Final Workshop on “Strengthening of the Horticulture information Support Network for Small Farmers in Egypt” (HORTISUN) Project. Tuesday, 20 October 2015

1. Research Institute for a
Sustainable Environment (RISE)
Best Practices for Wheat Cultivation

2. Project Areas:

3. ‫المشروع‬ ‫مناطق‬ ‫قبالة‬ ‫شبرا‬-‫المنوفية‬
‫الحيز‬ ‫منطقة‬-‫الغربية‬ ‫الصحراء‬
‫منقار‬ ‫ابو‬ ‫منطقة‬-‫الغربية‬ ‫الصحراء‬

4. Project Framework:
- Individual visits to the farmers on 3 locations,
ElHeiz, Abu Minqar and Shubra Qubala
- Soil assessment (approximately 10 soil samples
from each site)
- First introductory workshop
- Registering new farmers
- Meeting with the “Wheat Research Institute”
specialists
- Trainings on wheat best practices (Delivered
by Dr. Khaled Gad from ARC)
- Literature review report on wheat best practice

5. Project Framework (Cont’d):
- Getting official agreement from the Agricultural
Research Center (ARC).
- Developing the messages based on the review
and experts recommendations
- Timeline for sending out the SMSs.
- Individual feedback representing 10% of
registered farmers from each area
- Collective Feedback sessions in the three areas
- Final Train the trainers (TOT) workshop based
on the feedback

6. Individual visits:
- Questionnaire on wheat farming
practices
- Soil sampling & analysis
- Recruiting more farmers

8. Shubra Quabala - Monofia:
- 106 registered farmers
- The soil texture is loamy and has from 50-60%
sand with a high water-holding capacity.
- Soil has high concentrations of micro elements
such as iron, zinc, manganese and copper.
- Less than half the samples showed very high salt
concentrations and thus farmers were advised to
wash-irrigate the land

9. Abu Minqar – Western
Desert:
- 57 registered farmers
- Soil sampling
- Soil has very high salt concentrations
- Micro elements (iron, manganese, zinc and
copper) were only high in half of the samples.
- Abu Minqar soil contains 80-90 % sand and
has higher clay concentrations than that tested
in El Heiz.

10. El Heiz - Western Desert:
- 39 registered farmers
- Soil has low concentrations of organic matter
- High alkalinity.
- It is advisable to add compost to the soil before
planting and also to add some acid based
fertilizers
- The micro element concentrations (iron, zinc,
manganese and copper) differ between the
sample locations.

11. Cont’: El Heiz
- More than half the samples had very high
concentrations of iron, manganese and zinc.
- El Heiz soil has a low water holding capacity.
Therefore, farmers were told to decrease the
amount of time between irrigations.

12. Introductory Workshop;
• Abu Minqar
a. 10 Farmers
b. Water problems, fertilizers availability
c. Birds attack
• El Heiz
a. 40 Farmers
b. Water availability
c. Soil & fertilizers
d. Seeds

13. Shubra Qubala
- 20 Farmers
a. Soil & fertilization
b. Pest management (Weeds –Zomair)
c. Seed choice

15. Trainings on Wheat Best
Practices:
- In Shubra around 30 farmers attended the training
given by Dr. Khaled Gad.
- In El Heiz, 11 farmers attended
- In Abu Minqar, 11 farmers attended

17. Final List of SMS:

22. Feedback of farmers
El Heiz
• 20 farmers attended the feedback workshop and 4 individual
interviews were carried out.
• Advantages:
• Timing of the messages helped in determining when to plant,
irrigate and put fertilizers.
• Concerns:
Recommended fertilizers are not available.
Water shortage affected the irrigation schedule
• Recommendations:
• Trying to provide some outlets for selling fertilizers and
pesticides
• Providing alternative solutions to water problems or trying to
focus more on solar energy for pumping irrigation water

23. Feedback of farmers (Cont’d)
Abu Minqar
14 farmers attended the feedback workshop and 7 individual
interviews were carried out.
Advantages:
- Timing of the messages
- Amounts and timings to apply fertilizers were useful
Concerns:
- Availability of fertilizers
- A cold storm resulted in loss of many crops
Recommendations
- more messages on diseases
- The need to know the amount of Nitrogen needs to be added,
if other options of fertilizers are available.
- Forecast news on the weather should be sent.
- Project to continue on vegetables and alfalfla

24. Feedback of farmers (Cont’d)
Shubra Qubala
7 farmers attended the feedback workshop and 10
individual
interviews were carried out.
Advantages:
- Recommended quantities of seeds and fertilizers were useful.
Concerns:
- Yellow rust disease resulted in yield loss
- Some tried call centre and no answers were offered to them
Recommendations:
- More information to be offered on diseases
- Project to continue on more crops like corn and also vegetables.

25. Trials made by RISE
El Heiz
6.3 Ardab per feddan this year versus 4 Ardab last year
Abu Minqar
19 Ardab per feddan this year versus 15 Ardab last year
Magdy
• a fungus that he has seen on his
crops in the past did not attack his crop this
season
• the plant was healthy and protected
the whole season.
• His neighbors have thought
of taking his seeds as seedlings for the
coming season

26. Workshops carried based on farmers
feedback
• Two workshops have been done at the end of the project that is
based on farmers’ feedback.
• Four farmers from the three areas (Total of 12 farmers) were
invited to RISE to at be trained on a workshop on how to
develop compost from organic waste, and another workshop on
cultivation of seasonal vegetables.
• The training was based on training the trainees, thus the four
farmers will be followed up to conduct similar training to the
rest of the registered farmers.

27. Video Samples of feedback from the three
different areas:
Shubra QubalaAbu Minqar
El Heiz

28. Thank you