Maize Ninth to tenth week practices

Cob worm/ Earworm:

Symptoms:

• Adult is a medium sized, brownish yellow moth, A prominent black spots on the fore wings and Broad black patch on the outer margin of hind wing.
• Caterpillar also feed partially on developing grains and bored holes are plugged with excreta.
• Caterpillars are also feeds on tender leaves for a short time.

Management:

• Cultural Control- Growing intercrops such as cowpea, onion, coriander, urdbean in 1:2 ratio. 
• Mechanical Control- Bird perches @ 8-10 in Nos./ acre should be erected for facilitating field visits of predatory birds.
• Physical Control– Pheromone traps @ 4-5 in number/acre can be installed for monitoring borer activity. Replace the lures with fresh lures after every 20-25 day interval. 
• Biological Control- Spray HNPV @ 100-120 LE/acre 2-3 times at weekly interval in the evening hours and addition of Teepal 0.1% in the solution gives better results. Inundatively release of T. pretiosum @ 0.4 lakh/acre 4-5 times from flower initiation stage at weekly intervals.

Chemical Control- Quinalphos 25% EC @ 260 ml or Decamethrin 2.8% EC @ 180 ml or Cypermethrin 10 % EC @ 300 ml or Fenvalerate 20 EC @ 330 ml dissolve in 250-300 lit. of water/acre.