Constantine Busungu

• PhD in Bio-resource production (Agriculture)
• University of Dar es Salaam

Maize (Zea mays), first domesticated in Southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago, has grown to be a major global staple, playing an especially crucial role in Tanzania. Introduced to East Africa by Portuguese traders in the 16th century, maize gradually became part of Tanzania’s agricultural system, replacing traditional cereals like sorghum, pearl mi...

A field survey was conducted from February 25th to March 4th, 2023, to assess the presence, characteristics, ecology, reproductive behavior, and threats to wild rice populations along selected roadsides in Mwanza, Simiyu, and Mara Regions, Tanzania. The study collected wild rice samples at 10-kilometer intervals from diverse environments such as we...

Cultivated rice (Oryza sativa L. and Oryza. glaberrima) is one of the most important food crops in the world. The world rice production has increased three times since green revolution. However, climate change and global warming effects as well as ever increasing world population will require the world to produce more rice without increasing area u...

Urban Agro-forestry and Landscaping (UAL) is a term referring to farming systems and technologies to transform unused urban landforms into a beautiful and attractive piece of land by combining trees, crops, flower cultivation and as well as livestock keeping. UAL has been touted to reduce the effect of urbanization by enhancing biodiversity, food p...

Rice (Oryza sativa) is one of the most important food crops in the world, feeding 50% of world population daily. Bacterial blight disease caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo) is one of the most destructive diseases inflicting rice. Developing resistant cultivars is generally regarded as the most effective and economical means of controllin...

Natural vanilla (Vanilla planifolia G. Jackson, syn. V. fragrans) is native to the tropic forest of Mexico. It is now cultivated in humid tropical areas of Africa, America, Asia and Australia continents. In Tanzania it had been cultivated since 1940s in Kagera region but decline in coffee prices in the world market in the 1990s resulted into more c...

The world is experiencing a speedy and unequaled process of urbanization. This is fueled by many factors among those is rural-urban migration. Despite of the rise of urbanization across the world, 75 percent of Tanzanian continues to reside in rural communities where there is greater burden of poverty and livelihood vulnerabilities. Community busin...

Community businesses have been acknowledged as a good source of entrepreneurship skills that support many livelihoods. Night markets pull the unemployed women and youths in urban areas to engage themselves in community business so that they could escape from the trap of poverty and idleness. In these night markets women and youths get opportunities...

Bacterial blight (BB), caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv oryzae (Xoo) is the most destructive disease of rice worldwide. In our previous studies (Busungu et al. 2016).We reported the identification of a new resistance gene from ʽXM14ʼ line. This gene was named and registered as XA42 according to the gene nomenclature system for rice (McCouch and CGSN...

Bacterial blight (BB), caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv oryzae (Xoo) is the most destructive disease of rice worldwide. In our previous studies (Busungu et al. 2016).We reported the identification of a new resistance gene from ʽXM14ʼ line. This gene was named and registered as XA42 according to the gene nomenclature system for rice (McCouch and CGSN...

Poverty is more severe in Tanzania rural areas than in urban areas. Almost 70% of Tanzanian lives in rural areas and their main economic activity is agriculture. Tourism is emerging as important sector in Tanzania economic activity after Agriculture. Pro-poor tourism is the type of tourism that aims to increase the net benefits for the poor or peop...

Poverty is more severe in Tanzania rural areas than in urban areas. Almost 70% of Tanzanian lives in rural areas and their main economic activity is agriculture. Tourism is emerging as important sector in Tanzania economic activity after Agriculture. Pro-poor tourism is the type of tourism that aims to increase the net benefits for the poor or peop...

species (ITS) are organisms that are either intentionally or non-intentionally introduced to a new geographic area. The majority of introduced species usually cannot survive in their new habitats. Some turn into Invasive Species (IS) when they become more aggressive and outcompete with the native species. Introduced and Invasive species poses both...

This paper examines historical development Air Tanzania Limited (ATCL) and analyses its social-economic benefits as a national carrier. In Tanzania, like most of African countries after colonial era national air lines flourished because road and rail networks were not well developed due to financial issues, terrain, and rainy seasons. With exceptio...

In conventional agriculture, extension officers are regarded as change agents. They intervene to bring about change through influencing innovation, technology transfer and decision-making process in order to help improve the lives of the farmers and their families. Farmers in 21st century have opportunity of receiving the majority of information ab...

Improvement of resistance against rice bacterial blight (BB) disease is an important breeding strategy in breeding programs across the world, especially in Africa and southern Asia where BB is more prevalent. This report describes a high-resolution map and characterization of xa42 at XA42 locus, a rice BB resistance gene in XM14, a mutant line orig...

To improve understanding of the dynamics of the cassava mosaic disease (CMD) pandemic front, geospatial approaches were applied to the analysis of three years' data obtained from a 2° by 2° (ca 222km by 222 km) area of north-western Tanzania. A total of 80 farmers' fields were assessed in each of 2009, 2010 and 2011, with 20 evenly-distributed fiel...

Bacterial blight caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo) is a chief factor limiting rice productivity worldwide. XM14, a rice mutant line resistant to Xoo, has been obtained by treating IR24, which is susceptible to six Philippine Xoo races and six Japanese Xoo races, with N-methyl-N-nitrosourea. XM14 showed resistance to six Japanese Xoo rac...

A poster illustrating the range of approaches that have been used by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and its partners to conduct surveillance of the cassava virus diseases - cassava mosaic disease and cassava brown streak disease - in sub-Saharan Africa