Industrial training report conducted at national semi-arid resources research institute (NaSARRI) - Serere district.

Abstract

Industrial training was conducted for a period of 10 weeks at NaSARRI (National Semi-Arid Resources Research Institute) located in the Eastern Agro-ecological zone in Serere District, 27km south of Soroti City from 28th February 2022 to 6th May 2022. NaSARRI is one of the 16 public Agricultural Research Institute of the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) established by the National Agricultural Act 2005. The objective of IT is to enable students acquire practical knowledge, skills; on Carry out routine practices in agricultural production, processing and related activities, write a report on industrial attachment experiences, collect data in the field of attachment, Analyse and interpret data collected It 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 Agroforestry, onion nursery bed preparation in horticulture) cotton data collection on 10 boll samples on G.O.T, pest scouting, IPM, plant pathology. Thus various skills were gained such as identification of pest and diseases in sorghum (crop protection). Agronomic practices especially in proper site selection, land preparation, seed selection and planting at recommended spacing as per needs of the plants, weed management, post-harvest data collection usually on plot weighing, grain weights, 100 seed count using the electronic weighing scales. However, few challenges were faced like; Insufficient tools and equipment to be used in nursery establishment, some of the items were missing in certain station camp bell sunshine recorder, barometer, hygrometer, pyranometer, faulty automatic rain gauge and others out dated. Conclusively, the training was very fruitful because it gave me a superior understanding of farm management practice which I carried out and these encompassed comprehensive activities like; agronomy (proper land preparation, planting at recommended spaces, weeding etc.) breeding (selfing, crossing and emasculation), crop protection (pest and diseases identification and management etc.). Thus the theory aspect was put into applied hence novel skills multiplied. 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 respective supervisors in time.