Status of pests and diseases of sorghum and their management practices by Fadama III participating farmers in Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract

A diagnostic survey was carried out at the end of 2018 and early 2019 to assess the status of sorghum pests, diseases and their management strategies by the “Fadama” III participating farmers in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Nigeria. Data were collected from the 28 production clusters in 10 Fadama Development Areas in the six Area Councils. Instruments used were semi-structured interview, farm visits and the diagnosis of collected specimens from infested and diseased sorghum. The results indicated that up to 97.95% of the farmers had one form of formal education. On sorghum farms, corn rootworms (Diabrotica virgifera), Striga spp. weed and straying cattle were the major pests encountered. The incidence of Striga weed was 20.97%, while that of anthracnose disease was 76.84% though often left uncontrolled. Indigenous knowledge used for managing sorghum pests included field spraying with goat faeces slurry and placement of neem and Blumea leaves in corn granaries. Sorghum seeds were locally dressed with berry bark exudate, neem extract + pepper pre-planting. Due to the high severity of anthracnose on sorghum in the FCT, Abuja, there is need to embrace integrated disease management practices against this endemic disease. Routine monitoring of sorghum pests and disease prevalence, incidence and severity at different growth stages and implementation of sorghum pests management plan emanating from this study across Fadama Development Areas in Guinea Savannah agro-ecological zone is expected to enable the attainment of sustainable sorghum productivity. Key words: Abuja-Nigeria, Fadama, incidence, insects, Integrated Pest Management (IPM), sorghum, weeds.