DA warns farmers on pest outbreaks

CEBU, Philippines - Nearly 60 hectares of croplands in Central Visayas has been infested by armyworms due to the continuing long drought, according to the Department of Agriculture-7.

With this, DA has warned farmers to be vigilant in pest outbreaks to prevent serious losses in crop production, especially in corn and rice.

Bienvenido Acabal Jr., agricultural center chief of the Regional Crop Protection Center-DA, said though that the numbers are not alarming since only a total of 12.56 percent or an average of 3.14 percent of infected croplands has been damaged, as of last month’s monitoring data.

“Validation showed that the degree of infestation was at minimal level as manifested by its damaged at considerable level. Thus, not alarming,” he said.

Only 56.3 were infested by armyworm out of the 5,041.53 hectares of corn surveyed by DA.

Among the affected provinces are Negros Oriental with 6.95 percent damaged crops from 18.4 hectares of affected land, followed by Cebu and Siquijor with 0.94 percent from 37.65 affected land and 0.04 percent out of the 0.25 hectare of infested cropland, respectively.

In Cebu, armyworm infestations are prevalent in the towns of Oslob, Ginatilan, Bantayan, Sta. Fe, Medellin, Bogo, and Daanbantayan.

Armyworms attack mostly corn crops during early stages, such as seedling, whorl and tasseling phase.

If infestation is untreated, DA said it could further affect the income of the farmers or worse threaten food security here.

Acabal said there are two “effective” measures to free crops from pests; these are spraying a liquid insecticide (Selecron) to lessen worm’s population; manual picking and burning of worms.

The farmers are also advised to destroy or remove alternate hosts around infested fields; avoid over fertilization of the crop to minimize its susceptibility to insect pests and disease infestation or infection; and continuous monitoring in economically important crops and grassland for early detection of armyworm infection.

DA is distributing free insecticides to farmers in all provinces.

Drought has long been recognized as an important factor in causing pest outbreaks. One in which outbreaks develop on plants that are being stressed by drought and one in which outbreaks develop on unstressed plants that have recently been stressed by drought. — (FREEMAN)