Push-pull technology against maize stemborers
Tecnología «push-pull» contra barrenadores del maíz
- Date
- c. 1994 · confidence medium
- Place
- Mbita, Homa Bay, Kenya
- Credited to
- Zeyaur Khan, John Pickett and Ahmed Hassanali (icipe and Rothamsted)
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
Desmodium is planted between the maize rows, which repels (push) stemborers and suppresses the parasitic Striga, and the field is ringed with Napier grass, which attracts them (pull). It raises yields without pesticides and feeds livestock.
The first field trials were in the 1990s at Mbita (Kenya); the technique was developed from chemical-ecology studies at Rothamsted. It has spread to Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia.
What it led to
- adoption by hundreds of thousands of East African smallholders
- integrated pest control with semiochemicals
- climate-adapted push-pull variants