Agr101- Reflection report on pest and disease management.

AGR 101 Practical Farming I: Basic Farm Operations and Skills

November11,2019

In this week we dealt with pest and disease management. This work involved series of
activities and different time frame. Main activities we are; pest scouting in maize and French
bean, praying of pesticides, weeding, citrus and mango fruit flies management.
Objective
Objective of this week were pest and disease scouting in maize, beans and orchards,
weeding, praying of pesticide in maize and fruit flies management in both citrus and mango
orchards.
Description of activitie
Scouting
Firstly, pest scouting in the maize, beans and both citrus and mango orchards. this was to
move around in our farms to see what is going on in our crops, to see if there are some
pests and disease in our farms. This activity was done every day in the morning as the first
activity as we went to the farm.
This activity was somehow easy but required to pay attention and be careful to any
disappointing change in our crops because that change could be a symptom of pest or
disease. We found that maize was mostly being attacked by cutworm, armyworm and maize
streak virus.
In beans we found a soil borne fungus called web blight and burnt of leaves of some bean
crops due to application of fertilize very close to plant and leave it uncovered which lead to
splash of fertilizers to leaves when it rained.
In orchards we found that both in citrus and mango orchards, they have common pests and
diseases. Fruits fly is the most threatening pest in orchards which is causing fruits to rip
before they mature and fall. Fruits fly leaves a black spot or a wound on fruits which make
easy for fungi like anthracnose to attack the fruits and make second destruction.

Other pest we found are; sooty mold and white web which cover leaves and prevent from
doing photo synthesis. Leaf miner also is the problem in orchards, it folds leaves and make it
small and reduce its capacity to carry out photosynthesis hence low fruits yield.
Mango and citrus fruits flies management
After scouting in orchards and find that fruits flies are a very destructing pest we took a
decision fighting against fruits flies in orchards. Many methods were proposed like bagging
of fruits to prevent spread of this pest. We also proposed trapping of fruits flies with
different traps.
We come up with a decision introducing traps in orchards to see if there will any change.
We used two different traps, one of sticky cards with yellow and blue color because insects
are very attracted to bright colors. We made 10 blue traps and 10 yellow cards both
distributed equally in the mango and citrus orchards and hung them in canopies of fruits
tree. The second was a bottle traps containing vinegar which attract insects, water and
liquid soap to heavy the wings of insects and dive in water.
Weeding
We did weed in maize, beans and watermelon. The purpose of weeding was to remove
unwanted plants in the plots to avoid competition of water and nutrients with crops. During
this activity, we were supposed also to bring soil close to plants to prevent roots from being
exposed to the sun.
This activity was somehow difficult and confusing because most of us was the first time to
do it. Some understood weeding as removal of weeds only and forget about pulling of soil
close to plant which made them to repeat it for the second time in order to make it good.
We learnt that weeding is important for plant’s growth and it is done at the same time with
pulling soil close to plant to protect roots from being exposed to the sun. next time we will
do weeding simultaneously supplying soil to the plants to avoid double work as we did.
Spraying of pesticide
Pesticide is the one of ways of fighting against pest but is the last resort. In maize crops
there was a big issue of cut and army worms and we found that pesticide application would
be more effective to that problem compared to other methods. So, we decided to do
spraying.
This activity would be done always once a week, but we met with the problem of rain which
wash away pesticide we applied or prevent us from spraying expecting it to rain. Before we
spray, we needed to do calibration first in order to calculate amount of pesticide to apply in
the plot.
After calibration someone in charge of spaying had to put on his personal protecting
equipment and spray referring to calibration we did. We used to switch pesticide in order to
avoid pesticide resistance. Types of pesticide applied, contact and systemic pesticide.

Measures of pesticide used

 Date Type Name Quantity per plot
22/10/2019 systemic Imidacroprid 75 ml / beans
23/10/2019 systemic imidacroprid 75 ml/maize
29/10/201 contact impact 15 ml/maize
1/11/2019 systemic imidacroprid 75 ml/maize
8/11/2019 contact cypermethrin 30ml/maize

This activity was somehow challenging because sometimes it rained after spraying and it
wash away pesticides. So, we learnt that it is not good to spay when it is going to rain
because it would a wastage of pesticides next time, we will analyze weather before we
spray.