MONITOR PESTS IN CROPS, MOYO TELLS FARMERS

By NOEL IYOMBWA

CAREFUL and continuous monitoring of pest and disease levels during critical times of growth of a crop is the key to successful management, Bekithemba Moyo, a renewed farmer based in Mwembeshi has said.

Speaking to The Scoop, Mr. Moyo said this could be done through regular scouting of the field by the farmer and narrated that it helped the farmer to intervene early enough before the pest or disease caused significant damage.

He said scouting made the farmer avoid unnecessary use of pesticides and insecticide, noting that limited use of these substances and oils was important as they also had negative effects on beneficial insects.

“If the application of these substances is not regulated, many pest predators and parasitoids may be killed as well. Over application of these substances may also lead to pests developing resistance. Therefore, scouting should be planned and done in an organised way,” Mr. Moyo said.

He further advised farmers to always get a random sample that would be representative of the overall situation in the crop garden.

He implored farmers to observe and record any of the findings for better decision making adding that the most common pattern in pest and disease scouting programs involved walking along a predetermined zigzag or M-shaped route through a field.

“This pattern is commonly used because it is easy to teach, convenient to use, and ensures that all regions of the field are visited. To monitor insect pests, different traps can also be used. The simple idea is to know more about the presence of the insect pests in the field, especially the fast moving (mobile) insect pests (e.g. fruit flies, lepidopteran pests).

“Fruit flies can be captured using bait traps. For example, PE-bottles with small holes can be half-filled with water, some cattle urine, fruit flesh or a small dead fish and a drop of detergent or soapy water. These bottles are then hung in trees and checked every three days,” he explained.

He said yellow plastic cards coated with adhesive were also good for trapping aphids and leafhoppers.

“Yellow-orange plastic boards are appropriate for white flies, while blue cards are appropriate for trip monitoring. Light traps are especially needed where moths, cutworms, African armyworm, and cotton bollworm are a problem.

“Within crops attacked by cutworms, visual checks of caterpillars have to be done by dawn,” he said.