Impact of CSA technology packages on smallholder farmers under the accelerator program in Zambia

The primary goal of this report is to provide evidence on the impact of CSA technology packages on smallholder farmers under the accelerator programme in in Zambia. The AICCRA Zambia accelerator program tested various CSA technology packages, designed and implemented through agribusiness partnerships, SME bundles. The SME bundles were selected through a competitive process for the packages to address major challenges for CSA in Zambia and covering major agricultural production systems in Zambia. Each bundle was supported by a 50,000-USD grant

The effect of environmental heterogeneity on RPW8-mediated resistance to powdery mildews in Arabidopsis thaliana

Background and Aims: The biotic and abiotic environment of interacting hosts and parasites may vary considerably over small spatial and temporal scales. It is essential to understand how different environments affect host disease resistance because this determines frequency of disease and, importantly, heterogeneous environments can retard direct selection and potentially maintain genetic variation for resistance in natural populations. Methods: The effect of different temperatures and soil nutrient conditions on the outcome of infection by a pathogen was quantified in Arabidopsis thaliana. Expression levels of a gene conferring resistance to powdery mildews, RPW8, were compared with levels of disease to test a possible mechanism behind variation in resistance. Key Results: Most host genotypes changed from susceptible to resistant across environments with the ranking of genotypes differing between treatments. Transcription levels of RPW8 increased after infection and varied between environments, but there was no tight association between transcription and resistance levels. Conclusions: There is a strong potential for a heterogeneous environment to change the resistance capacity of A. thaliana genotypes and hence the direction and magnitude of selection in the presence of the pathogen. Possible causative links between resistance gene expression and disease resistance are discussed in light of the present results on RPW8