Agritex urges farmers to avert field losses

THE Department of Agricultural, Technical and Extension Services (Agritex) is calling on farmers to employ various strategies to avert crop production field losses.

Matabeleland North provincial chief principal agronomist Mr Davison Masendeke said most of the rain-fed cereal crop for the 2019/20 farming season was at an advanced stage of maturity.

“At the moment most field crops are at late vegetative and late reproductive stage. If it’s maize it means it will be between earing to grain development and if it’s small grains they will be at booting, fertilisation or grain development stage,” he said.

Mr Masendeke said there was therefore, a need for farmers to guard against potential field losses so as to increase their chances of obtaining a meaningful yield in the wake of the drought.

“We want to reduce field losses and we are looking at major problem areas like termites especially under dry conditions where they tend to thrive more. If fertilisation has taken place, which of course we recognise by the drying, silk cut off the tassels and let them lie on the ground so that they attract termites and stay away from the green maize,” he said.

Mr Masendeke added that to eradicate the termites there was a need to destroy any anthill within the fields and fumigate them.

“Farmers should destroy all anthills in the field by making an opening at the top and applying pesticides through it or fumigate it (anthill) and thereafter close it to kill the queen. Once you kill the queen there won’t be reproduction,” he said.

Mr Masendeke said there was also a need for farmers to keep their crops clear of weeds.

Weeds aggressively compete for water, nutrients and sunlight, resulting in reduced crop yield and poor crop quality.

“Before the witch weed emerge, it will solely be feeding on the water and nutrients of your plant and it results in your crop having stunted growth. So, don’t allow the weed to seed, remove it when it is flowering. You also need to rotate your crop and put one that triggers the witch weed to germinate but doesn’t support its growth, like the sunflower,” said Mr Masendeke.

Another challenge, which farmers face when their crops reach the late vegetative and reproductive stage is the infestation of the fall army worm.

“Fall army worm is a big menace around this time. Its life cycle is 28 to 35 days, which means in a season we can have two to three generations. The first generation mainly attacks your leaves and you see them by being by transparent and the same larvae enters into the (maize) funnel and starts feeding on the leaves.

“So, you will have hailstorm like affected leaves. The second and third generation will mainly attack tassels, silk and cobs lowering the grade of grain at market so the management strategy hinges on thorough managing the primary generation which is the first attack around November to December,” said Mr Masendeke.

Fall armyworm can be one of the more difficult insect pests to control in field corn.

Late planted fields and late maturing hybrids are more likely to become infested. Fall armyworm causes serious leaf feeding damage as well as direct injury to the ear while fall armyworms can damage corn plants in nearly all stages of development, it will concentrate on later plantings that have not yet skilled.

“One needs to start scouting for eggs and larvae as early as two weeks from emergence at least two to three times a week and physically destroy the eggs which you find on top and under the leaves, next to the stem and at the later stage eggs can be laid at the back of the cob.

“You can also apply medium coarse sand into the maize crop funnel to bruise the larvae as it feeds with the other method being putting bird perches in fields and the perches should be taller than the crop while the other management technique is applying chemicals,” said Mr Masendeke.

@DNsingo