November 3, 2003	Monday	Ramazan 7, 1424

During the current cotton season (2003), heavy and frequent rains have provided favourable climatic conditions to armyworm,a multiphagous insect pest,to multiply and cause heavy damage to the cotton crop. There is a widespread infestation of this pest, particularly in Rahim Yar Khan district and in some other cotton growing areas.Farmers have tried to control this pest with insecticides. Only those farmers have been able to do this where they have used higher doses of insecticides. Total dependence on insecticides to control this pest is basically a wrong strategy.

In order to have an effective control of this pest, other methods along with the chemical should be adopted which are cost effective and easy. Basically, the control process of armyworm starts with the egg laying of female armyworm moth.If this stage is missed, it becomes difficult to control armyworm larvae. For cost effective control cotton growers should follow the strategy as outlined below.

1. Searching the egg pouch: When there are rains and the crop colour and growth is normal, there is high possibility of armyworm’s attack. When we see lot of armyworm moths on light at night, this indicates the start of armyworm egg laying. In this type of situation, one should search for armyworm egg pouches which are commonly found on the lower side of cotton plant leaves on about two feet top area of the cotton plant.

By walking in-between the rows of cotton fields, one can easily find these eggs and then collect in a shopper bag and destroy outside the cotton field manually. One man can easily collect armyworm eggs from about 20 acres in one day. By collecting and destroying the eggs manually, we can easily manage the flare-up of this notorious pest.

2. Hatched eggs: If one could not locate the armyworm eggs, then it is easy to find out the leaves having early instar hatched larvae. The hatched larvae first of all feed on the same leaf on which the eggs were laid. The early instar larvae feed on the green part of the leaf and the leaf looks like a sieve. One can easily come across such type of sieved, dried leaves from a distance of even 10/15 feet, while walking through the cotton fields.

One should search for such leaves, collect them in a shopper bag and destroy these larvae outside the cotton field. By following this step, one can easily manage the problem of armyworm without using any chemical.

3. Spraying: Armyworm infestation in cotton is always in patches and to spray such patches, brings effective control of armyworm larvae. If one fails to search the armyworm eggs and early instar hatched larvae, then these larvae will grow on the leaves of the same plant and the leaves will turn into sieves with larger size holes. Overall the armyworm larvae will eat up the leaves and one can easily see such damaged plants while walking through the cotton field.

Maximum 2-3 plants will be affected by advanced instar larvae of armyworm. In this type of situation, it is suggested to spray these affected plants by using knapsack hand sprayer. By thoroughly spraying affected plants, we can effectively control this variously feeding armyworm larvae. This is also an effective and low cost method to control armyworm on cotton.

4. Uniform spraying: If one could not search the eggs, the early instar larvae and could not spray the patches, then the only way left to control armyworm infestation is thorough and uniform spraying of effective insecticides. This is costly and tedious way to control armyworm. When we go for this last step, some larvae are killed and some larvae manage to survive by hiding underside the weeds on ground.

The larvae of armyworm are very sensitive and try to avoid the effects of spraying. By going through all the four steps, we can easily manage the infestation of armyworm and protect the white gold, the cotton fibre.

In order to have the effective control of the armyworm, farmers should not directly go to the last 4th step but should start its control operation by searching the eggs and destroying them.