Fluted Pumpkin known as Telfairia occidentalis is an important vegetable crop in the tropics, cultivated for its leaf vegetable and edible seeds. It is a plant with a wide range of virtues but nevertheless; it is threatened by large scale fungal attacks. In order to manage the problem of food security and meet up with the production of this crop, this study was carried out to assess the effect of animal manure on the incidence and severity of leaf spot disease of Fluted Pumpkin and to determine the pathogenicity test of white leaf spot in Dschang. This research was done in the Faculty of Agronomy and Agricultural Sciences experimental farms at the University of Dschang from November 2017 to May 2018. The field layout was Randomized Complete Block Design with three treatments (poultry manure, piggery manure and control) and three replications. Each replicate consisted of six plots, giving a total of eighteen plots per treatment. In each treatment, fluted pumpkin was spaced at 1 m × 1 m apart. Application of organic manure was done at 3 weeks after emergence and data collection were carried out weekly from 42 DAP. Pathogenicity test was conducted after the establishment of lesions on the leaves. Data were analyzed using descriptive and ANOVA. It was observed that piggery manure treatment had the highest disease incidence (DI = 86.89) compared to the control (DI = 85.42) and poultry manure (DI = 65.74). The pathogenicity test revealed that Phoma sorghina was the causal agent for leaf spot disease in fluted pumpkin with a frequency of 18. Disease incidence and severity was reduced in poultry manure, followed by the control with piggery manure having more disease. Therefore, poultry manure had a better man-How to cite this paper:

This study was conducted in 2015 in

The role played by youth in agriculture cannot be overemphasized, while agribusinesses are important generators of employment and income worldwide. Improving the sustainability of food value chains can benefit millions of rural poor people living in developing countries, especially young women. Despite policies and programs aimed at encouraging agricultural entrepreneurs, they are still facing challenges such as high-cost agrochemicals, limited access to credit, price volatility, etc. which seriously affect their capacity to remain in the sector. This study was undertaken to assess the performance and participation of young male and female entrepreneurs. This study made use of cross-section data from a survey conducted on 1019 young agricultural entrepreneurs in Cameroon. The data were analyzed using gross margin, student t-test, and logistic regression. Our study contributes to the literature by showing that young women agribusiness entrepreneurs are as competitive as their male counterparts and that the opportunities for young women in agriculture are good. Incentives such as single-digit interest rates and no collateral security should be directed to young women to receive more credit for purchasing agrochemicals and improved varieties of seed. Furthermore, a price control policy should be set up throughout the year to enable young women earn as their young men counterparts to enable them remain in production and marketing activities.

Orthodox medical practice depends greatly on the use of high throughput (HTP) pure pharmaceutical new chemical entities, with a purity that can easily be evaluated and whose efficacy and toxicity can show a dose-dependent, clear structure-activity relationships (SAR). On the contrary, natural products contain mixtures of natural bioactive metabolites that have not undergone any chemical analyses and whose mechanism of action is not known. Medicinal mushrooms have been used throughout the history of mankind for the treatment of various diseases including cancer. Nowadays they have been intensively studied and generated research interest in an attempt to reveal the chemical nature and mechanisms of action of their bioactive molecules. Targeted treatment of diseases, non-harmful for healthy tissues, has become a major objective in recent times and metabolites of fungal origin provide a vast reservoir of potential new chemical entities. There are many examples of mushrooms common for use globally that demonstrate the complex nature of their pharmaceutical potential This review paper attempts to show that some aspects of fungotherapy of the disease have been well studied. We also give an insight into the role of mushroom metabolites for treatment of diseases types that are especially susceptible to the fungal treatments.

Globally the taro leaf blight (Phytophthora colocasiae) disease causes between 50 to 70% yield loss. Four taro landraces were planted in three agroecological zones of Cameroon; the Western Highlands (Bambui), Mono-Modal Humid Forest (Ekona), and the Bimodal Humid Forest (Nkolbisson) and evaluated for taro blight severity in four successive growing seasons in March and July, 2018 and 2019. Different concentrations of copper oxide (600 g)–Metalaxyl (120 g) fungicide were applied to control taro blight before and during plant growth. Results showed that, in all the field sites, the disease severity of Phytophthora colocasiae greatly decreased below 1.5 with varying concentrations of copper oxide (600 g)–Metalaxyl (120 g) fungicide applied at two-week intervals. The control field at Ekona recorded the highest taro blight severity of 7.8. There was no significant difference in taro blight severity (P≤0.05) between landraces treated with the different concentrations of copper oxide (600 g)–Metalaxyl (120 g) fungicide. Therefore, lower concentrations (0.33% and 0.27%) of copper oxide (600 g)–Metalaxyl (120 g) can be effectively used in the pre and post control of taro blight in the field. All the landraces in the screen house experiments were susceptible to P. colocasiae.   In all the zones, Landrace L2 (red petiole small leaves) was highly resistant to P. colocasiae and should be recommended to farmers for optimum taro production in the three agro-ecological zones and zones with similar characteristics.

