Mukanga, Mweshi, Matumba, Limbikani, Makwenda, Beatrice, Alfred, Sharon, Sakala, Whytson, Kanenga, Kennedy, Chancellor, Timothy ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4442-7001, Mugabe, Jonas and Bennett, Ben (2019) Participatory evaluation of groundnut planting methods for pre-harvest aflatoxin management in Eastern Province of Zambia. Cahiers Agricultures, 28:1. ISSN 1166-7699 (Print), 1777-5949 (Online) (doi:10.1051/cagri/2019002)

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Abstract

Aflatoxin contamination remains a major challenge for smallholder groundnut producers in Southern Africa. This is compounded by the stringent aflatoxin regulatory regimes in the lucrative international markets that continue to deny groundnuts produced in this region the access to markets. Participatory on-farm experiments were carried in 2016 and 2017 in Chinkhombe (Katete) and Kalichero (Chipata), and on-station trials at Mount Makulu Central Research Station (Chilanga) to evaluate the efficacy of groundnut planting methods: planting in double rows, single rows, tied ridges and on flatbeds, for pre-harvest aflatoxin management. Planting on flatbeds (no ridges), a popular planting method in most parts of Zambia was designated as the baseline. Significantly low (p < 0.05) levels of aflatoxin, (10.3 ± 3.1 mg/kg) were recorded in the groundnuts planted on tied ridges, and less than 22% of these had aflatoxin levels above the Zambia regulatory limit of 10 mg/kg, compared to more than 40% in other methods. Except for double rows, significantly higher pod yield, 1193 kg/ha, was recorded in groundnuts planted on tied ridges compared to other pre-harvest management options. A reduction of 37 and 81% in aflatoxin contamination was observed in groundnuts planted on single rows and tied ridges, respectively compared to an increase of 39.2% in double rows above 54.3 ± 10.9 mg/kg recorded in flatbeds. In addition, tied ridging was observed to improve plant vigour, lower disease incidence, insect pest and weed infestation. It is clear that the evaluation of these practices on-farm enabled more farmers to be more aware of the effects of these methods and get motivated to adopt them. It is thus imperative that participatory on-farm evaluations of existing aflatoxin management options are carried out as they are an essential step in influencing adoption and uptake of preharvest management control methods among smallholder farmers.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© M. Mukanga et al. Published by EDP Sciences 2019. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License CC-BY-NC (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, except for commercial purposes, provided the original work is properly cited.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	aflatoxin, groundnuts, pod yield,participatory approach, pre-harvest
Subjects:	S Agriculture > S Agriculture (General)
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Engineering & Science Faculty of Engineering & Science > Natural Resources Institute
Last Modified:	30 Mar 2019 22:09
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/23229

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