WorldVeg Introduces PushPull Technology (P-PT) To Control Insect Pests In Vegetable Production -

By Valentine Oforo

AGRICULTURAL pundits at the World Vegetable Center
(WorldVeg) in Arusha region in collaboration with the International Centre of
Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in
Nairobi, Kenya have introduced a relatively new biological control technology
in the management of insect pests in vegetable production.

The introduced technology, PushPull (P-P), which
does not involve application of any chemical pesticides is being tested for the
control of diamondback moth , cabbage aphid, green peach aphid, Indian mustard
aphid, which are the most devastating
insect pest in cabbage production areas.

It has been unveiled that, among the biotic factors
which play a vital role in causing significant damage to agricultural
production and productivity worldwide are a wide range of plant and
post-harvest insect pests and diseases for which studies have shown that global
crop losses due to pests and diseases are tremendous and significant implying
to food shortage and hence food insecurity.

Moreover, records show that In Tanzania, between 40
to 100 percent of tomato yield loss is due to bacterial wilt disease, primarily
caused by Ralstonia solanacearum bacteria species complex, and is an important
disease of solanaceous crops such as tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, potatoes and
nightshade including other types of crops such as watermelon.

Giving an exclusive interview to ‘Semamedia’
over the development, Dr. Simon
Boniface, Entomologist and Laboratory Manager who also leads a plant health
team at the Worldveg Arusha, expressed that the introduced technology is based
on the use of repellent and attractive plants inter-cropped with the targeted
crop (main crop).

“As such, the repellent plant pushes the
targeted insect pest away from the main crop and at the same time the pest gets
attracted and trapped by the attractive crop (pull), and hence reduces the
impact of the pest on the main crop to non-economical level. The push-pull
technology, therefore, can be employed and it fits well in the integrated pest
management (IPM) programs in the management of agricultural insect pests,”
he detailed.

Dr Boniface added that the technology (PP-T)
research activitity is under AGROVEG Project, funded by Biovision Foundation
with the main objective of validating the push-pull technology to control pests
on crucifers in order to enhance intercropping, eco-friendly and sustainable
IPM technologies, and upscale the use of improved varieties in Tanzania.

And he added that, apart from dealing with
controlling insect pests on vegetables, WorldVeg also researches extensively on
the strategies to control various plant diseases.

“Various research carried across the country
established that tomato, cabbage, carrot and green pepper stand among the
vegetables that are highly prone to different diseases, exacerbating to great
challenge and yield losses experienced by the involved farmers, hence the need
to assist the involving farmers, ” he said.

He informed that through the project known as Fruit
and Vegetables for Sustainable Healthy Diets (FRESH) Project, the center has
been running a series of helpful measure that have so far started to fetch
promising results.

“The robust project is currently operating in
Arusha and Kilimanjaro Regions is funded by multiple CGIAR Trust Fund funding
organizations,” he expounded.

At the preliminary stages of the project, he
communicated, they conducted a series of
all-round focus group discussions and training sessions with the involved
farmers targeting to understand the kind of major pests and diseases and other
constraints that are vastly troubling vegetable production in their areas in
order to stand a professional side to
bring them proper solutions in a form of good agricultural practices (GAPs)
packages.

After the stage, he unveiled that the experts in the
Entomology, Micro-biology, agronomy and agribusiness Units at the WorldVeg
formed solution packages to solve the problems including collection of plant
samples from the farmers’ fields to diagnose the types of pathogens causing the
the diseases in order to plan for effective means to manage the diseases.

“The GAPs are being delivered to the farmers in form
of demonstration plots in a participatory approach both theoretical and
practically to ensure proper understanding by the farmers so that they can
finally adopt the technologies and hence sustainable vegetable production to improve household nutrition and income,” he shared.

He added that as preliminary outcomes of the
continuing project, the beneficiary farmers have started to observe some
fruitful results, including increased awareness in the importance of using
improved varieties, reduction in pesticide usage, increased profit in tomato
production, improved seedling and plant growth, and significant irrigation
water savings.

He mentioned some of the GAPs that they deliver to
the farmers as being the use of improved varieties, nursery establishment and
management, proper land preparation, planting with recommended plant spacing,
proper irrigation/plant nutrition, weed control including plastic mulch, pests
and diseases identification, irrigation water use efficiency,
uprooting/destroying infected and infested plants, use of insect traps, crop
rotation, judicial use of chemical pesticides, weekly/bi-weekly trainings and
Farmers’ Field Days.

He detailed that most of the research activities
that WorldVeg conducts are implemented in collaboration with various public as
well as private institutions such as Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI), National
Irrigation Commission (NIRC), Tanzania Plant Health and Pesticides Authority
(TPHPA), as well as academia, including the Sokoine University of Agriculture
(SUA) and Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology
(NM-AIST).

Dispensing under the key theme of ‘Sowing Seeds,
Meeting Needs’, Worldveg which recently celebrated 50 years anniversary of it
excelling performance launched its mission in 1992 in Arusha, Northern
Tanzania, after it was founded in 1973 in Asia, and today the center has
professional research and development staff working across the globe on
important vegetable crops such as tomato, pepper, onion and cabbage, as well as
a range of African traditional vegetables, and partners with more than 40
national institutions and many international organizations.

The Center operates three regional bases in Africa:
in Arusha, Tanzania for Eastern and Southern Africa, in Bamako, Mali for West
and Central Africa – Dry Regions (established 2014), and in Cotonou, Benin for
West and Central Africa – Coastal and Humid Regions (2017). There is a liaison
office in Cameroon to reach into sub-Saharan Africa with improved vegetable
varieties and production technologies