Sustainable agriculture seeks to at least use nature as the model for designing agricultural systems. Since nature integrates her plants and animals into diverse landscape, a major tenet of sustainable agriculture is efficiency and lack of waste products in nature. When domestication of crops replaced hunting and gathering of food, landscape changed accordingly. By producing a limited selection of crop plants and animals, human kind has substantially reduced the level of biological diversity over much of the earth. There is more cooperation in nature than competition. Cooperation is exemplified by mutually beneficial relationships that occur between species within communities. If left undistributed and unplanted an abandoned crop field will first be colonized by just a few species of organisms but after several years a complex community made up of many wild species develops. Stability is reached by a community when it has reached a high level of diversity. Diverse communities have fewer fluctuations in numbers of a given species and are stable. The practices which promote diversity and stability on the farm are enterprise diversification, crop rotation, use of wind breaks, provision of more habitats for microorganisms, intercropping and integration of crop farming with livestock production. Intercropping is the cultivation of two or more crops at the same time in the same field. Its advantages are risk minimization, increased income and food security, reduction of soil erosion and pest and disease control. This paper discusses the practice of intercropping in horticultural crop production to promote sustainability. Many crop systems are discussed.
Objective: Senna didymobotrya (African senna, African wild sensitive plant, peanut butter cassia, peanut butter tree, popcorn cassia, popcorn senna or wild senna) is native to East Africa and is widely used as a medicinal plant among many communities in Kenya. The objective of this research was to evaluate the presence of phytochemicals present in the different plant parts and their antibacterial activity. Methodology and results: Leaves, flowers, stem bark, immature pods and root barks were collected from Siaya, Nandi and Nakuru Counties. These were dried and ground. Methanolic crude extracts were in cooperated in nutrient media at 2.5 %, 5 %, 7.5 % and 10 %. Test organisms Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli were inoculated on impregnated media, incubated and observed for colony development. Observation on growth of cultures was made at an interval of 2 days for 8 days. The area under disease progress stairs (AUDPS) was calculated using the derived colony surface areas. Results indicated that all plant parts contained terpenoids, phenols and steroids. The presence of alkaloids and flavonoids varied with the location the plant was collected and the plant part. Growth of S. aureus cultures grown on media impregnated with 2.5% root bark extract and that with 7.5% stem bark extract were completely inhibited (no growth). Media with 10% flower, pods and leaves extract had average reduction of colony sizes from AUDPS 10102 (control) to AUDPS 2475. Growth of E. coli was completely inhibited on media impregnated with 5% root bark extract and 7.5% stem bark extracts. At 10% concentration, the flowers, pods and leaves extract did not result in complete inhibition of colony growth. Conclusions and applications: The present research suggests that S. didymobotrya extracts possessed antibacterial activity against bacterial pathogens thus supporting their folkloric usage, promising a future scope for its use against microbial populations. Methanolic extracts possessing high antibacterial effects should be further investigated for their therapeutic utility. This would be related to the presence of bioactive metabolites, which are soluble in methanol. There is need to explore further the quantities of phytochemicals in the root and 11358stem barks that make them more potent than the other plant parts. The structures of the bioactive metabolites should be examined in future.
Article HistoryRalstonia solanacearum (E.F. Smith) Yabuuchi, is the cause of bacterial wilt of tomato and one of the most severe pathogens of solanaceous crops with a very wide host range. There is little information on R. solanacearum strains in Maseno region in Kenya despite the fact that bacterial wilt of tomato is of economic importance. The objective of this study was to isolate the strains of R. solanacearum of tomato and characterize morphologically and biochemically Ralstonia solanacearum races and biovars from infected tomato plants in Maseno region. This study was conducted at Maseno University in the Department of Botany at Microbiology Laboratory. Ten diseased tomato plants from Maseno, Mariwa, Seme and Hollo were collected and cut into small sections (0.5-1cm). The plant sections were then plated onto Triphenyl tetrazolium chloride (TZC) media. Profiling of the pathogen was done morphologicaly using culture techniques; biochemical tests included Gram staining test, Potassium hydroxide test, Catalase oxidase test, Gas production test, Starch hydrolysis test and sugar utilization test. The races were then identified by pathogenicity test on wide host range. All the isolates had fluidal pinkish red centered colonies on TZC media, they were Gram negative, potassium hydroxide solubility positive, produced gas from glucose, ooze test positive and did not hydrolyse starch which is typical of R. solanacerum. R. solanacearum strains from infected tomato plants in Maseno region were race 3 biovar 1 and race 3 biovar 3. All isolates were pathogenic on tomato plants.
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