Weed assessment in lowland paddy fields of Cambodia

Paul Keβler

The project aims to develop and sustain a long-term cooperation between Europe and least developed countries of South East Asia for bringing IT&C to rural sector. This is done by helping to address the issue of slow increasing agricultural productivity in Indochina by proposing a tool for decision-making in weeds identification and control. This decision-making tool will target extension workers and farmers of the lowland rice cropping systems at the village level and will effectively address the issue of local languages. It will address the important aspect of capacity building among students and agronomists in the two least developed countries, Cambodia and Lao PDR. A knowledge base for identification and control of the most important weeds of the lowland rain fed rice ecosystems of Indochina will be developed for this purpose. This knowledge base, built on a species identification system (IDAO), will draw from existing reference herbaria, which will however need to be completed with extensive field trips. Developed as an open source web-based application, the knowledge base will be made available on-line, on CD-ROM for personal computer platforms as well as on Simputer, a PDA operating on Linux with local language support. Perception of the application by the target audience in Lao PDR and Cambodia, the extension workers and the students will also be considered in order to improve the tool’s usage and appropriateness at the grass root level.

The result would primarily address the needs of stakeholders that are involved in protecting the rice crops, including the large scientific community working in these geographical areas and also the extension services. The partnership builds on the foundations of the pre-existing scientific collaboration between the various partners who have specialized in developing IT&C applications for species identification (IDAO) on one hand, and botanists / agronomists itself on the other hand.

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Last updated 5 September 2005