Daraa-Sana
The field day held by the Directorate of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform in Daraa focused today on the fall army worm and the olive fruit fly in terms of symptoms and control methods to achieve the highest production.
Head of the Department of Prevention in the Directorate of Agriculture, Engineer Hassan Al-Smadi, said: The goal of the field day is to introduce the symptoms and infestation of the Fall Armyworm, the number of its families, the most important vital enemies that parasitize the worm, controlling their numbers and the appropriate intervention times to keep them within the economic threshold, indicating that the methods of control are summarized by using pheromone traps and vital enemies. And some types of pesticides, especially feed inhibitors, that contribute to reducing pest numbers.
Al-Smadi indicated that the symptoms appear in the irregular feeding on leaves and wet droppings, explaining that the larva is distinguished by the presence of four points on the penultimate ventral ring, which resembles the letter Y upside down.
In turn, the head of the Agricultural Extension Department in the Directorate of Agriculture, Eng. Muhammad Al-Shahadat, explained the field examination of the autumn army worm and the simplified program to manage the corn crop and protect it from the army worm by identifying the pest and the vital enemies, inspecting the crop periodically, learning to estimate the critical limit of infection, the use of the compound and the appropriate dose, and the development of a resistance management program, pointing to The importance of adopting pheromone traps to estimate the critical limit of infection before starting the control process.
Al-Shahadat stressed the need to stay away from spraying unknown pesticides, not to repeat the pesticide more than once, not to use pesticides in cases where there is no actual need, and to maneuver between pesticides to prevent the emergence of resistance.
With regard to the olive fruit fly, the head of the prevention department indicated that the pest leads to production losses and a decrease in the quality and quality of the oil, indicating that the methods of control are summarized first by monitoring through pheromone traps and then by food traps and partial spraying in cases of increased infestation.
The head of the Agricultural Extension Department said: The farmers were introduced to the principle of integrated management of the olive fruit fly and how to suspend traps after identifying their types in order to deliver a package of agricultural techniques to all farmers through agricultural extension workers and farmers participating in the field day.
Farmers Abdel-Latif Al-Sharif and Ghassan Al-Masry pointed to the benefit of the field day in introducing farmers to methods of controlling agricultural pests on olives and corn, stressing that they will transfer the techniques that were explained on the field day to farmers in their areas.
Qasim Miqdad
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