SARI 2011 Annual Report

2011

English

The Savanna Agricultural Research Institute continued to live up to its mandate of conducting research into food and fiber crop farming in Northern Ghana for the purpose of introducing improved technologies to enhance agricultural productivity. Within the year all the research programmes made strides in that direction. We are particularly happy to share with you activities undertaken and achievement chalked so far in most of the programmes. With climate change we are currently experiencing, the quantity and distribution of rainfall which cannot be determined based on the long term weather data available. Plant Breeders are now braced for it, and are gearing towards developing crop varieties from early or extra-early to drought tolerant to enable our numerous farmers get something to feed their households in very bad years. Moreover, as a result of continuous farming, pests and diseases have built up and are becoming resistant to pesticide. Hence efforts are being made to get crop varieties that are tolerant to stresses like pests and diseases, low soil nitrogen, and more importantly the parasitic weed – Striga. A number of improved crop lines have gone for one or two years evaluation on-farm. It is hoped that by the end of next year some of these lines would be released as crop varieties by the National Varietal Release Committee. Work on the biological control of the larger grain borer (LGB), Prostephanust runcatus which was started in 2001 is still in progress. The LGB which is the most damaging pest of stored dried cassava chips and maize in storage is being controlled by an exotic predatory beetle, Terestrus nigrescens, an environmentally friendly antagonist. So far, 548,339 predators have been produced in the laboratory and released in 187 locations in 13 districts in Northern, Volta and Brong-Ahafo Regions. During the year under review, 115,000 predators were reared and released in 39 locations in 9 districts in Northern Region. Preliminary evaluation carried out by our Entomology team has revealed that the pest has virtually vanished in the most endemic communities. The release would continue until the LGB no longer poses a threat to stored produce. I would like to thank the staff for their hard work and commitment. I encourage all to work even harder to make sure that SARI succeeds in its vision of being a lead research and development institution by making agricultural research responsive to farmer needs and national development. My thanks go to all donors, especially AGRA, DANIDA, USAID, EMBRAPA and others that have supported us during the course of the year.. Our appreciation also goes to the MoFa and numerous press houses who helped us disseminate our technologies. We hope that you will enjoy reading this report with much pleasure. Never hesitate to consult us for any of the technologies we have developed.

CSIR-SARI