Management of Cowpea Insect Pests

Abstract

Cowpea is mainly grown in tropical and sub-tropical regions in the world for vegetable and grains and to lesser extent as a fodder crop. It is a most versatile pulse crop because of its smothering nature, drought tolerant characters, soil restoring properties and multi-purpose uses. Cowpea is a hardy crop but it hosts many insect pests that attack vegetables. These include; leaf miners, whiteflies (Bemisia tabaci), leafhoppers (Empoasca sp.), mites (Tetranychus spp.), thrips (Megalurothrips sjostedti), Ootheca sp., Clavigralla sp., Maruca sp. and aphids (Aphis craccivora) which generally cause low yield and sometimes total yield losses and crop failure occur due to the activities of a spectrum of insect pests which ravage the crop in the field at different growth stages. Several management strategies are available such as use of synthetic organic insecticides, botanical insecticides are naturally occurring chemical extracted from plants which break down readily in the soil and are not stored in plant or animal tissue, insect resistance cowpea variety (such as Bt gene which comes from a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis). Bt proteins selectively kill certain types of insects without affecting other living organisms. As such, Bt bacteria and Bt proteins have been used for years as biological controls for certain insect pests in farming, especially in the organic food industry.