7th Call - Dr. Clement Akotsen-Mensah
Project Title: Pest Management Practices to Enhance the Profitability and Competitiveness of the Mango Industry in Ghana.
Principal Investigator: Dr. Clement Akotsen-Mensah (Forest and Horticultural Crops Research Centre (FOHCREC),CACS,)
Email Address: cakotsen@ug.edu.gh
Award Amount: GHC 24,654.00
Project Status: On-going
Summary:
Mango (Mangifera indica L.) is an important tropical fruit and a major source of nutrition mainly for the rural population and also a good number of urban dwellers and thus plays a significant role in poverty reduction in Ghana (Braimah et al., 2004; CABI and EPPO 2007). The fruit is exported either fresh or processed to many countries in Europe, Middle East and North America to generate foreign exchange for many African countries. Like many tropical fruit crops, mango is often subjected to attacks by several pests of which mango stone weevil (MSW) Sternochetus mangiferae Fabricius is an important one causing up to 80% damage to yield, if not controlled (Braimah et al., 2004). Current management strategies which are mainly based on insecticide applications are not sustainable due to environmental hazards of the harsh insecticides used for the control of the insect and also the quick development of resistance and escalated cost of the insecticides. The goal of this project is therefore to develop management techniques such as picking and destroying of infested fruits, use of traps and attractants for field trapping and well- timed insecticide sprays to control the weevil in Ghana. The trapping results will be used to develop temperature dependent and phenological models for effective control of the weevil. The models will be used to properly time insecticide applications against the weevil in a way that will significantly reduce the number of spray applications made by mango farmers in a season and at the same time providing effective control of the weevil. This will change the current situation in which farmers just use a calendar spray programme even when the weevil is not available. The outcome of this work is that the number of sprays made per season using harsh insecticides like organophosphates, carbamates and pyrethroids will be reduced and therefore reducing the potentials of exceeding the allowable insecticide residues required by countries that import mango from Ghana and thus allow farmers to generate enough income for their farm operations. We will do this by evaluating the effectiveness of four different types of traps namely black pyramid, yellow pyramid, cone emergence and screen traps and two attractants: Benzaldehyde and another one to be identified in this work. These traps and lures have been selected because our preliminary studies conducted by a graduate student of African Regional Postgraduate Programme in Insect Science (ARPPIS) in 2012/2013 mango season have shown that the traps can effectively be used to capture the weevil in both managed and unmanaged mango orchards. These traps have also been used to manage related species such as pecan weevil, plum curculio and many others in other fruit cropping systems. We are therefore proposing to up-scale our preliminary results to include other mango producing areas within the Eastern, Volta and Greater Accra Regions of Ghana. By identifying the best traps and lures, monitoring of the weevil will be easier for farmers compared with what is being practiced currently. Also, by extending the technologies to mango farmers, they will be able to use the trap numbers to time their insecticide spray applications to coincide with the period when the weevil’s activity is high in the field thereby reducing the number of sprays made per season. This will in the long term reduce the cost of production and increase productivity and profitability of the mango industry.
The project will result in increased general knowledge and adoption of cost effective integrated pest management strategies based on trapping of MSW and well-timed applications of insecticides.