Plant health clinic for vegetables and root crop farmers to be held in Honiara

A Plant Health Clinic (PHC) session for vegetables, fruit trees and root crop farmers from surrounding communities at New Zealand camp in east Honiara is scheduled to be held next Tuesday.

The Honiara Urban City Agriculture Extension of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock is organizing the event at New Zealand camp under its PHC roll out program.

The session will provide the opportunity for farmers to bring their pest and disease infected plants, fruits and root crops to be screened and diagnosed by plant health doctors. 

It will also provide accurate advice and awareness on control and management measures such as Pest Derived Practices as the best pest and disease control and management practices.

Farmers are therefore encouraged to gather their infested crop samples (whole plant) from their farm gardens and not hand pick along the roadsides and meet the PHC team on Tuesday next week.

The Ministry recently had seven of its plant health doctors graduate from training in managing plant health clinics in Pacific Island countries. It is delivered by the Fiji National University at its Koronivia campus which hosts the College of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forest (CAFÉ).

The training is for regional participants from PNG, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga.  These are the partner countries that are involved in running plant health clinic programs under the ACIAR project Hort/2016/185 “Responding to emerging pest and disease threats to horticulture in the Pacific islands.”

The training will also help the officers gain more knowledge and skills on how to diagnose pest and disease of crops, nutrient deficiencies in soils, and improve their capability to run and manage future plant health clinics in the country. 

End///////

MAL Media