Articles
EVALUATION OF TECHNOLOGIES FOR IMPROVING YEAR-ROUND PRODUCTION OF SAFE VEGETABLES IN PERI-URBAN AGRICULTURE OF SOUTHEAST ASIA
Article number
762_26
Pages
271 – 282
Language
English
Abstract
One of the major objectives in the development of peri-urban agriculture in Southeast Asia is to enhance food security by increasing year-round supplies of safe and nutritious vegetables for rapidly growing urban population.
AVRDC-The World Vegetable Center in collaboration with CIRAD, French MOFA, and the national agricultural research systems of Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Vietnam initiated the SUSPER Project in 2002 to introduce and evaluate potential technologies for increasing year-round safe vegetable production.
Such technologies include year-round vegetable growing under rain shelters, grafting, and low net tunnel for production of safe leafy vegetables.
On-station and on-farm trials conducted over three years (2002-2005) growing seasons indicated increased yields of most vegetables grown under shelter compared to open field.
However, the risk of damage on shelters is high during wet season when incidence of typhoons is frequent leading to low yield or total crop loss.
Grafting of tomato onto eggplant rootstocks improved plant survival (90-100%) to flooding and increased tolerance to bacterial wilt leading to better yields (50-100%) compared with non-grafted tomato plants.
The agronomic and economic benefits of grafted tomato were realized during the hot-wet production season when market price of tomato is higher than paddy rice.
In all sites, the use of low net tunnel was successful in producing safe leafy vegetables.
Leafy vegetables such as pak choi, Chinese kale, choysum, and green mustard grown under tunnel had less damage due to heavy rain and insect pests compared to crops grown in open field.
This resulted in reduced number of insect spray, better quality, and higher marketable yield.
Among the three technologies introduced and evaluated by farmers, tomato grafting will likely result in greater impact as indicated by increased adoption.
AVRDC-The World Vegetable Center in collaboration with CIRAD, French MOFA, and the national agricultural research systems of Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Vietnam initiated the SUSPER Project in 2002 to introduce and evaluate potential technologies for increasing year-round safe vegetable production.
Such technologies include year-round vegetable growing under rain shelters, grafting, and low net tunnel for production of safe leafy vegetables.
On-station and on-farm trials conducted over three years (2002-2005) growing seasons indicated increased yields of most vegetables grown under shelter compared to open field.
However, the risk of damage on shelters is high during wet season when incidence of typhoons is frequent leading to low yield or total crop loss.
Grafting of tomato onto eggplant rootstocks improved plant survival (90-100%) to flooding and increased tolerance to bacterial wilt leading to better yields (50-100%) compared with non-grafted tomato plants.
The agronomic and economic benefits of grafted tomato were realized during the hot-wet production season when market price of tomato is higher than paddy rice.
In all sites, the use of low net tunnel was successful in producing safe leafy vegetables.
Leafy vegetables such as pak choi, Chinese kale, choysum, and green mustard grown under tunnel had less damage due to heavy rain and insect pests compared to crops grown in open field.
This resulted in reduced number of insect spray, better quality, and higher marketable yield.
Among the three technologies introduced and evaluated by farmers, tomato grafting will likely result in greater impact as indicated by increased adoption.
Authors
M.C. Palada, M. Ali
Keywords
peri-urban agriculture, grafting, off-season vegetable production, protected cultivation, good agricultural practice, safe vegetables, sustainable agriculture
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