Did pink bollworm spread due to failure of pest traps?

November 25, 2016 12:47 am | Updated 12:47 am IST

No control:  Farmers displaying the failed funnel type pheromone pest trap at Jamidi in Adilabad district.

No control: Farmers displaying the failed funnel type pheromone pest trap at Jamidi in Adilabad district.

ADILABAD: The failure of the pheromone pest traps is a suspected to be a major reason for spread of pink bollworm (Pectinophora gossypiella) in cotton crop at Jamidi village in Tamsi mandal of Adilabad district. Farmers say that they failed to gauge the intensity of pest attack due to the dysfunctional ‘lures’ in the pheromone traps supplied by Pest Control India Pvt. Ltd. (PCI).

Cotton crop not only at Jamidi but Dhanora in the same mandal and many villages in Neredigonda, Bazarhatnoor and Talamadugu mandals came under pink bollworm attack, unusually in August itself.

The farmers of Jamidi however, were quick to react to the situation and bought 3,000 pheromone traps from the Bengaluru-based company to control bring the pest attack under check.

Effective solution

“PCI representatives told us that five traps per acre of crop would help in monitoring the incidence of the pest and 10 traps would be effective to control the pest,” farmer Sarsan Bhooma Reddy said. “These traps were ineffective as the lures did not attract the male insects,” he added.

“If the five ‘monitor’ traps in an acre of cotton attract eight or more insects each for three consecutive days, it shows that the pest attack has crossed the economic threshold level or acceptable level and 10 would trap a higher number of insects,” concurred Coordinator Adilabad District Agriculture Advisory and Transfer of Technology Centre Sudhanshu Kasbe.

“However, it cannot be said that the pheromone traps alone would completely control pink bollworm attack,” he added.

Complacency

The farmers had become complacent when they saw no insects being trapped by the lure and thought that there was no pest attack. “It was only when the damage was done that we realised that the traps were useless and purchased a different set,” chairman of the local Primary Agriculture Cooperative Society, which bought the traps, Baddam Vinod Reddy said.

“After realising that the traps were a waste, we informed the PCI at Bengaluru who sent two of their representatives to the visited the field to assess the situation. The visiting representatives found that the traps had failed,” Vinod Reddy claimed.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.