PhD (ongoing)

- University of Dschang, Cameroon, 2020-
- Subject: Development and analysis of a self-financing model for cabbage crop including pest control
- Supervisors: B. Tsanou, F. Grognard, S. Touzeau
Context
- Cabbage: staple food and income for African smallholder farmers – 4th most widely cultivated vegetable [FAO 2022]
- Diamondback moth (DBM) Plutella xylostella
- larvae feed on preferably young cruciferous plants
- major pest, worldwide distributed
- Control methods
- chemical pesticides: DBM resistance
- botanical pesticides
- biocontrol agents: parasitoids and predators, entomopathogens
Objectives
- Develop a bio-economic model of a self-financing smallholder farm based on cabbage production with pest control
- Provide qualitative and quantitative foundations for the implementation of sustainable control methods against DBM under budget constraint
Results
Bio-economic modelling
- Model of a self-financing cabbage farm with
- young and mature cabbage stages to represent DBM preference for young leaves
- cabbage-pest interactions
- farm revenues distributed between seedling purchase, plant protection and farmer’s income
- Effectiveness of botanical pesticides to control DBM pests
- Sustainability and profitability of such a farm
A. Kambeu Youmbi, S. Touzeau, F. Grognard, B. Tsanou. Self-financing model for cabbage crops with pest management. Preprint, 2024. HAL: hal-04589904
Optimisation of biological control deployment (ongoing)
- Continuous or discrete releases of DBM parasitoids
- Parasitoid establishment and effectiveness
- Optimisation of farmer’s income
A. Kambeu Youmbi, S. Touzeau, F. Grognard, B. Tsanou. Biological control of diamondback moth: a mathematical approach. In: DSABNS 2024 – 15th International Conference on Dynamical Systems Applied to Biology and Natural Sciences, Caparica, Portugal, February 2024. HAL: hal-04452042
F. Grognard, A. Kambeu Youmbi, S. Touzeau, B. Tsanou. Bioeconomic modelling for sustainable biological control against a cabbage pest. In: ECMTB’24 – 13th European Conference on Mathematical and Theoretical Biology, Toledo, Spain, July 2024. HAL: hal-04695167
Misc
- EPITAG visits in France
- Feb.-April 2023
- Nov. 2023-April 2024
- Conferences
- MPDEE 2023, Marseille, France – HAL: hal-04140598
- DSABNS 2024, Caparica, Portugal – HAL: hal-04452042
- ECMTB 2024, Toledo, Spain – HAL: hal-04695167