Pest threat to maize crops

A LARVAE outbreak which has damaged maize in South Africa’s Limpopo and North West provinces is “strongly suspected” to be the invasive army worm that has attacked crops in neighbouring countries, a scientist said yesterday. The infestation of fall army worms – an invasive Central American species that is harder to detect and eradicate than its African counterpart – has erupted in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi and follows a crippling El Niño-triggered drought, which scorched much of the region last year. The army worm is classified as a quarantine pest. Johnnie van den Berg, an entomologist at South Africa’s North-West University who has collected samples from affected farms, said taxonomic tests were being done for confirmation. – Reuters