Storage pests of maize and their status in Bangladesh

Abstract

Maize (zea mays) is the most important cereal crop after rice in Bangladesh. During storage, maize grains are severely destroyed by insect pests. Most of the farmers of Bangladesh do not know how to preserve corn seed properly due to insufficient knowledge of storage pest of maize. An experiment was conducted to assess the major pests associated with stored maize, the damage and losses they cause in Bangladesh during July to December 2017. Sixty (60) farmer's farms from fifteen major maize growing districts of Bangladesh were assessed. Sixteen Arthropods, Fifteen Coleopterans, Five Lepidopterans and one Acarina were documented from the collected samples. Maize weevil (Sitophilus zeamais) followed by maize grain moth (Sitotroga cereallela), rice weevil (Sitophilus oryzae), flour beetle (Tribolium confusum) and Areca nut weevil (A. fasciculatus) were the major pests of stored maize in the study area. Among them, Maize weevil (S. zeamais) is the dominant, destructive and most important pest of maize in Bangladesh. This pest was found in abundance in all areas assessed damaging maize grain. Quantitative average grain damage of 75.85% and losses of 51 to 85% are common in the store within five to six months after storage. An integrated weevil management method should be implemented to prevent the high quantitative and qualitative grain losses incurred to contribute towards family food security in Bangladesh.

IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF DIFFERENT SOWING DATES ON MAIZE APHID, Rhopalosiphum madis INFESTATION IN BANGLADESH

“…The research site was situated at 24.75 N latitude and 0.50 E longitudes at an average altitude of 18m above the mean sea level. The site of experiment belongs to the Sonatola series of the dark grey floodplain soil type under Old Brahmaputra Floodplain Agro-Ecological Zone (AEZ-9) (Alam et al, 2019a, b;2020a, b).…”

“…Tassels and silks may be covered with honeydew. Aphids' infestation may result in about 40 percent of the heavily infested stalks (Alam et al, 2019a, b). In Bangladesh, maize (Zea mays L.) is the second most important cereal crops after rice both in terms of area and production (Alam et al, 2020a, b).…”

“…The productivity of maize is very low compared to that of neighboring countries. But, more than 90% of the home grown maize is feeding a bourgeoning poultry and fish feed industry, and rests are used as human food (Alam et al, 2019a(Alam et al, , b, 2018). That's why; it is increasingly raising an important position in crop husbandry because of its higher yield and short growth duration.…”

“…At this time, maize grower usually uses a lot of insecticides indiscriminately and frequently for controlling aphid to achieve a high yield. As in known, insecticides applications have several harmful influences such as environmental, agro-ecosystems pollution, causes health hazard to human as well as financial issues, outbreak of secondary pests, development of resistance to insecticides and contamination of food and eco-system (Alam et at., 2020(Alam et at., , 2019a. Therefore, to skip the environment pollution and safe eco-system through suppressing the infestation of aphid, scientists are endeavoring to find out the alternative safe procedures for controlling aphid in the maize field, which don't have such negative impacts on the environments.…”

Potentiality of light source and predator for controlling brown planthopper

“…In Bangladesh, about 175 species of insect pests have been recorded on rice (Kamal, 1998). Rice suffers heavy losses every year due to attack of many pests like maize crop (Alam et al, 2019). Among them, the rice brown plant hopper, Nilaparvata lugens is wide spread and also a threat to rice production in many parts of Bangladesh.…”