Browsing by Author "W.K. Tushemereirwe"

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The Changing Spread Dynamics Of Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (Bxw) In Uganda
(Uganda Journal of Agricultural Sciences, 2012-04-14) J. Kubiriba; F. Bagamba; E. Rockfeller; W.K. Tushemereirwe
Banana Xanthomonas wilt still remains a serious threat to banana production in Uganda. Although the desired long term control strategy would have been use of resistance, no sources of resistance have been found. Further the transgenic resistance under development will only be deployed in the long run. In the meantime, cultural control, remains the driver of BXW management strategy in Uganda. This requires continuous effort by the farmers and other stakeholders. It is imperative that disease spread information be continuously updated to sustainably control BXW. The study was conducted to update the status of BXW to inform the continuous refinement of the control strategy of BXW control in across all the epidemics zones in Uganda. BXW incidence increased from about 1% between 2005 and 2006 to about 3.8% in 2010 in the threatened areas. The BXW prevalence increased from below 5 to 34.4% in the same period. Meanwhile, the incidence and prevalence of BXW in the endemic areas reduced to below 10% and about 40%, respectively, from over 50% between 2006 and 2010. The high prevalence of BXW indicates that BXW is widely spread but the low incidence shows that BXW is at initial linear phases of disease epidemic across all zones. There are also a few clusters of infection with infected fields at various phases of the disease progress curve. This suggests that it is no longer feasible to classify Uganda’s banana growing areas in different epidemic zones. Consequently the strategies to control BXW across the zone are similar.
The Performance Of East African Highland Bananas Released In Farmers’ Fields And The Need For Their Further Improvement
(Acta Hortic., 2016-05-15) J. Kubiriba; R.T. Ssali; A. Barekye; K. Akankwasa; W.K. Tushemereirwe; M. Batte; E.B. Karamura; D. Karamura
East African highland bananas (AAA, EAHB) form over 80% of the banana cultivars in the Great Lakes region and are a source of food and income for over 40 million in the region. The production of these bananas has been constrained by pests, diseases, soil fertility decline and most recently climate change stresses. Farmers have been managing these problems using cultural practices. These are sometimes effective, such as for Xanthomonas wilt control, but can also be very demanding. For others, no cultural control practices exist, such as for instance for nematodes in established plantations. The banana research program of the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) in Uganda therefore focuses on the improvement of bananas for pest/disease resistance and fruit quality through conventional and molecular breeding to sustain banana production. In collaboration with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), the NARO breeding program has developed and officially released a number of banana hybrids to the farming communities, including ‘Kabana 6H’ (syn. ‘M9’) and ‘Kabana 7H’ (syn. ‘M2’). The released and promising hybrids have resistance to black leaf streak and tolerance to nematodes and weevils. Their overall consumer acceptability is not significantly different from that of the landrace local check. The recipient communities value the hybrids since they are being widely distributed through sales and giveaways in addition to recipient farmers expanding their plots. However, these hybrids are susceptible to Xanthomonas wilt, and are very tall and prone to wind damage. There is an opportunity to improve the hybrids for above-mentioned and other traits exploiting Musa’s over 36,000 genes in the sequenced genome.