A report on farm and community practice undertaken at national semi arid resources research institute (NaSSARRI) Serere from 28th February - 6th May 2022.

Abstract

This Industrial Training (IT) was conducted for 10 weeks from 28th February to 6th May 2022 at NaSARRI (National Semi-Arid Resources Resear.ch Institute) located in the Eastern Agro-ecological zone in Serere District 27 km south of Soroti City. 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 was to enable students acquire practical knowledge and skills on agricultural research technologies and other crop management practices that increase crop yields and production. The industrial training was carried out in different research programmes and farm management section in a rotation i.e. farm management, dryland cereals programme, oil crops programme, dryland legumes programme and fibre crop (cotton) programme. During field disease identification in sorghum, the following diseases; Grain mould and Anthracnose were identified using their symptoms (effects) on the heads, while in pest identification exercise, the following pests; shoot fly and staff borer were identified using their damage on the leaves and stalks (stem). In data collection exercise, data was collected. on 100 seed counting of sorghum. Other field activities carried out included; grafting and budding mangoes and oranges and nursery bed preparation for vegetable and horticultural crops. The skills gained included; use of symptoms and damage caused on. the plant in identification of pest and diseases in sorghum, how to identify proper field for vegetables, good land preparation, good seed selection and how to plant crops at recommended spacing, timely and proper weed management, how to collect data on seed grain weight using electronic weighing scale and how to. count 100 seeds using electronic seed counter. The Industrial Training at NaSARRI was successfully done as the theoretical knowledge covered in the lecture room was practically demonstration in the field and laboratory. There are a lot of skills a student can learn from NaSARRI that are applicable in the field situation. Therefore, I recommend that the University should send more students to NaSARRl for their industrial training.