Other Collaborators

KARI 

Green Ink Pulishing Ltd   

 NARO   

WESTERN SEED    

Stemborers and striga account for losses in maize in the eastern and southern Africa region of 15-40% and 10-20%, respectively. When the two occur together, farmers can lose their entire crop. Preventing such losses in maize would feed an additional 27 million people in the region.

ICIPE and her partners have developed a "Push-Pull" or stimulo-deterrent diversionary strategy, using trap- and repellent plants for management of cereal stemborers in maize-based farming systems in Africa. Stemborers are repelled from the main crop (maize) and are simultaneously attracted to a trap plant (Napier or Sudan grass). The system is based on ages old African practices of mixed cropping and helps restore the balance of nature that the human kind has disrupted with such practices as over-intensive monoculture, misuse of pesticides and soil depletion. The approach relies on a    carefully selected combination of companion crops to be planted around and among the maize plants for manipulation of the agro-ecohabitat of pests and their natural enemies.The grasses are planted in a border around the maize fields, where invading adult moths become attracted to chemical emitted by the grasses themselves. Instead of landing on the maize plants, the insects head for what appears to be a tastier meal. These grasses provide the "pull" in the "push-pull" strategy....find out more about push-pull

  [ICIPE-Thomas Odhiambo Campus-Mbita ]

P.O. Box 30, Mbita,40305, Kenya.

Telephone: (254)-059- 22216 / 22218 / 22210       

Fax:               (254)-059-22190

Email:           zkhan@icipe.org

                               Webmaster: Philemon Orondo   

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