Mbato Sub-station

ONYEGBULE UGOCHUKWU

Onyegbule.Ugochukwu@nihort.gov.ng

Head of Station

Is located on a 810 hectares of land in the humid zone of Mbato Okigwe, Imo State in South Eastern Nigeria.

Research activities:

Looking into the problems of fruits and vegetables which cover agronomic, integrated post management, farming systems and crop utilization.

Duplication of research experiments by scientists from headquarters.

Impact on locality:

  • A lot of impact as evidenced by homestead planting of improved citrus/mango seedlings.
  • Most host-community members are fully aware of the importance of fruit-trees in income generation.
  • Training of interested horticulturists on technologies of nursery practices, field establishment and post-harvest handling of horticultural crops/products.
  • Feed-back mechanism has revealed that most of such farmers have imbibed what was taught and have adopted horticultural technologies in their farming systems.

Commercial activities:

  • Production of dry-season vegetables as well as plantain, pineapple and other fruits meant for revenue generation at farm-gate prices.
  • Sale of orange fruits from parent orchards to generate revenue.
  • Production of fruit seedlings especially indigenous fruit-trees such as Irvingia spp (wombolo and gabonensis), citrus and mango varieties for sale to the public at farm-gate prices.

Achievements:

The station has proved its mettle in technology-transfer to the farmers in the South-East agro-ecological zone of Nigeria comprising nine states. There is potential for greater achievements in future if given more financial support.