HOW FARMERS CAN MITIGATE SOYBEAN RUST TO INCREASE YIELDS

BY MERCY NAMFUKWE

SOYBEAN is an important legume that is cultivated world over, not only as a major source of protein in livestock feeds but also for human consumption and soil fertility improvement among others.

Africa’s majority population depends on agriculture and this shows how important the sector is but still the continent is faced with food insecurities, poor livelihoods and high malnutrition levels in the amidst of climate change compounding productivity levels of the legume.

Due to the climate shocks farmers are now faced with many challenges in growing the legume which is affected by various fora diseases. And among these diseases the notable one being soybean rust.

Therefore, there is need for farmers to learn from other agricultural experts on how to mitigate this challenge in order to improve the yields of this legume.

Soybean rust hinders their adoption levels of the crop, to mitigate this challenge soybean as a legume can play an important role in ensuring sustainable food security as it is a source of protein and nutrients for small scale farmers especially in the rural households.

It is against this background that farmers need to know the time of planting depending on the favorable weather condition, the variety and choice of soybean crops depending on the weather condition suitable to grow the legume.

SEEDCO Zambia Product Development Officer Martin Munga says in soybean production farmers should understand the acidity of the soil for the crop to grow well especially during dry spells.  

He stated that farmers should practice crop rotation by deploying interchanging method.  This means that half of the field can be planted with legume crops such as soybean, groundnuts, cowpeas and beans while cereals like maize and sorghum can come on the other side of the field.

Mr Munga indicated that crop rotation can help mitigate the disease adding that it breaks the disease cycle because the disease that affects soyabean cannot affect maize as compared to monocropping.

He said farmers should embrace crop rotation as compared to mono cropping which results in pathogens that multiplies and attacks the legume.

“The varietal choice becomes fundamental as some varieties are not able to tolerate rust and some get affected easily and I encourage farmers to consider varieties that are more tolerant on rust and other foliar diseases, farmers should plant seeds like the AC spike, AC Safari and a new variety called SCSZ02,” he stated.

He said the varieties are helpful but farmers also need to be prepared in terms of budgeting for new pests and diseases from unforeseen circumstances that may emerge due to changes in climate.

Mr Munga said farmers are likely to be faced with other new diseases hence the need to include the fungicides.

“There are two types of fungicides farmers can use tha includes the preventive fungicides usually comes in early between 35 to about40 days after germination and the curative fungicide can be sprayed around 50to 60 days and we encourage farmers to conduct their sculpting in daily or weekly basis to asses and detect the disease earlier,” he said.

Mr Munga added that when choosing the soybean variety farmers should consider looking at early maturing varieties and understand the micro climate in the area noting that farmers in Southern part are encouraged to use early maturing varieties due to low rainfall in the area and farmers may loose up to 50% of the legume because of the disease.

The land spacing for soybean depends on plant population in a hectare and any soybean variety adapts well in a range of 333 thousand to 450thousand plants in a hectare, small scale farmers are encouraged to do their spacing at 40cm from one roll to the other and commercial farmers can plant upto 37.5cm between one roll and the other.

The conducive land for soyabean to grow includes the nutrient and acidic aspects of the soil.  And the acidic aspect of the soil has to be in range of between 6 to 6.5 PH.

He stated that its good for a small-scale farmer to start with a hectare and later increase land to increase yields and to make it a profitable venture.    

Mr. Munga further added that the soybean varieties have different days to mature adding that the Safari variety matures quicker and takes about 120 days while the Spike takes about 125 to 130 days and the new varietySZ02 mature at about 130 to 135 days.

He further advised farmers to select the best fertilizer that has higher Phosphorus and Potassium and low Nitrogen because a legume crop is able to fix the Nitrogen on its own noting that droughts also contribute to rust on the soybean and requires spaces in field to allow air circulation.

Despite climate shocks, soybean has potential to become a commercial crop owing to its wide range of uses as food, feed and industrial raw material, hence the need to improve on market access of soybean to enhance sustainable food security in the country.

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