13 On-farm Yield: Plots

Research on Production‎ > ‎Research Activities‎ > ‎

Implemented by: Flemming Nielsen (FACT/Banana hill) (2008-present)

Main findings: The plants are too young to allow any firm conclusions. Furthermore the data collection was not of sufficient quality for part of the time and only short reliable data series have thus been obtained so far.

Objective

Measure monthly yield of Jatropha curcas hedges under farmer conditions.

Plant Selection

Select ca. 10 different Jatropha curcas hedges in farmers’ fields. The hedges should as far as possible have different characteristics, e.g. different soils; different planting distance, different origins of planting material, etc. Make sure to include hedges that are typical for the area.

Data Collection

Provide the farmer/farmer group in charge of the hedge monthly with a labeled net bag and instruct them that seeds harvested from the hedge net gab. During the next visit the net bag is collected and a new labeled net bag is given to the farmer. Also the data sheet is filled in except for the seed yield.
The full net bag is brought to the project office where the seeds are dried, de-shelled and weighted. The weight of the seeds is entered into the “Monthly Observation Sheet” under the column with the date the bag was collected from the farmer.
For each hedge:

Fill the base data sheet once. It is found in the file “Site_and_Plot_descriptions.xls”
Update the “Monthly Observation Sheet” around the same time every month. It is found in the file “2008-11-01_Hedge_yield_Bilibiza_Data_Sheet.doc”