Abstract:
This Industrial Training (IT) was conducted for 10 weeks at NaSARRI (National Semi-Arid Resources Research Institute) located in the Eastern Agro-ecological zone in Serere District 27 km south of Soroti City from 28th February 2022 to 6th May 2022. NaSARRI is one of the 16 public Agricultural Research Institutes of the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) established by the National Agricultural Act 2005.
The objective of this IT is to enable students acquire practical knowledge, skills, in monitoring and evaluation in agricultural research and other related activities. I was carried out in different programs in a rotation i.e., farm management, dry land cereals program, dry land legumes program, fiber crop program and oil crop program.
During the training at NaSARRI, various activities were carried out which included; Disease identification (Grain mold, Anthracnose) in sorghum, pest identification in sorghum (sorghum shoot fly, stalk borer) post-harvest data collection on 100 seed count of sorghum, grafting and budding in Mangoes and Oranges in Agroforestty, onion nursery preparation in horticulture, Knowledge and Skills gained.
While in the field, I gained skills in identification pests and diseases in sorghum (crop protection), agronomic practices especially in pro site selection, landpreparati01L seed selection and planting at recommended spacing as per eds of the plants, weed management, post-harvest data collection usually on plot weighing, grain weights, 100 seed count using the electronic weighing scales.
Challenges. However, few challenges were faced like; inadequate tools and equipment to be used in nursery bed establishment, me of the items were missing in some stations e.g., Camp bell stock (sun shine recorder), barometer, hygrometer, faulty automatic rain gauge and others outdated.
Conclusion I therefore conclude that the IT was interesting because most of the theory aspect was put into practice/hands-on, thus new skills gained.
Recommendation. I recommend that some errors should be rectified by provision of adequate tools needed to be used in different stations/activities, proper allocation of students to their due respective supervisors in advance in order to avoid confusion and pilling up of students at the administration blocks, health facilities (sick bay) should be put in place at least to offer first aid to any worker/student who has sustained injuries or even sicknesses.
