SUPPORT THE 2024 GINGER PRODUCTION SEASON
Supply of disease-free planting material to establish new fields in 2024 and controlling the soil-borne inoculum through field sanitation, crop rotation, and integrated disease management and thus safeguarding and rescuing ginger productio
1. Promotion, training and capacity building:
a. Promote ginger production in suitable zones to increase and diversify ginger production in Nigeria
b. Organize training for farmers, extensionists, and other relevant stakeholders to enhance their capacity to effectively control the disease.
- 2. Develop a strategy for the distribution of quality seeds (rhizomes):
a. Ginger seed multiplication – commercialization strategy.
b. Develop a plan to distribute seeds to the key planting Local Governments in the target States for the 2024 season.
3. Planting advisory to farmers against ‘Ginger Blight’:
a. Develop good planting practices, and integrated disease control measures such as applying fungicide treatment to prevent seedling death and inoculum build-up in the field.
b. The recommendations will be firmed up based on the findings and advice of the Technical and Research Committee.
4. Crop rotation recommendations.
a. Determine if crop rotation in affected fields should be mandatory.
b. If yes, enforce planting of other crops in affected fields. Preliminary laboratory work revealed the presence of Fusarium fungi (most likely a strain affecting only ginger), which produce tough resting propagules. In 2024, planting ginger in affected fields may have the same outcome as in 2023.
5. Test and promote biocontrol products available in the market:
a. Identify approved list of bio-control products
b. Based on tested products establish a procurement and distribution plan for the farmers that will be planting in the 2024 season.
6. Set up digital disease monitoring and alert system:
a. Establish a digital pest and disease alert system for farmers to report the status (remote surveillance) and receive advisories.
b. Protocol for digital monitoring of replanted fields for crop performance and early-stage diagnosis and interventions, collecting data on cases, and tracking the progression of the outbreak.