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10-Minute Presentation

Plant-Insect Ecosystems

10-min: P-IE, IPM - Field Crops

Is push-pull technology ready for farmer fields in vegetable production systems? Insights from smallholder cabbage production in Tanzania

Sunday, November 9, 2025
10:48 AM - 11:00 AM Pacific
Location: Oregon Convention Center, E143-144, OCC
Oral Presentation
Push-pull technology (PPT), originally developed for cereal cropping systems, is gaining interest in vegetable production as an agroecologically sound alternative to synthetic chemical pesticides. However, its efficacy in smallholder vegetable farming systems remains underexploited. This study targets two major cabbage pests: diamondback moth (DBM) and aphids, offering a novel approach to evaluating the breadth of vegetable push-pull efficacy in cabbage across farmer-managed fields in northern Tanzania. Five treatments were tested, including individual push (onion), pull (spider plant or bean sprayed with kale extract), and a push-pull system, against a cabbage-only control. None of the treatments reduced pest infestation pressure compared to the control. While the overall treatment effect on DBM abundance was not statistically significant, onion led to a substantial increase in DBM counts compared to the control. The spider plant, onion, and push-pull treatments significantly increased aphid abundance and damage. Yield analyses revealed that push-pull treatments generally resulted in smaller cabbage heads and lower weights, likely due to resource competition. Despite this, economic analysis indicated that systems integrating marketable companion crops could improve overall profitability under low-input conditions, with the full push-pull system generating the highest gross returns per hectare. Farmer-specific effects were significant across pest, damage, yield, and economic parameters, reflecting the influence of management practices and local agroecological contexts. These findings highlight the complexity of translating PPT into smallholder vegetable systems and emphasize the need for participatory research, spatial optimization of companion crops, and context-specific adaptation to improve pest suppression and economic viability without compromising yield.