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Incidence and Management of Black Sigatoka Disease on Banana

(Musa acuminata) in the Province of Agusan del Sur
Using Geographic Information System (GIS)

Raymond F. Gabica
Agusan del Sur State College of Technology
raymond.gabica@yahoo.com
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ABSTRACT

The study was undertaken to create farm information system for banana production by geotagging and
surveying. Results revealed that the most common fungus diseases incidence in the province of Agusan
del Sur was black sigatoka disease. Black Sigatoka was high in percentage of incidence and is mostly
visible in a banana seedling. With regards to area of infestation, black sigatoka brought major damage to
banana plantation, where more than ½ of farm area was totally infested. In terms of agricultural
management, banana farmers regularly practiced in deleafing and ring weeding, while the establishment
of good drainage and the use of tissue culture as planting material were poorly practiced.

Keywords: Agusan del Sur, Geographic Information System (GIS), Black Sigatoka Disease, Cultural
Management, Incidence Rate
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1.0 Introduction
Agusan del Sur is the fourth largest province of the country in terms of land area. With that,
agriculture has become the backbone of the province’s economy and banana is considered as one of the
priority crops of the province. It provides livelihood to about 2.86 percent of the total population of the
province. As a primarily agrarian province, accurate and timely information on the disease outbreaks are
essential to predict crop yields and its market ability potential. This will strengthen country’s food security
and distribution system.
Disease forecasting is a method of cost reduction. It allows the treatment to be timed correctly,
increasing its effectiveness, and reducing the cost compared to repeated treatments. Advance forecasting
about the crop diseases and its outbreaks has a strong bearing on national economy as well as the daily life of
the masses. The uncontrollable spread of Panama disease caused by a destructive fungus that has wiped out
banana varieties in the past showed that low in crop forecasting system could create great trouble for the
government and the public.
In order to address the gaps, the GIS and spatial database collected was used to generate the
processing and analytical techniques that enabled the integration of ground-based parameters with the
satellite data. The GIS Technology has been providing information on detection of crop stress due to
nutrients and disease, and quantification of its effect on crop yield. (Santosh and Suresh ,2016).
The purpose of the study was to develop an open source GIS-based farm information system in
the province of Agusan del Sur. Specifically, the study sought to determine the Black Sigatoka Disease
incidence of banana, its occurrence, area of infestation and to assess the agricultural management of
banana farmers in Agusan del Sur.

1.1 Research Framework

This study was conceptualized to determine the incidence of Black Sigatoka Disease in Agusan del
Sur. Primary information was gathered using questionnaires that focused on the occurrence of Black Sigatoka
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Disease, area infested and the farm management and practices of banana farmers. Secondary information was
gathered to supplement the data needed like the causal organism result of the disease and the total number of
Lakatan farmers of the province.

Primary Survey Black Sigatoka

Data Questionnaire
Disease
Farm
Farm area infested Information
System
Secondary
Regional Agricultural
Crop
Data Practices
Protection
DA Province Management

Figure 1. The Research Framework

3.0 Methodology
3.1 Source of data
There were two types of data gathered, the primary and secondary data. The primary data were the
responses of the respondents or the farmers and the source of secondary data were the results of laboratory
from Regional Crop Protection Center in Caraga and the total number of banana farmers of Lakatan variety
per municipality from Provincial of Agriculture Office.

3.2. Data Gathering Procedure

In gathering the secondary data, the researcher submitted samples of Black Sigatoka disease
symptoms to Regional Crop Protection Center for analysis. The result was Mycosphaerella fijiensis as a
causal organism of the disease. The researcher went to the Provincial Agriculture Office to get the total
number of banana farmers per municipality (Table 1). Then the master list of banana farmers per
municipality was asked from the Municipal Agriculture Office.

Municipality Number of Farmers

Bayugan City 270
Bunawan 52
Esperanza 97
La Paz 109
Loreto 76
Prosperidad 301
San Francisco 565
Rosario 116
San Luiz 250
Sta. Josefa 75
Sibagat 350
Talacogon 212
Trento 213
Veruela 114
Total 2800
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Table 1. The total number of banana farmers per municipality

With regards to the gathering of primary data, the researcher prepared a self-made questionnaire
suited to the respondents and collections of data were collected through house to house interviews per
municipality. Level of occurrence was interpreted using the table below.

Table 2. The level of occurrence as observed by the farmers

Percentage Level of Occurrence
0-30% Low
31-60% Moderate
61-100% High

For the geotagging procedure, the researcher acquired an android phone with applications of DA
Geotagging . Next, the application was run. Once the camera was ready a project name folder per
municipality was created before capturing the photos. Then the researcher explored the “root” folder of
the device and transferred all the recorded photos to the desktop computer or laptop. The obtained data
were uploaded to Q GIS application to generate spatial map of Black Sigatoka Disease incidence per
municipality. Finally, all the geotagged photos were uploaded to Google Earth using PRT SCR
application.

3.3 Sampling Procedure

Out of 2,800 total banana (Musa acuminata) farmers, 350 samples were considered in the study.
The sample was collected using simple stratified random sampling and it was computed based on
Slovin’s formula with e = 0.05 as shown below:

n= N Equation 1.
(1+N (e) 2)

3.4 Statistical Analysis

Descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentage were used to determine the incidence of
Black Sigatoka Disease, time of occurrence, area infested and agricultural practices of banana farmers in
Agusan del Sur.

