Maize provides staple food for millions of people in Africa. The lepidopterous stemborers such as Chilo partellus and Busseola fusca are major insect pests causing devastating yield losses. Field trials in Kenya found that the forage grasses, Pennisetum purpureum {Napier grass) and Sorghum vulgare sudanense (Sudan grass), attracted greater oviposition by stemborers, than cultivated maize, while non-host forage plants, Melinis minutiflora (molasses grass) and Desmodium uncinatum (silverleaf) repelled gravid female borers. Use of attractive plants as trap crops and repellent plants as inter-crops, reduced stemborer attack and increased levels of parasitism of borers on protected maize, resulting in significant increase in yield. These approaches are being extended for use on-farm in a fully integrated push-pull strategy in maize. In field trials conducted in Suba District of Kenya, where Striga hermonthica is a serious limitation to cultivation of cereals, intercropping the maize with silverleaf reduced infestation by a factor of 40 compared to maize monocrop. Farmer-participatory trials in Trans- Nzoia and Suba Districts of Kenya are in progress with the aim of developing maize-based cropping system that will reduce yield losses due to both stemborer and Striga and at the same time improve soil fertility due to nitrogen-fixing action of silverleaf.

English

0103|AL-Maize Program|AGRIS 0102|AJ

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