Sugarcane Fifth to sixth week practices

• Lifesaving irrigation should be done this week.
• Before the irrigation apply 40-45 kg/acre of nitrogen.

Early Shoot Borer:

Symptoms:

• Larva is dirty white with five dark violet longitudinal stripes and dark brown head. Pale grayish brown moth with black dots near the coastal margin of the forewings and with white hind wings.
• Dead heart in 1-3 month old crop, which can be easily pulled out, rotten portion of the straw coloured dead – heart emits an offensive odor. A number of bore holes at the base of the shoot just above the ground level.

Management:

Cultural Control: 

Deep summer plowing. Inter culture and hand weeding. Timely irrigation. Light earthing up of crops three months after planting. In ratoon crop mulching with trash reduces shoot borer attack. Grow resistant varieties like CO 312, CO 421, CO 661, CO 917 and CO 853. Inter crop: Onion or Garlic or Coriander for early shoot borer. 

Mechanical Control: 

Collection and destruction of adult moths, egg masses and dead hearts. Remove the first leaf sheath to kill the larvae. Use of pheromone traps@4 in Nos/acre two weeks after planting. Trash mulching minimizes the pest incidence. 

Biological Control: 

Release egg parasitoid Trichogramma chilonis @20,000/acre. Parasitized eggs of Corcyra cephalonica @ 20,000/acre at 10 days interval beginning 30 days after planting during April-June would be useful. 

Chemical Control: 

Spray of Fipronil 5% SC @ 600-800 ml dissolved in 250-300 lit. of water/acre OR Chlorantraniliprole 0.4% GR @ 7.5 kg/acre. OR Chlorpyrifos 20% EC @ 500-600ml /acre OR Quinalphos 25 % EC @ 800 ml dissolve in 250-300 lit. of water/acre .