Pear scabies (Venturia pyrina), experience in technology transfer

Abstract

A program of technology transfer was implemented in the municipality of Nuevo Colón, with the purpose to maintain the roña or scabies of the peach tree with levels of damage below the economic threshold, by means of participatory methodologies, identifying the current processes used by producers in the control of Venturia, as well as the alternatives for the roña or scabies control that allow to establish a program of the illness management and, at the same time, to develop transfer program by means of the fruit-culturers training in methods for the cultivation handling with emphasis on the control of Venturia pyrina, conducting a permanent evaluation and feedback with the results of the validated alternatives. The purpose was to implement control practices in 10 demonstrative plots by marking 10 trees of each one of them, as well as to replicate the control in 400 orchards during the three years of the project, train 400 fruit-culturers in phytosanitary production and cultivation alternative techniques. The incidence of the disease decreased 40% the first year, 60% the second one and 80% the third one. There were 400 primers and 3 videos left as memories an reinforcement of training. The results were the establishment of control practices in 300 orchards during the three-year period of the project, the training of 300 fruit-culturers in production, alternative techniques for cultivation and phytosanitary control, the decrease of the disease incidence by 30% the first year, 70% the second year and 85% the third year. In addition, there were left as memory 500 primers with optimal and convenient solutions as successful technological alternatives that were adopted and implemented by the 87% of pear producers.