df = DataFrame({'foo':['a','b','c'], 'bar':[1, 2, 3], 'new':['apple', 'banana', 'pear']})
df['combined'] = df['foo'].astype(str)+'_'+df['bar'].astype(str)
If you concatenate with string('_') please you convert the column to string which you want and after you can concatenate the dataframe.