Burkina Faso: Organic compost fights bacterial wilt of tomato

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It’s an April afternoon and the sun is gradually dipping towards the horizon. In a market gardening plot in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, Zeno Konda is still working in her 200-square-metre plot. The young woman is turning over the soil around her tomato plants.

The 30-year-old uses bactericidal compost to protect her tomato plants from bacterial wilt. She says, “This product has saved me! My tomato plants are doing better and producing well. I’ve been using it for three years.” This kind of compost kills the bacteria that cause a tomato disease called bacterial wilt.

The bacteria are called Ralstonia solanacearum. It lives underground and attacks the plant through its roots. Four years ago, Mrs. Koanda lost her tomato field to tomato wilt disease. She says, “I didn’t harvest anything that season. I tore up everything to start over.”

Since this loss, Mrs. Konda has been using bactericidal compost. Before planting, she buries the compost 10 to 15 centimetres deep in the soil at three kilograms per square metre, or 30 tons of compost per hectare. At the moment, the Institute of Research in Applied Sciences and Technologies, or IRSAT, is offering the bactericidal compost free of charge for testing, and farmers are happy with the product.

Using bactericidal compost, the young woman earns more than 200,000 FCFA ($333 US) per season on her small plot. She produces two crops a year, from September to February and from March to August. Before she started using this organic product, Mrs. Konda estimated her yield at 30,000 FCFA ($50 US). She says, “I will always use bactericidal compost. I will even buy it on credit if I have to.”

Oumarou Traoré is a plant pathologist and researcher at the Institute of Research in Applied Sciences and Technologies, or IRSAT, in Burkina Faso, and is the one who developed the bactericidal compost. Mr. Traoré says that Ralstonia solanacearum can destroy up to 90% of a tomato field if the variety has no resistance to the bacterium.

To help farmers fight the disease, he spent four years developing the bactericidal compost. The compost is a mixture of poultry excrement, crop residues, ashes, and phosphate. Oil extracted from Ocimum gratissimum is added to the compost mixture. The finished product has been tested by the Institute for the Environment and Agricultural Research.

Both researchers and farmers are satisfied with this product. Dr. Traoré estimates that the bactericidal compost neutralizes at least 80% of the bacteria that cause tomato wilt. He adds that it also strengthens the fertility of the soil, reduces soil acidity, and strengthens plant vigour and resistance to other disease-causing pathogens.

Abdoul Rahim Guira is a young market gardener in Houndé, more than 200 kilometres west of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. He says that using the bactericidal compost has enabled him to avoid losses of tomato plants and to increase production. Before he discovered the product, he was feeling discouraged by his losses from tomato wilt. He had given up tomato production. Mr. Guira starting growing tomatoes again because of the bactericidal compost. He explains, “Where we apply bactericidal compost, productivity is high, and the plants are strong and make a lot of flowers and big tomatoes.”

The young farmer has known about the disease for about 10 years. But it has been known in Burkina Faso since 1964. Mr. Guira says that tomato plants affected by bacterial wilt are easily recognizable by leaves that wither and fold back on themselves. Eventually, the plant dies.

Currently, the bactericidal compost is at the experimental stage. But it already satisfies researchers and tomato growers. In order to make the product more accessible to producers, Mr. Traoré has identified growers who will be trained to produce the bactericidal compost.

Photo: Zeno Konda’s tomato field