• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Search Projects
  • Help
  • Log in

Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education

Grants And Education To Advance Innovations In Sustainable Agriculture
  • Grants
  • Project Reports
    • Search Projects
    • Search Project Coordinators
  • Learning Center
  • Professional Development
  • State Programs
  • Events
  • Newsroom
  • About SARE

Project Overview

FW16-029
Project Type: Farmer/Rancher
Funds awarded in 2016: $15,202.00
Projected End Date: 11/30/2018
Grant Recipient: Ivona Ballard
Region: Western
State: American Samoa
Principal Investigator:
Ivona Ballard
Email
Whutnutsamoa
Co-Investigators:
Ian Gurr
Email
American Samoa Communiy College- Agriculture, Community and Natural Resources

Alternative Vegetable Crops and Production Methods for American Samoa

View the project report

Commodities

  • Fruits: avocados, bananas, figs, citrus, melons, pineapples
  • Vegetables: beans, beets, cabbages, carrots, celery, cucurbits, eggplant, greens (leafy), leeks, onions, peas (culinary), radishes (culinary), sweet corn, tomatoes, turnips
  • Additional Plants: herbs, ornamentals

Practices

  • Crop Production: conservation tillage
  • Education and Training: technical assistance, extension, farmer to farmer, on-farm/ranch research, participatory research
  • Pest Management: botanical pesticides, compost extracts, integrated pest management, mulches - killed
  • Production Systems: permaculture
  • Soil Management: earthworms, green manures, organic matter
  • Sustainable Communities: new business opportunities, urban agriculture

Proposal summary:

This project is titled “Alternative Vegetable Crops and Production Methods for American Samoa.” American Samoa imports most of the vegetables sold here. Local vegetable production suffers because of a lack of identifying the types of vegetables and their varieties that will grow easily in our local conditions. Another need here is to evaluate production methods that will increase local vegetable production, such as vegetable grafting, use of low cost covers to reduce damage from heavy rains and winds, utilizing locally sourced organic material for soil amendment, such as coconut coir, dry litter piggery compost and fishmeal.

Project objectives from proposal:

Through randomized complete block design trials, we will identify new crops and their varieties that are heat, disease and pest tolerant in American Samoa’s tropical conditions.

We will evaluate grafting of tomato onto eggplant rootstock and bell pepper onto chili pepper rootstock for production in bacterial wilt affected soils.

We will evaluate the effect of low cost rain covers, drip irrigation and bird netting (reduce damage from excessive rains, exclude fruit piercing moth and bird damage) on tomato yield compared to the traditional , non irrigated field production method. 

 

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or SARE.

Primary Sidebar

Footer

SARE - Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education USDA
1122 Patapsco Building | University of Maryland | College Park, MD 20742-6715

This site is maintained by SARE Outreach for the SARE program and features research projects supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture. SARE Outreach operates under cooperative agreement award No. 2018-38640-28731 with the University of Maryland to develop and disseminate information about sustainable agriculture. USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.

Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education © 2019
Help | Contact us