Chemical and physical controls

Physical is anything you can use visible contact to solve. You can kill, pick, wash off or chase off the insect.
Currently, on my cowpea farm, there is this black insect resembling soldier ant and they're molding sand around the beans plants and sometimes the flowers.
Normally, I would have used insecticides on them but No I didn't. Why? Because, with little shaking, they fall off even with wind, there are not feasible harm they're causing, and rain washes them off, which these days, it's like June. I am not ready to overwhelm the beans with chemicals

Chemical Control you always be your last resolve when all the above fails or does not make sense as in it is not feasible

OK. Let me start with the pictures now.

There are two farms, four units.

Farm A

Unit 1= flowering and fruiting stage
Unit 2= early flowering stage

Farm B

Unit 3 (Cowpea intercrop with (few) maize
= preparing to spread hand (don't forget, they're semi erect), some preparing to flower

Unit 4= bringing their 4th -5th leaves (4th -5th trifoliate)

This is physical control.

Till now, we have not sprayed the beans with insecticides and little insect pests infestation


The pictures now

Unit 1. Closed up already, minimal weeds present and weeding not a necessity now but could be handpicked

Pods above the canopy

Unit 2.

Delayed weeding caused them not to spread hand much but as rain is doing here, which I've got mixed reaction on, they might do.

Unit 3
Maize intercrop, currently being weeded

Unit 4
Still leafing

Being weeded

Early morning bloom

Good day Sir and thanks so much for all the insights on beans farming.
Please besides September, what other months would you recommend for beans farming in the south?
Regards

Dawson126:
Being weeded

Can legume force be used instead of weeding manually?

Yemighty2:



Can legume force be used instead of weeding manually?

Good day sir, sorry for the delay.

Legume force might do it. Please mark might. You could end up not really happy with the kind of result you might have at the end of the day. Just like Lagon used in maize and cassava intercrop (MCI) (if you have an experienced MCI farmer, ask them about lagon). Legume force need a degree of moisture (condensed water dropplet) in air and residual water in the soil to be effective. And also, not all cowpea varieties can withstand imazethapyr (active ingredient in legume force) . Please mark not all.


Imazethapyr is a derivative of imazapyr. This imazapyr is a powerful herbicide, not only on land but also in water!

You wonder how white people could cultivate several hectares of maize and wouldn't have to disturb themselves on weeding?

One of these days, we will talk about imazapyr and it derivatives. And the goodnews, we have them in Nigeria.

Harvesting is close at hand but this time, I will be away like a month. Education could be burden sometimes

Wow

After the long absence, got to field today and harvest began. More updates and pics tomorrow

2 and half bags of unshelled beans

More updates to come tomorrow

princenomics:
Thanks for the advice but I have a question, if I apply insecticide during flowering, won't it affect the bees and other pollinators?

Most of the beneficial insects are piercing and sucking insects and most field insecticides used are (Lambda plus, chyphermetrin, e.t.c) which are very effective in the control of biting and chewing insects. That's why insecticides like snipers are not mostly used on the field cus they kill anything insect either biting, chewing or piercing.

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