The production and leaf quality of Telfairia occidentalis in Cameroon are gravely threatened by leaf spot disease. A field study was conducted in July 2019 and 2020 to determine the influence of tillage systems and sowing dates on the incidence of Telfairia occidentalis leaf spot caused by Phoma sorghina. A randomized block design with three replications and four planting dates was used. The soil physicochemical properties were also determined. Data for disease incidence were registered once every two weeks and submitted to generalized linear model for statistical analysis. The means were separated by Duncan’s multiple range test at a 95% confidence interval. Calculations for disease incidence and statistical analysis were conducted using the Microsoft Excel program and SPSS version 23, respectively. Statistical analysis revealed that the zero tilled field generally registered a lower leaf spot disease incidence than the tilled field, which was highly significant (p ≤ 0.05). In addition, the second sowing date in the zero tilled field proved to be better in terms of low disease incidence than other sowing dates employed in the study. Therefore, to minimize the devastating effects of leaf spot disease, zero tillage coupled with the second sowing date could be exploited.

Cameroon has an amazing variety of local mangoes whose potential is poorly exploited. The aim of this study was to characterise the physical and morphological diversity of mangoes in two agro-ecological regions with high potential for mango production. This experiment was conducted between February and July 2021 using ten local mango varieties. These were 'German', 'Bamoun', 'Lady' and 'American' mangoes found in Noun and 'Papaya', 'Dshang Dshang 1', 'Dshang Dshang 2', 'Kousa Dog', 'Garoua' and 'Ladies' mangoes identified in Lekié. Ten ripe fruits of each variety were harvested on three different trees in the same area. A total of 23 morphological and physical parameters were measured. Multivariate analysis based on PCA showed four groups of varieties in decreasing order of importance: group 2 (Papaya, German and American mangoes), group 4 (Garoua, Dame Lékie, Kousa Dog), group 3 (Dshang Dshang 2, Dame Noun, Dshang Dshang 1) and group 1 (Bamoun). Group 2 varieties had good quality for pulp mass to stone mass ratio (5.58±1), size index (10.6±3.22), sphericity index (0.97±0.35), fruit volume (391.5) and lateral fruit diameter (11.05±0.89). However, varieties in group 1 (12.87±3.08) and group 3 (10.7±2.27) have a high proportion of kernels in the fruit and a high kernel density, respectively. There is a wide diversity among the varieties examined. This provides valuable information of the different stakeholders in the mango value chain, i.e., the industry, nurserymen and consumers.

Fungi diseases are major diseases of Telfairia occidentalis (fluted pumpkin) in the major growing areas of the crop in Cameroon. This study was conducted between March and June in the cropping seasons of 2019 and 2020 to determine the effect of some cultural strategies viz.: tillage and no till, variation of sowing date and removal of diseased leaves on the incidence and severity of leaf spot disease caused by Phoma sorghina. There were four sowing dates, and two tillage systems with no variation in planting distance in the two cropping seasons. The design used was Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. There were three plots for each sowing date within each replication. Seeds were sown at the rate of 1 m × 1 m, with four seeds per experimental unit. Data for disease incidence and severity was recorded every fortnight, commencing three weeks after emergence (WAE) and for a period of eight weeks for each sowing date. Disease incidence and severity was determined using Microsoft Excel 2010 and the data was subjected to statistical analysis and the means separated by Duncan Multiple Range Test (DMRT) at 95% confidence interval. In addition, the relationship between disease incidence and disease severity was also determined using Pearson correlation. Analysis of variance showed that there was no significant difference in leaf spot disease incidence at till and no-till units within this study period irrespective of sowing date. However, significant differences in leaf spot disease incidence and severity was recorded between the two cropping seasons. Sowing date four recorded the highest disease severity (1.611 ± 0.73) compared to sowing date two and three which was significant but comparable to sowing date one. The lowest disease severity (1.257 ± 0.697) was documented at sowing date two compared to sowing date one and four but comparable to sowing date three. Pearson correlation analysis revealed that there was a significant positive correlation (+0.560) between leaf spot disease incidence and severity which was statistically significant at α = 0.01 (p < 0.01).