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Farmers in Oyo State, Nigeria, were astonished when the African Cassava Agronomy Initiative (ACAI) of the International Tropical Agriculture Institute (IITA) carried out some harvesting operations on established agricultural plots to demonstrate the Six Steps to Cassava Weed Management and Planting Best Practices, one of the agronomic recommendation toolkits of the project.
Last year, IITA-ACAI installed demonstration plots in various communities and villages throughout the state to allow local farmers to compare root yields obtained from a cultivated cassava farm using the Six Steps for Cassava Weed Management toolkit. and best planting practices (labeled demonstration), and those grown according to local traditional methods called Farmers Practice.
In the Soku community in the Oyo West local government area, farmers who gathered in droves to watch the harvest exercise on June 30, 2020, could not contain their surprise at seeing the two plots (demonstration versus practice of farmers). Despite being planted on the same day and on the same land, the crops in the demonstration plots seemed better in height and health.
To find out what was under the plots, the ACAI harvest team measured an area of 10 m by 10 m in both plots, and the villagers helped pull up the roots. The IITA plot was the first to be harvested. The villagers were impressed. But when it was the turn of the Farmers’ Practice plot, laughter greeted the first plucked roots.
In the end, the harvest from a 10 m by 10 m area of the demonstration plot had more larger cassava roots than the farmers’ plot at the same site.
The story was the same in communities like Aba Ola, a village in Iseyin LGA; Basi in Afijio LGA; Ofiki in Iwajowa LGA; and Eye Osoka, also at Iwajowa LGA. All collection took place in June and July 2020. Researchers are collating the results from Oyo and Benue for a quantitative analysis.
What made the difference?
The Six Steps to Cassava Weed Management and Best Planting Practices toolkit ensures higher yields, more income, and less stress for farmers. In the words of Godwin Atser, IITA’s Digital Extension and Advisory Services Specialist, who led the establishment of the plots in June last year. “Farmers using the Six Steps toolkit have more than doubled their cassava yield from the national average of 9 tons per hectare to more than 20 tons per hectare,” he added.
Adebayo Olawale, a farmer who witnessed the establishment of the plots and the harvest in Soku, said that he and some of his fellow farmers thought the IITA-ACAI team was only adding sophistication to farming.
“When they were using tape measures, marking the field, going back and forth, we thought they were just doing unnecessary drama,” he said. “We thought they were just wasting their time.”
Olawale, who spoke when viewing the two plots before harvesting began, observed that no manual weeding operations were performed on the IITA-ACAI demonstration plot, apart from the application of herbicides in land preparation and planting. . It revealed that the Farmers’ Practice had three manual weeding operations in addition to the herbicide application. ”
“When they (the IITA-ACAI team) came to set up the field, they first applied glyphosate to the growing vegetation and waited two weeks,” he explained. “When they got to planting, they applied Lagon, a pre-emergence herbicide. We found that the field was clean and weed free for months. Later they returned and applied another herbicide (post-emergence herbicide). During planting, they also observed a spacing of 1 m by 0.8 m “.
In Aba Ola, Mr. Oluwaloseyi Oyeleke, a tractor operator and cassava farmer who also witnessed the establishment of the demonstration plots last year recalled: “The IITA-ACAI team first sprayed the land with herbicides and left it for two weeks. At the end of the two weeks, they came to plow. In fact, I made the plow. They sowed the next day, applied pre-emergence herbicide and left. We didn’t see them for about three months. It was surprising that even in those three months, only a few weeds were seen to sprout. They had come up with another herbicide, which they applied as a post-emergence form. After that, they did nothing and the field was as clean as this one ”.
Oyeleke stated that the harvesting exercise had convinced him of the effectiveness of the IITA-ACAI agronomic recommendations and expressed his willingness to adopt it on the land he had just prepared for the new planting season.
A call to use ‘Six steps …’
Soku’s Baale, Chief Afolabi Samson Olusola, who also spoke with Cassava Matters, expressed his certainty that after seeing the wonders of the ‘Six Steps’, people would adopt him in the next planting season. According to him, “it is now clear that investing wisely in your farm will yield more returns.” He said the day’s event had shown that following the Six Steps for Cassava Weed Management and Best Planting Practices, applying fertilizers if necessary, and using improved stems would lead to higher yields.
Urging his people to spread the good news, the community chief said: “I urge everyone to tell those who are not here that we have seen something wonderful in agriculture. The weed problems are gone. It is better to use herbicides instead of manual weeding. It will reduce stress and improve performance. ”
The Six Steps to Cassava Weed Management and Best Planting Practices is one of the four decision support tools developed by ACAI through the Cassava Weed Management Project (CWMP). Other tools are the Customized Fertilizer Application Recommendations, the Scheduled Planting and Harvest Recommendations, and the Recommendations for Intercropped Cassava Corn.
These tools are integrated into AKILIMO, an all-in-one agronomic advisory tool developed by the project.
