tillage, mulching,
soil solarization and adopting protective structures such as shade net
houses and greenhouses.
3. Beneficial
insects (called natural enemies) like wasps, ladybirds, spiders and
hoverfly larvae which feed on plant eating pests like aphids and
caterpillars, eliminate or reduce pests. In this way, they provide
adequate pest control with minimal environmental impact. You should
therefore conserve and manage habitats for natural enemies of the target
pests to thrive by, for example, planting hedges and windbreaks,
avoiding use of broad spectrum pesticides and growing flowering plants
that provide food for beneficial insects.
4. Instead of
using chemical pesticides, use biopesticides, which are made from
naturally occurring pathogens (fungi and bacteria) that kill insects.
5. An
integrated pest and disease management strategy can also be adopted,
that is the integration of both biological, physical and use of
biopesticides. It is, however, recommended that you first consult
organic input suppliers and sustainable agriculture extension officers
in your area.
6. You should as much as possible adopt other farming practices in addition to pest and disease control such as;
• Use of certified or disease-free seed and nursery stock to prevent the introduction of disease into the farm.
• Use of disease tolerant and resistant crop varieties.
• Adopting crop rotation, intercropping and green manure planting. Grow crops with pest
repelling characteristics like African marigold, onions, leeks and garlic.
• Keep planting beds clean. Remove any diseased or infected plant material.
• Clean and sterilize farm tools such as jembes and pangas immediately after use in infected plots.
Soil fertility management
Healthy soil
produces healthy plants that resist attack from pests and diseases. To
improve and maintain soil fertility, dig less, mulch more and apply
compost at all times.
• Dig less
Start by
digging deeply to break up the hard pan, remove hard layers in the soil
profile and apply compost. In subsequent years, disturb the soil as
little as possible. The compost can be worked into the soil at the
beginning but subsequent applications should be done on the soil surface
at the base of the plants.
• Mulch more
Mulching is
the process of covering the soil surface with a layer of plant residues
to conserve soil moisture, keep it cool, protect it from erosion and
develop surface crust, minimize compaction, improve soil
structure, enhance infiltration, suppress weeds and add nutrients to
the soil through decomposition. Mulching can be used before and after
planting, as well as around young plants. It is especially useful for
high-valuable vegetable crops, and for growing crops in dry areas and in
places where the soil is easily eroded by heavy rains.
• Apply compost at all times
Compost is
nature’s fertilizer formed out of decomposition of plant, insect and
animal residues and wastes. Its application helps in maintaining the
soil structure so that it is easy to work, is resistant to erosion and
also supports pest and disease control.
Weed management
Weeds pose a
serious risk for small-scale farmers as they adversely affect
agricultural production. The oxford dictionary defines a weed as a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants. It is, therefore, "a plant in the wrong place", meaning that it may be beneficial in another set-up.
Weeds may be
unwanted on our farms for a number of reasons. Firstly, they interfere
with food production in agriculture. They must be controlled in order to
prevent loss or diminished crop yields. Weeds can also be of concern
for environmental reasons where some weed species compete for nutrients
with crops. They interfere by:
• Competing
with the desired plants for the resources that a plant typically needs,
namely, direct sunlight, soil nutrients, water, and space for growth.
• Providing
hosts and vectors for plant pathogens, giving them greater opportunity
to infect and degrade the quality of the desired plants.
• Providing
food or shelter for animal pests such as seed-eating birds or eve fruit
flies that otherwise have died after the previous crop was harvested.
To control
weeds develop the habit of scouting every week to remove or cut them
down. Use the right tools and techniques to ease weeding. The bigger
your weeds get, the more difficult they are to control.
a) Hand-pulling is one of the ways that one can use to control weeds.
b) Mulching also
helps in weed control - spreading a thick layer of mulch, keeps the
light from reaching weeds. Without adequate light, the weeds will die.
Mulch reduces the ability of weeds to make enough chlorophyll, which
retards their growth. Most of the weeds weaken and die before you even
notice them.
c) Hoeing:
Separate by cutting the stems from the roots just below the soil
surface. Hoeing is best done when the weeds are very small seedlings or
newly emerged shoots of perennial weeds.
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