Dominican Republic: Rice Disease Alert

The Dominican Institute of Farming and Forest Investigations (IDIAF) celebrated a day of field, in the Experimental Station of Juma.

The aim of that event is to promote the investigations on the Syndrome of rice spinki Smiley, that perceivably reduces yield of harvest and benefits of agriculturists. The spinki Smiley is caused by biotic and abiotic factors as arthropods, plagues, pathogens and other climatic factors.

Studies made by IDIAF show that spinki Smiley affects a great number of rice dealers in the Dominican Republic, inflicting looses that surpasses a 20% every year.

The rice is the main crop for its economic importance in the daily diet of the Dominicans, the consumption per capita per year is 47 kilos (8 million cwt of white rice). The annual production of rice reaches more than 10.000 million pesos *.

* 1 USD = 32,1280 DOP