African indigenous vegetable species (AIVS) provide a means of livelihood to many urban and peri-urban dwellers in Uganda. It was thus deemed necessary to understand the existing diversity and distribution of the traditional African vegetable species as a basis for recommending conservation and utilization strategies against biodiversity loss. A field survey was conducted in the four major agro-ecological zones of Uganda to provide information on a recent abundance of the various AIVS. Results from the survey showed that the Solanaceae (43.4%), Amaranthaceae (15.5%) and Malvaceae (11.6%) were the most prevalent families out of seven different families encountered. Twenty-three (23) species, a number lower than that initially reported in literature and distributed unevenly in the different regions were identified. Majority of the species were the indigenous rather than introduced vegetable species. Firstly, the study is informative of the superior importance of Solanaceous species compared to other AIVS. Secondly, the survey results indicate that the AIVS are becoming increasingly more important in Uganda than their introduced counterparts since all the 43.4% that composed the Solanaceae majority were of indigenous type. Research efforts should be devoted towards improved variety development and germplasm conservation to prevent a possible biodiversity loss of the most important AIVS for increased household incomes and nutrient security among the resource-poor majority in Uganda and other sub-Saharan Africa countries. Key words: Crop biodiversity, germplasm collection, indigenous vegetables, species abundance.

Soil moisture conservation practices (SMCPs) have been adopted in Uganda to adapt to the effects of climate variability. However, limited information exists on how conservation measures influence the physico-chemical properties of soil and coffee leaf nutrient concentrations. Thus, we determined the effects of selected SMCPs on the soil physio-chemical properties and leaf nutrient concentrations in Robusta coffee in a randomized incomplete block design, replicated three times, in Kituza, Uganda. Soil samples were collected from 0 to 20 cm and 20 to 40 cm depths, and analyzed in the laboratory following standard procedures for selected physio-chemical properties. Coffee leaf samples were picked from each treatment (open sun coffee (COSS), coffee cover crop, Desmodium intortum (CCS), coffee mulch, Miscanthidium violoceum (CMS), and coffee A. coriaria (ACS)). Bulk density was significantly (p < 0.001) the highest under ACS (1.61 gcm⁻³) and lowest under CCS (1.29 gcm⁻³), and it significantly (p < 0.001) increased with depth. The soil organic matter was higher than the optimum range of 1–3% at the 0–20 cm depth across different SMCPs, but within the optimum range at the 20–40 cm depth. Leaf nitrogen was significantly the highest under ACS (3.19%) and lowest under COSS (2.30%). Overall, the findings suggest that SMCPs improve the soil physio-chemical attributes and leaf nutrients for sustainable coffee productivity. However, ACS improved the leaf plant nutrition better compared to other SMCPs.

Effective phenotyping for drought resistance is a pre-requisite for identification of modest crop varieties for farmers. For neglected and underutilized crops such as Solanum aethiopicum Shum group, no drought screening protocol based on rigorous iterations has been documented. A split-plot nested treatment structure was arranged in an experiment to identify growth stage-specific watering thresholds for this crop. Three plant growth stages (main plot; seedling, vegetative and flowering), watering regime at plant growth stage (2 regimes; well-watered and drought stressed) and day since last watering at plant growth stage were evaluated for soil moisture content (SMC), leaf wilting score (LWS), number of green leaves per plant (LPP) and leaf blade width (LBW). Highly significant differences (p < 0.001) were found at the different plant growth stages, watering regime (WR) within plant growth stage, and day within WR and plant growth stage. Under drought stress treatment, SMC declined exponentially at each stage. The earliest leaf wilting, reduction in LPP and LBW were generally observed at flowering followed by vegetative and slowest at the seedling stage. For future effective drought phenotyping studies in S. aethiopicum Shum and related crops, we recommend setting minimum drought stress treatments below 18% SMC at which the LWS is ≥2 at the vegetative.