Soybean is an important crop in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country faced with high levels of war induced malnutrition but its productivity is limited by poor soil fertility coupled with low access to nitrogen mineral fertilizers. Commercial rhizobia strains introduced in 2010 failed to adapt and increase soybeans yields at desired level. We studied the performance of six indigenous rhizobia strains in enhancing soybean productivity compared to two commercial strains USDA110 and SEMIA5019. The study was carried out in the greenhouse and field of Kalambo station of International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), D. R. Congo during 2016/2017 cropping season. The treatments included: (1) N-, control without inoculation and N-fertilizer; (2) N+, non-inoculated control with 80 kg of N ha −1 ; and inoculated with (3) commercial strain Bradyrhizobium diazoefficiens USDA110; (4) commercial strain Bradyrhizobium elkanii SEMIA5019; (5) local strains Bradyrhizobium japonicum NAC17; (6) NAC22; (7) NAC37, (8) NAC42 (9) NAC 46 and (10) NAC78. Greenhouse and field experiments were laid out as completely randomized design and randomized complete block design respectively. The best inoculation treatments across all experiments were the indigenous strains NAC46 and NAC17 which nodulated equally or better than the commercial strain USDA 110. In the field NAC46 and NAC17 increased soybean grain yield from 2.4 to 3.3 t ha-1 and 3.4 t ha-1 ; indicating the increase of 68.7 and 70.8% respectively, over the commercial strain USDA110. The results demonstrated that indigenous rhizobia NAC46 and NAC17 would thus be the silver bullet to enhanced BNF and soybean yields in South Kivu province of Democratic Republic of Congo.

Effects of Commiphora swynnertonii, Synadenium glaucescens and Allium sativum extracts on the tomato leaf miner, Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) were evaluated on the adults and in screen house conditions. The adult stage was involved with 30 adults that were reared in an insectarium, the experimental design was a completely randomized design (plant extracts from three plants species  three doses of 2%, 4% and 8%). In the screen house, experimental dispositive was a completely randomized block design (two varieties of tomatoes  three plants extracts). Larval counts were performed after 0, 1, 2, 3 and 7 d of treatment, 40 tomato leaves (10  4 replicates) were randomly taken from each treatment. The mean percentage mortality of adults was recorded daily for 5 d.Results indicated that, each plant extract caused significant mortality to adults of T. absoluta after 5 d in comparison to the control. Leaf dipping against adult of T. absoluta proved to be the most effective for all plant extracts at 30%-100%. Commiphora resulted in the adults' mortality of 100%. In the screen house Commiphora showed the high reduction of infestation for Tanya and Cal J varieties. Treatment with this plant extract resulted in the highest fruit yield and the lowest yield loss compared to all the plant extracts. C. swynnertonii extract is recommended into integrated pest management strategies for the control of T. absoluta.