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New ecological options for the management of horticultural crop pests in Sudano-Sahelian agroecosystems of west Africa

OAR@ICRISAT

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/8971/
 
Title New ecological options for the management of horticultural crop pests in Sudano-Sahelian agroecosystems of west Africa
 
Creator Ratnadass, A
Ryckewaert, P
Thunes, K
Claude, Z
Nikiema, A
Pasternak, D
Woltering, L
Zakari-Moussa, O
 
Subject Agriculture-Farming, Production, Technology, Economics
 
Description The agroecological approach to agroecosystem management relies on two
pillars: vegetational diversification and soil biological activity enhancement. Although
crop pests and their natural enemies may be diversely affected by measures derived
from these principles, those generally result in increased agroecosystem resilience visà-
vis both aerial and soil pests. Earlier studies by ICRISAT and CIRAD and their
partners in West Africa showed the potential of the implementation of these principles
for the management of some major pests of both staple food and horticultural crops,
and their limitations for others, notably in the water-saving and income-generating
systems mixing cereals, legumes, and high-value crops currently promoted in the
Sudano-Sahelian zones, such as the drip irrigation-based African Market Garden
(AMG) and the water harvesting-based Bio-Reclamation of Degraded Lands (BDL)
systems. Pigeon-pea showed potential for trap-cropping tomato fruit worm (TFW) on
okra, while Andropogon grass was dismissed for such management of stem-borer on
pearl millet, and mixed results were obtained with castor bean and other potential
trap crops for panicle-feeding bug management on sorghum. The results presented
highlight the potential for mobilizing either aerial or soil-bound biological processes
for managing fruit flies (FF), the main pest of grafted jujube tree, and leaf worm, the
main pest of the Moringa tree, for sustainable production of these two major crops (in
BDL and AMG systems, respectively), without having to rely on synthetic pesticide
sprays. Studies on the social acceptability of the proposed management options (e.g.,
pigeon-pea in okra-based BDL) are also underway. The potential of the Jatropha
shrub grown as a live-fence around these systems, either for its top-down effects or via
the use of its extracts in an assisted push-pull strategy, is discussed. These studies on
targeted pathosystems serve the dual purpose of finding solutions to local problems
and contribute more globally to the design of pest resilient agrosystems.
 
Publisher Elsevier
 
Date 2011
 
Type Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
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Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/8971/1/Ratnadass%20et%20al%202011.pdf
Ratnadass, A and Ryckewaert, P and Thunes, K and Claude, Z and Nikiema, A and Pasternak, D and Woltering, L and Zakari-Moussa, O (2011) New ecological options for the management of horticultural crop pests in Sudano-Sahelian agroecosystems of west Africa. In: Proc. XXVIIIth IHC – IS on Plant Protection.