Murre

FIELD UNIT

ECI FIELD UNITS:

In February, the space for Project Field Station cum Laboratory was selected at NRSP Field Unit Dana, Tehsil Murree with the full involvement and agreement of NRSP designated staff for the IPM Capacity Building Project. In first week of March, IPM Field Station was established at the mutually selected site. The lab. material, equipment and furniture was made available. The Social Organizer along with two support staff of the NRSP Field Unit has been involved for IPM activities in the project area.

The initial contacts with NRSP Community Organizations (COs) were started. In March, 20 Community Organizations were contacted with NRSP team and briefed them about project objectives. The baseline information about the area was collected and current status of apple orchards and susceptibility to pest and diseases was determined. On the basis of information supplied by the farming communities and field visits with NRSP team, it was found that there are large number of medium to small size apple orchards in Tehsil Murree despite high susceptibility to pests and diseases and low productivity. People have been generally very supportive and receptive for apple cultivation if crop protection technical support and training is provided by some development agencies and line departments. It was full consensus among the farming communities and local inhabitants of the area that the agriculture extension department had very little role to play for providing necessary training and backstopping to the farming communities for improvement of the management practices because of the possible reason of shortage of skills, manpower and lack of working facilities.

During the preliminary surveys, it was noticed that farmers are very receptive to remove the old apple plantations and establish new orchards with improved and resistant varieties. However, it was conditional with the technical support, know-how and training that needs to be provided by some agencies or through NRSP on regular basis.

Several IPM orientation sessions of the TOT (Training of Trainers) and FFS series were held.

• IPM Orientation Session: First session of the TOT and FFS series. The basic objective of this session was to give an IPM orientation about programme goals, objectives, activities to be carried out and concepts, approaches and methodology of IPM.
  ( 19 March 2002 )
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• Second TOT session. The objectives of this session were to enable the Master Trainers and NRSP staff to identify harmful and useful insects for the apple culture especially the Woolly apple aphid and its natural enemies.
  ( 14 April 2002 )
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• Third training session. This session mainly focussed on Community IPM for Woolly apple aphid. A detailed overview, identification and different stages of the pest and its natural, enemies were given.
  ( 12 May 2002 )
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Beside the TOT, NRSP-IPM Team has been regularly monitoring the area for collecting incidence of the pests. Initially three apple orchards in different areas have been selected, where monitoring is being done and data is being taken for lab. records and training module to be prepared in 3rd quarter of the project. All these activities are jointly undertaken by the NRSP-ECI Team. Because of the smooth and effective implementation of the project activities according to its objectives, COs have insisted to include other pest problems in the project activities instead of concentrating only on a single pest problem. This was thoroughly discussed by the ECI-NRSP Team and with GEF management. Therefore, it was felt necessary to include other pest problems in the programme as well keeping in view the budgetary limits.

A process of networking has been started through NRSP-ECI-GEF IPM Capacity Building Project by involving a number of other GEF sponsored projects including Soan Valley Development Project (SVDP), Hirrak Development Centre (HDC) and Al-Falah Development Organization. These organizations are being provided technical support and guidance with reference to UNDP/GEF-Small Grants Programme.

• Update on Training of Trainers in IPM for the staff of NRSP and their Community Orgnizations
  ( Rawalakot (Azad Kashmir), 18. August 2002 )
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• IPM Field Activities by the involvement of Master Trainers
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• FACT SHEET: ECI-NRSP-GEF Extension FactSheet on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP)
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• FACT SHEET: ECI-NRSP-GEF Extension FactSheet on Woolly Apple Aphid in Tehsil Murre
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