4.0 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

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4.1 Incidence of Black Sigatoka Disease

Table 3 presents the incidence of black Sigatoka Disease in the province of Agusan del Sur as
observed by the farmers, time of occurrence and area of infested.

The data shows that the incidence of Black Sigatoka disease in Agusan del Sur was highly
occurring as observed by the banana farmers with 331 (94.57%) banana farmers. The obtained data
implies that the high level of occurrence results to a higher cost of control method of Black Sigatoka. The
results are in agreement to the findings of Poholl et al., (1994). They found out that 20% of total cost
production of banana is used to control the black sigatoka disease.

Also, the Black Sigatoka was three times visible during the first 6 months after planting
compared to 7-12 months and 1 year and above with a frequency of 240 (72.51%), 80 (24.17%) and 6
(1.81%) banana farmers respectively.

In terms of the scale of area infested, 176 (53.17) banana farmers claimed almost ½ of their farm
was totally damaged by Black Sigatoka. On the other hand, banana farmers experiencing less than ¼ and
less than ¾ area infested were 96 (29.00%) and 54 (16.31%), respectively. .

Table 3. The number of respondents observed, time of occurrence and area infested of banana
plantation as caused by black sigatoka.

Respondents Time of Occurrence Area Infested

Municipalit Observe Not - 0- 7-12 1 year Less Less Less
y d Observe 6MAT MAT above than ¼ than ½ than 3/4
d
Bayugan 25 0 15 10 0 5 16 4
City
Bunawan 25 0 15 9 1 17 8 0
Esperanza 25 0 20 5 0 20 5 0
La Paz 25 0 21 4 0 2 13 10
Loreto 25 0 20 5 0 5 11 9
Prosperidad 15 10 10 5 0 7 6 2

San 25 0 16 4 0 5 20 0
Francisco
Rosario 25 0 20 5 0 4 15 6
San Luiz 21 4 6 12 3 4 15 2
Sta. Josefa 25 0 19 4 2 6 12 7
Sibagat 25 0 23 2 0 5 10 5
Talacogon 25 0 23 2 0 5 20 0
Trento 25 0 17 8 0 6 15 4
Veruela 20 5 15 5 0 5 10 5
Total 331 19 240 80 6 96 176 54
Percentage 94.57 5.43 72.51 24.17 1.81 29.00 53.17 16.31
(%)
Figure 2 shows the spatial distribution map of black sigatoka in Agusan del Sur. All
municipalities have high incidence of Black Sigatoka disease except the municipality of Prosperidad.
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Figure 2. Spatial Distribution Map of black sigatoka disease

4.2 Geotagged photos

Figure 3 presents the geotagged photos of banana plantation in each municipality of Agusan del
Sur

Figure 3. Geotagged photo of Agusan del Sur uploaded to google earth

4.3 Cultural Management and Practices

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The cultural management and practices of banana farmers in the province of Agusan del Sur is
presented in Table 4.

Table 4. Cultural Management and Practices of banana farmers in the province of Agusan del Sur
Cultural Management and Practices
Municipality Leaf trimming Ring Establishment Using Tissue cultured seedlings
and deleafing weeding of good
drainage
Bayugan City 21 22 10 10
Bunawan 17 23 12 9
Esperanza 25 22 15 5
La Paz 25 25 14 3
Loreto 21 22 4 0
Prosperidad 25 23 15 15
San Francisco 25 25 15 6
Rosario 20 20 5 5
San Luiz 22 23 0 0
Sta. Josefa 23 21 25 0
Sibagat 25 25 15 0
Talacogon 25 15 10 0
Trento 23 14 13 2
Veruela 20 7 20 0
Total 317 287 173 55
Percentage (%) 90.57 82.00 49.43 15.71

The data revealed that leaf trimming , deleafing and ring weeding, were highly most practice of
the banana farmers in order to reduce the advancement of spot and inoculum of pathogen with a
frequency of 317 (90.57%), and 287 (82.00%) respectively.
In terms of the establishment of good drainage, only 173 (49.43%) banana farmers were able to
finance the costs involved in establishing a good drainage. Furthermore, it was noted that the municipality
of La Paz, the most interior municipality of the province, has poorly conduct this practice with zero
percentage rate.
Lastly, with regards of the use of tissue cultured seedlings as planting materials, only 55
(15.71%) used cultured seedlings and more than ¼ of them (27.27%) were farmers from the municipality
of Prosperidad.

5.0 CONCLUSION

Based on the findings, Black Sigatoka is a major disease of banana (Musa acuminata) in the
province of Agusan del Sur. Black Sigatoka has a high percentage of incidence, visible at early stage, and
can cause major damage to the banana plantation. Moreover, the study gives information by simply
looking the spatial distribution map of the black sigatoka incidence in each municipality.
Meanwhile, in terms of cultural management, deleafing, and ring weeding are the good practices
of banana farmers, while establishment of good drainage and using tissue culture as planting material are
poorly practiced.

6.0 LITERATURE CITED

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Belalcazar, S.L. (1991). El cultivo del plátano en el trópico. Manual de Asistencia Técnica No. 50. Cali,
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Fairhurst, T. (2012). Handbook for integrated soil fertility management. Naorobi: Africa Soil Health
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(2015) Biological control of banana Black Sigatoka Disease with Trichoderma
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Santosh, K., and Suresh, B. (2016) A Web GIS Based Decision Support System for Agriculture Crop
Monitoring System-A Case Study from Part of Medak District.