Plants Extracts and a Mycoinsecticide in Cowpea Yield Improvement in Guinean Savanah and Sahelian Savanah Agro-Ecological Zones of Cameroun

Cowpea yield improvement is done by adding agricultural inputs. The use of natural substances as pesticides is being encouraged to fight against cowpea field pests. The pesticidal potentials of Azadirachta indica and Boswellia dalzielii water extracts, Metarhizium anisopliae, alone and in combination with plant extracts, and a commercial synthetic pesticide (Decis®) were tested in field on two varieties of cowpeas, Vigna unguiculata in two agroecological zones (Guinean Savanah and Sahelian Savanah) of Cameroon. The field trials were carried out in a full randomized block design including nine treatments and a control. Four replications were made concerning the different treatments and control. At the flowering stage, the cowpea field was sprayed three times with different pesticidal formulations at the interval of five days. The number of ramifications per plant, and that of pods per block and seed yield were determined. The pesticide formulations considerably (p ®). Bafia variety treated with the combination of M. anisopliae and A. indica recorded the highest ramification rate (37.03 ± 1.59) in Maroua (Sahelian Savanah). The same variety also produced more important pods number (90.50 ± 16.66) in Ngaoundere (Guinean Savanah) with the binary combination of two plants used in this experiment. The highest seed yield (44.23 ± 2.31) was recorded in Ngaoundere with B125 variety treated with the combination of the three pesticidal formulations separately (A. indica, B. dalzielii, M. anisopliae). The plant products used in this work, M. anisopliae and their mixtures could supersede the synthetic pesticides considering environmental issue in cowpea crop protection. Then, such formulations would not only improve crop productivity but also preserve environment from the pollution due to the use of synthetic residual chemicals.