On Friday May 5, 2023, the Interprofessional Cotton Association of Burkina (AICB) accompanied by these partners, organized a visit to Bama on an INERA research site. The objective is to see firsthand the results of research in the context of the fight against jassids in cotton cultivation.
The 2022-2023 cotton campaign was marked by the appearance of a new species of jassids in Burkina Faso, against which the available treatments proved ineffective. This negatively impacted production, with painful consequences for the entire sector. Faced with the situation, the players in the sector have not remained inactive. Thus, INERA was called upon to find a treatment before the 2023-2024 campaign.
After documentary research, it was discovered that this species of jassids was known in India and that there were effective treatments. It is in the same dynamic that the government took the exemption for the importation and the use of products which, until then, were not authorized in the member countries of CILSS including Burkina Faso.
This is how INERA pre-selected around forty active ingredients against the new species of jassids. After testing, three were selected. These are GRACIA 10 EC at 300ml/ha, FLONICAMIDE 50% WG to be dosed at 100g/ha and JACOBIA 350 EC at 500ml/ha. The visit on May 5 was to the site where these three products are tested. The treatment is done there with treatments at different doses with each time an untreated control plot.
Sowing was done on February 3, 2023 and emergence was observed on February 11. The observation on the ground is reassuring and makes visitors smile, including N’Kambi Nikiébo, president of the National Union of Cotton Producers of Burkina (UNPCB) and the AICB. “After this visit, we are really satisfied. Not all producers can be present, but we who represent them here are satisfied with the results presented to us here. We did not know how we were going to face the campaign, we were shown that this product fights effectively against these jassides. So we are confident. We are going to go to all the farming hamlets where the producers are to tell them that indeed, there is no longer any worry, the product has been found”, he rejoices.
A joy shared by the Director General of SOFITEX, Boubacar Sidiki B. Seye. Who did not fail to “greet the researchers for the tremendous work that has been done. Last campaign, our cotton production was seriously impacted by the jassids. These pests have practically decimated the cotton plants. It is with great concern that producers were preparing to face this campaign. But, at the stage where we are, we can reassure them and tell them that the products that our researchers have made available to us are very effective against jassids.
On the field that we have just visited, we were able to see the different treatments carried out with these products. And next, you have plants that have not been treated. We immediately have the clear demonstration of what the Jassids are capable of doing when they are not fought, and what they are not capable of doing when they are made to disappear thanks to this treatment. he observes.
According to Dr. Hamidou Traoré, Director of INERA, “our researchers who work for crop protection, receive products that we present to INERA to test their efficacy and selectivity. Effectiveness is to see if the product works against bio-aggressors, anything that is alive and attacks crops. Then they will test selectivity. The product may be effective, but does it protect the crop, does it protect others who are in the crop system.
We have tested certain products against insect pests of cotton. There are insects that have been in Burkina for a long time and last season, other insects appeared that we did not usually see. The products we used were ineffective against these new insects. Hence the research whose results you have seen this morning”.
After the visit, the actors met in Bobo-Dioulasso for discussions. Exchanges which focused mainly on the availability of products, their availability to producers on time, the training of producers on the use of new products, their costs. Representatives of cotton companies, ministries and researchers reassured everyone, especially the producers. They insisted that the seeds made available had been treated. Pralination and wetting of these seeds must therefore be avoided, at the risk of making them vulnerable to pests.
Aly Konate
