Dear Kariuki,
This was a very interesting read, and a piece of research that was
badly lacking in Kenya.
With the Egyptians about to slaughter another 20 million of our
palearctic migrants, it will inevitably have an affect on crop
preservation, and as a result many Kenyans will go hungry! An issue
that will have to be taken up with them.
Best for now
brian

On 7/28/13, Kariuki Ndang'ang'a <ndanganga@yahoo.com> wrote:
> See below. Available
> at:http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09670874.2013.820005
> To download full paper for free (50 copies available as I write)
> visit http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/3UHmKjdIVQTq93SDfrE9/full
>
>
> Quantifying the contribution of birds to the control of arthropod pests on
> kale, Brassica oleracea acephala, a key crop in East African highland
> farmland
> DOI:10.1080/09670874.2013.820005Paul Kariuki Ndang’ang’aab, John B.M.
> Njorogeb & Juliet Vickeryc
>
>
> Bird exclusion experiments on kale (Brassica sp.) plants were undertaken to
> quantify the extent to which foraging birds contributed to reducing the
> densities and impact of invertebrate pests. During the dry season,
> significantly higher leaf-area loss, aphid and thrips abundance were
> recorded in bird-excluded compared with control plants, suggesting that
> birds could make an important contribution to pest control. On average, per
> week, during the dry season, exclusion of birds from kale plants led to both
> a marked increase (130%) in the number of leaves infested with aphids and an
> increase in leaf damage by pests (about three times greater than when birds
> had access to the kale plants). These results suggest that, in the dry
> season, foraging birds reduce the invertebrate pest load and hence the
> amount of leaf damage in kale, and that this may, in turn, have an impact of
> the market value of the crop. We recommend that measures to enhance avian
> insectivory
>  should be explored and encouraged in order to better take advantage of
> birds in integrated pest management of kale and possibly other crops.