Authors:
David T. Agbor, Tom T. OBEN, Lesly T. Afoh, Kizito S. Eboh, Yanik F. Kum, Collins T. Fon, John D. Dohnji |
Abstract:
The quest to minimize synthetic insecticide use due to their adverse environmental effects and
the need to improve yield has led to eco-friendly botanical pesticides use. This study was carried
out to demonstrate the efficacy of garlic and lemon liquid botanical extracts in mitigating cowpea
insect pests, diseases and increasing yield at Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine,
University of Buea, Cameroon. The design was a randomized complete block with four
treatments, replicated four times. The treatments comprised synthetic insecticide, garlic liquid
extract, lemon liquid extract, and control. Data collected were subjected to ANOVA(P<0.05).
Cowpea vegetative parameters differed significantly (P<0.05), with garlic liquid extract
dominating synthetic insecticide in the number of leaves having 32 highest leaves, but there was
no significance between botanical pesticides and synthetic insecticide. Botanical pesticides
effectively mitigated pest, significantly different from the control (P<0.05) but similar to the
synthetic insecticide. Garlic liquid extract had 11 thrips per 10 flowers, three less than synthetic
insecticide, and one pod borer/10 flowers less than synthetic insecticide. Fusarium oxysporium,
Curvularia lunata and Botryodiplodia theobromae (BT) were identified to infect cowpea. Least
disease incidence was 11.6 % from plants treated with garlic liquid extract. Cowpea treated with
garlic liquid extract was least infected with the pathogens (23). The highest weight of pods yield was recorded in garlic liquid extract 10 kg/treatment with the lowest in control 5 kg/treatment
and differed significantly (P<0.05) across treatments. Thus garlic and lemon liquid extracts
improved cowpea yield while minimizing environmental hazards.
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