Production of cereal crops in sub-Saharan Africa is threatened by parasitic striga weeds and attack by stemborers and the invasive fall armyworm (FAW), compounded by increasing hot and dry conditions. A climate-smart push-pull technology (PPT) significantly reduces effects of these biotic challenges. To improve further resilience of the system to climate change, more adapted and suitable companion plants were identified and integrated in a new version of PPT, termed ‘third generation PPT’. Our study evaluates field performance and farmer opinions of this new version in comparison with the earlier version, climate-smart PPT, and farmers’ own practices of growing maize in controlling stemborers, FAW, and striga weeds. Trials were conducted across five locations in western Kenya for two cropping seasons in the year 2019 following a one-farm one-replicate completely randomized design. We assessed infestation on striga, stemborers, and FAW, and yield performance of the three cropping systems. We also sought the opinions of the hosting farmers through semi-structured questionnaires that were administered through individual interviews. Both PPT plots recorded significantly (P < 0.05) lower striga count, FAW, and stemborer damage, and higher grain yield than in plots that followed farmers’ own practices. There was no statistically significant difference between the two PPT plots except for stemborer damage for which the third generation PPT recorded higher damage than the climate-smart PPT. However, farmers preferred the third generation PPT for important traits possessed by its companion plants which their counterparts in climate-smart PPT are deficient. The cultivar Xaraes was rated as ‘very good’ for resistance to spider mites, biomass yield, and drought tolerance while Desmodium incanum was rated ‘very good’ for seed production and drought tolerance. The third generation PPT is based on companion crops that are more resilient to hot and dry conditions which are increasing rapidly in prevalence with climate change. This version therefore presents a better option to upscale the technology and meet different needs of farmers especially in arid and semi-arid conditions.

The survival of female Anopheles gambiae s.s. mosquitoes inside two village house types (grass-thatched and iron-roofed) was studied in relation to diet and ambient indoor microclimatic conditions. Two batches of 20–30, 1-day-old laboratory-bred mosquitoes were maintained inside cages in the grass-thatched (n=2) and iron-roofed (n=2) houses and fed daily, one group on 10% glucose and the other on human blood. Throughout the experiments, indoor temperature and relative humidity of the houses were recorded, and mortality of mosquitoes monitored daily until all had died. The experiments were replicated thrice. There was no significant variation in the overall mean temperature (P=0.93) or relative humidity profiles (P=0.099) between the two house types, although the iron-roofed houses recorded higher temperature peaks. A Kaplan–Meier survival analysis showed that the mean survival times of mosquitoes were 8 and 10 days in the two grass-thatched huts and 7 and 10 days in the two iron-roof houses for mosquitoes feeding on blood and sugar meals, respectively. The mean survival times of mosquitoes maintained inside similar house types differed only due to diet. In the proportionality of hazards model (Cox regression), the dietary regimes significantly influenced the probability of survival (P=0.0001), with mosquitoes surviving longer on sugar meals than on blood. Microclimatic factors inside houses also significantly influenced mosquito survival. Although higher peak temperatures were recorded in corrugated iron-roofed houses, the survival of the mosquitoes resting in them did not differ significantly from that in grass-thatched houses. However, the impact of these temperatures on the development of malaria parasites inside the vector needs to be investigated.