Biofacade for Urban Development: Pest and Diseases, Its Control and Prevention

Abstract

Biological façade (biofacade) is an ecological friendly building design. Biofacade represents a new idea that is beneficial in reducing the carbon in the atmosphere and provide foods or medicine for the benefit of bottom billions. During our research, there was lots of obstacle from the environment factors such as pest and disease which attacked the plants. Without proper prevention, the plants cannot survive until the end of their life span and this is the main problem for biofacade in the tropical environment. This paper discusses the maintenance of biofacade, including the prevention of pests and diseases that attack wall-climbing legume plants such as Bemisia tabaci and fungi. Four types of legume, namely the Pisum sativum, Vigna unguiculata sesquipedalis, Psophocarpus tetrogonobulus and Phaseolus vulgaris were studied. The plants were allowed to overgrow on a chain-fence attached to a typical brick wall at Desasiswa Tekun, Universiti Sains Malaysia. The plants were grown from January until May 2010. Every legume species were grown from seedlings. There were three pots for each species; altogether there were 12 potted plants. In the first month of growth, the seedlings were grown under 50 % of shade and were subsequently transferred under open sunlight after its maturation. All potted plants received direct afternoon sunlight from 1 pm until 5 pm. The dry weight of the pods was taken during the observations. Pisum sativum and Vigna unguiculata sesquipedalis was recorded on the average of 58.1 g and 18.8 g, respectively.