Fall Armyworm found in maize

Virudhunagar district administration has come up with an integrated pest control measures to check the attack of Fall Armyworm in maize that has been spotted in different areas in the district.

In a statement, Virudhunagar Collector, R Kannan, said that out of the 24,000 hectares of farm area targeted to raise Maize, the farmers have so far covered 15,596 hectares. The standing crops were of 15 days to 45 days old.

The statement appealed to the farmers to follow integrated crop protection measures as successfully done last year to contain the spread of the pest.

Among them are summer ploughing, mixing of neem cake with the soil and using of pheromone traps.

Deep ploughing: Recommending deep ploughing, the officials from Department of Agriculture have advised the farmers to mix 250 kg of neem cake for every hectare.

The seeds should be treated with 10 grams of bio-pest control like Beauveria Bassiana and 10 gram of Metarhizium 30% (FS) or 6 mg of cyantriniliprole 19.8% and Metarhizium 19.8%. This will help in controlling of the pest in the first

15-20 days of crop.

The farmers were also advised to go for simultaneous sowing in all the farm lands.

A uniform distance of 60 cm by 25 cm gap should be maintained for lift irrigation crop and 45 cm by 20 cm gam for rain-fed areas. Besides, for every 10 rows, 75 cm of gap of one row should be maintained.

One solar-powered trap and 12 pheromone trap should be laid for every hectare, the Collector said.

Besides, beneficial crops like cowpea, sunflower gingelly and sorghum and samanthi can be raised a border crop and black gram and green gram can be raised as inter crop.

Farmers should detect eggs and larvae of Fall Armyworm under the maize leaves and eradicate them Lime powder should be mixed with sand in the ratio of 1:9 and sprayed on crown.

If the pests are found in 5% area of the farm, neem seed mixture or azadirachtin 1,500 ppm 5 ml in one litre of water or 2 ml of azadirachtin 1% in one litre of water should be sprayed.

To prepare need seed mixture, 10 kg of neem seed should be powdered and it should be mixed in 50 litres of water and kept for one day.

After filtering it, 200 gram of khadi soap powder should be mixed and added to 200 litres of water.

If the spread of pest is upto 10%, then Bassiana Thuringiensis Kurstaki 400 gram or one kg of metarhizium anisopliae or one kg of Beauveria Bassiana should be sprayed.

No chemical pesticide should be used between flowering and harvesting period.

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