Early Ploughing And Fallowing Possible Answer To Maize Bug

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 15, 23 January 1948, Page 5

Early Ploughing And Fallowing Possible Answer To Maize Bug

At a Y.F.C. and farmers’ field day held on Mr J. Baird’s, property, Opotiki yesterday, Mr E. R. Marryatt, Agricultural Fields Instructor of Whakatane, gave a descriptive talk of the experiments carried out by the Entomological Division of the Agricultural Department on Mr Baird’s property on the control and eradication of the Opotiki maize bug or Metoponia Rubricep. Sugar Cane Pest

The Opotiki bug is, when most destructive, in the form of a grub about £ to £ of an inch long, light brown in colour, rubbery and covered with bristles. The lavae attach themselves to the root of the maize by a small beak and suck the sap from the young plant. The full life history of the insect is not known but it came originally from Queensand, Australia, where it is a minor pest to sugar-cane growers. Smerg-

ing from the lavae stage from February to March the female fly is impregnated in a few' minutes and lays her eggs by backing into paspalum grass and injecting them into a crevice after which she dies. This accounts probably for the localisation of the pest. The male fly is small and biack with heavily veined wings and a bulbous body. The female is also black but has a bigger and more slender body with a red head and knees. Experiments In Control The most efficient method of dealing with the pest to date, Mr Marryatt believes, has been the early ploughing and fallowing of tke ground to be sown in maize. Various experimental plots at Opotiki were each treated with DDT, Shell DD and Chloro Picrin ploughed at different times. The results in control were DDT 55 per cent, Shell DD 65 per cent, Chloro Picrin 75 per cent and earjy ploughing 85 per cent. The Chloro Picrin and Shell DD preventatives apart from the difficulty of application are prohibitive by their cost. These experiments will probably be concluded by the plucking and weighing of the crop from each plot on a plant basis.