Plant Resources of Tropical Africa

PROTA information is steadily gaining popularity among researchers in many institutions in Benin. The information, mainly from handbooks and the PROTA webdatabases, helping many researchers attain their research goals. These are the findings of a study conducted in Benin to assess how national and regional research institutions are applying PROTA information to develop research proposals and natural resource management plans, and the impact of the PROTA information system on their research outputs.

The study targeted regional research institutes (the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and Bioversity International), national research institutions (the National agricultural Research Institute of Benin (INRAB) ,the Directorate of Agriculture (DAGRI), as well as the Faculty of Agronomic Sciences (FSA) and the Faculty of Science and Techniques (FAST) of the University of Abomey-Calavi.

At IITA and Bioversity International, senior researchers, graduate students and scientific assistants find the detailed information on species very useful, particularly information on ‘Uses’, ‘Origin and geographic distribution’, ‘Diseases and pests’, and ‘Ecology’. Some of them used PROTA information to identify species of interest for research.

At the University of Abomey-Calavi’s (UAC), the detailed information ‘Origin and geographic distribution’, ‘Uses’, ‘Properties’ and ‘chemical composition’ are found to be the most useful information to researchers, lecturers and students. They also seek information on ‘Ecology’, ‘Propagation and planting of species’, ‘Growth and development’ and ‘Diseases and pests’.

Lecturers used the PROTA information for training activities, while some students used the information to establish their experiments, especially those working on domestication aspects. Some of the lecturers and students who have found PROTA information very useful to their courses include Mr Albet Eteka doing his PhD on the domestication, seed viability and agronomic evaluation of four traditional leafy vegetable species, Mr Zoul Kifouli Adeoti whose ongoing PhD project focuses on the characterisation of the genetic and phenological diversity of traditional leafy vegetables. They used information on the uses, origin and geographic distribution, ecology and number of chromosomes to compare with results from their studies.

Dr Hounnankpon Yedomonhan is a botanist, researcher and lecturer at UAC who found the detailed PROTA information very useful for his project, a publication on Flora of Benin. The project that involved many researchers from the National Herbarium of Benin and the Department of Plant Ecology at FAST, inventorized the diversity of plant resources of Benin, their geographic distribution and abundance. The researchers found PROTA information on the origin and geographic distribution, and the uses very useful.

Dr Aristide C Adomou, a botanist, researcher and lecturer at UAC used PROTA information in his project on ‘Inventory of useful plants in the Mono District in Benin’. He used PROTA handbooks and information on origin and geographic distribution, ecology and uses. This information helped him to identify species with interest to research, and also in preparing training materials for students.

At INRAB and DAGRI, researchers also use PROTA information in their projects. Many of them used PROTA information to identify species of interest to research or to prepare materials for the study, literature review or for specific information on plant growth and development or production. Most sought information are ‘Ecology’, ‘Uses’, ‘Propagation’, ‘Growth and development’, ‘Propagation and planting’.

For instance, Dr Francoise Assogba Komlan has been interested on all the information in the PROTA 2: ‘Vegetables’. This publication of PROTA was one of important references used by her research team when writing the book on ‘Traditional vegetables of Benin’. The information was also used to establish experiment plots for the agronomic evaluation of some traditional vegetable species. It is important to highlight she did a review for PROTA in 2003–2004 and is since 2006 the country contact of PROTA in Benin.

Mrs Judith Honfoga, a researcher of INRAB also used the information of the handbook PROTA 2 to develop a grant project which was successful. Her project evaluated the nematicidal properties of Launaea taraxacifolia on Solanum macrocarpon nematodes and insect pests in urban and peri-urban agriculture in southern Benin. Launaea taraxacifolia is a traditional vegetable in domestication in Benin, while Solanum macrocarpon is a commercial vegetable crop, highly infested by different pests causing losses to farmers. This project is innovative, and if proven conclusive, can help vegetable producers to control pests on the latter crop, meanwhile increasing their revenue.

Mr Judith Honfoga is part of the Vegetable Research Programme of INRAB, which is led by Dr Francoise Assogba Komlan