Browsing by Author "Abel, Fikiri"

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Biopesticides Potential to Protect Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) Production from Early Blight Disease (Alternaria solani) and Leaf Miners (Tuta absoluta)
(preprint, 2025-01-03) Abel, Fikiri; Mkindi, Angela; Mbega, Ernest; Stevenson, Philip; Belmain, Steven; Venkataramana, Pavithravani
Early blight disease (Alternaria solani) and leaf miners (Tuta absoluta) pose significant biotic constraints to tomato production, causing 80 -100% yield loss. A study involving laboratory, screen house and field experiments evaluated the efficacy of plant and bio product pesticides including extracts of Azadirachta indica, Lantana camara , Cymbopogon citratus, Capsicum frutescens, Zingiber officinal and rabbit urine. We report significant inhibition of fungal mycelial growth ranging from 20% with a 5% rabbit urine to 98.25% by 10% hot pepper in the laboratory. Screen house trials showed a positive inhibitory effect of plant extracts on controlling leaf miners. The most effective extracts were 10% lantana (80%), 10% hot pepper (76.6%) and 10% ginger (72.6%).The most successful four extracts were used in field trials and resulted in an average 50% reduction in disease severity compared to the control. Also, 10% ginger, hot pepper (both 5% and 10%) and 10% lantana were effective in controlling Tuta absoluta and significantly reduced leaf damage. A cost benefit analysis showed that the 5% hot pepper treatment had the highest revenue benefit compared to the negative control and conventional tomato production methods. Further research is needed to integrate these biopesticides into crop management practices.