Feature: Farmers get way to tame African bollworm
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail Xinhua, December 21, 2012
Over years, the African bollworm has a thorn in the flesh of many farmers across the country and even beyond the borders. But farmers have now got a new way to control the pest.
The worm which attacks cotton, beans, maize, tobacco, tomato, flowers and pulses has for long given farmers sleepless nights.
The female moth lays her eggs on the fruits, leaves or boll with the hatched caterpillars penetrating the fruit within the first two days.
This infestation can cause complete loss of the crop.
"Caterpillars are the most serious pests in tomatoes. One has to keep spraying with pesticides to put them under control," asserts Charles Macharia, smallholder farmer in Mugoiri, Murang'a County, Central Kenya.
With the high cost of pesticides and the inherent dangers of their continued use both to the farmer and the environment, development of traps has become a better solution to the pest.
"Farmers are now seeking the traps to control these pests that have contributed to crop loss across the country. They are cheap and easy to use," said Winrose Mukunzu, a sales person with Kenya Biologics Ltd, a Thika based company that has developed the bollworm traps.
The bollworm trap was a center of attraction at the recently ended Naivasha Horticultural Fair.
The traps use artificial pheromones- chemicals similar to those produced by female moths to attractive males.
The traps lure the males which then get stuck on the stick paper and die. Each trap has a lure, wingtrap and a sticky paper.
They release the pheromones for a period of eight to 10 weeks and have a range of 50 meters.
"These traps can be used in greenhouses and even in the open field. One trap per acre can be used for monitoring- checking the presence of the moths. For control, 10 traps per acre will significantly reduce the damage to crops," noted Mukunzu.
Each trap costs 1,060 shillings and can be used in the Integrate Pest Management where combination of methods is utilized in pest control.
However, farmers need to replace the traps once they are saturated with moths to make them more effective. The wingtrap will last several seasons under normal circumstances.
The traps are also said to be effective against diamondback moths- a serious pest of vegetables. Since there are no chemicals sprayed on crops, there is little residue to the environment and therefore no pollution.
In East Africa, traps have also been used to control tsetse fly- a vector for trypanosomiasis, a cattle and human disease that kills millions of livestock in sub-Saharan Africa.
Scientists working on tsetse fly control measures have identified lizard and pig odors as possible baits for the trypanosomiasis transmitting insects.
Researchers including those from the Kenya based International Center for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) have found out that two species of tsetse flies - Glossina fulcipes and G. quanzensis - were attracted to pig and lizard smells, providing a possible development of regular traps.
Across the African continent, around 300,000 people are affected by trypanosomiasis which affects both humans and livestock.
Lack of artificial attractants to tsetse has hampered the control and eradication of these insects that have also rendered most of the open African savanna unsuitable for livestock keeping.
The scientists report that identifying the components in lizard and pig odor that is attractive to the flies will improve performance of the traps.
The African bollworm is a pest of major importance in most areas where it occurs. It damages a wide variety of food, fibre, oilseed, fodder and horticultural crops. It is a major pest due to its high mobility, its ability to feed on many species of plants, its high fecundity and reproductive rate, and its capacity to develop resistance to pesticides.
The habit of feeding inside the fruiting parts of the plant during most of its development makes bollworms less vulnerable to insecticides. Pesticides should be applied before the caterpillars bore into the fruits/pods.
The African bollworm has a strong ability to develop resistance to insecticides. Currently there is a widespread occurrence of resistance in bollworms to popular synthetic pyrethroids in Africa. Endi
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)