In June I successfully defended my thesis entitled ‘Harvesting nutrition. Grain legumes and nutritious diets in sub-Saharan Africa!’ What a special day! 

In the 2017 N2Africa podcaster, I presented a section of my paper published in Field Crops Research (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037842901730727X). My 2018 update provided a brief overview of my paper on legume-maize ecological intensification options published in Experimental Agriculture (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0014479718000273).

Crop residues are a major feed resource in smallholder mixed crop-livestock (MCL) systems in West Africa. The current decline in grazing land as a result of the ever-increasing population and associated increased demand for land for housing and crop production has further heightened the importance of crop residues as livestock feed. Grain legume residues, also known as grain legume fodders (GLFs) are considered more valuable livestock feed than cereal residues since they have higher digestibility and protein content.

In my previous year PhD update, I qualitatively explored and highlighted the influence of smallholder farmers’ perceptions of legume seeds, inoculant, fertilizer and improved practices on their adoption intentions. As farmers perceive high relative product advantage with the legume inputs, they also perceive low compatibility with prices and packaging of the inputs. Particularly, farmers perceived high uncertainty with market and spray services.

Introduction: Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is one of the grain legumes that symbiotically interact with Mesorhizobium strains and fix atmospheric N. The efficiency of the symbiotic N fixation partly depends on the host genotype (G_L) and rhizobium strains (G_R). Here, we studied G_L x G_R interaction between genetically determined Mesorhizobium strains and chickpea genotypes primarily in jars and subsequently in pots in Ethiopia. 

We studied the genetic diversity of indigenous rhizobia nodulating soyabean in South Kivu province of D.R.Congo in order to compare the diversity in grassland and cultivated farms but also to identify indigenous rhizobia with potential of increasing soyabean’BNF and productivity. Soyabean (Glycine max) is an important crop worldwide and especially in Democratic Republic of the Congo, promoted since 1990 to deal with high malnutrition induced by political strife (Kismul et al., 2015). 

While we are busy with a range of studies assessing the impacts of N2Africa across the different countries, there are still many ongoing PhDs who are writing up their theses and publishing their work. To date 9 have completed their PhDs, some have submitted their theses and are awaiting examination and some who started later are still conducting field and laboratory research. As part of the impact studies of N2Africa I was delighted to learn that we have already hosted a total of 95 MSc thesis students.