Fall armyworm invades crops across Asia, smallholders worst hit

[Geoffggi]

Possibly brought in by the Chinese as they are known to pack all kinds of food grown in China including root vegetables, corn etc. and Thailand does not have a strict border patrol as countries like Australia .....

[Gecko123]

11 hours ago, IAMHERE said:

The worm has travelled from India thru SEA and into China since July of 2018? I'm thinking I could hardly walk that distance in less than a year. I'll bet some seed company sells a corn seed that the worm leaves alone.

It spreads during the butterfly stage of its lifecycle.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_armyworm

Edited June 22, 2019 by Gecko123

[BkruaiRetiree]

11 hours ago, kickstart said:

I take it you do not farm ,to spray twice a week ,a farmer using a contractor will charge 120 /rie just  to spray a 10 rie field that is 2400 baht a week,for how long  ? that is his profit margin gone,what if it rains, that would render the spray ineffective.

If corn prices are low  like last year not much money to make ,and where I am it is almost a drought,another bad year for corn farmers ,and they do not receive government help like the rice farmers .

    

Actually, I was a farmer in the US for a number of years.  My partner and I used BT and sprayed our 20-acre plot ourselves, by hand.  I don't know about Thailand, but the US Ag dept assists (well, it used to before Trump) farmers to eradicate crop-destructive "plagues" and for little or no money in those instances.  I'm quite sure the Thai govt has the equivalent of crop sprayers - in fact, they could use their cloud-seeding planes to spray the BT mix over the affected area(s).  As to "for how long," it depends upon the pest:  we sprayed the tomatoes once a week for two weeks, left off spraying for a week, then repeated for 2 more weeks.  Gypsy moths required twice-a-week spraying for 2 weeks only.  Regarding rainfall, you spray when it's not raining - and after it rains, you spray again.  It doesn't rain 24 hours a day, and if you get 6 to 8 hours of rain-free time after a spray job, that will take care of the vast majority of the hatched worms.

[BkruaiRetiree]

10 hours ago, nev said:

Would this work on cockroaches, I have a lot in my mushroom sheds eating the mushrooms, Or any suggestions what to use?

Sorry, my friend - only affects leaf-eating caterpillars/worms.  Suggestion:  do they sell the roach-bait items here (D-Con, I think)?  They're little, round black plastic things the contents of which the roaches eat and take back to their nests.  Used them in the US and they work excellently, as do the same items made for ants.  UPDATE:  Just looked it up - on Amazon they sell the Combat roach-bait traps for various sizes of roaches.  That's what I used - but we only had the smaller varieties. I haven't seen the product on sale here, but perhaps the market at Paragon carries them.  Good luck!

[owl sees all]

NEEM!

 

Yes neem. Spray it onto the leaves and the flying vermin will pop along to the next farm. A neem tree is a mahogany and a beautiful tree.

 

A farmer had some neem trees near us that they were going to chop down. We got organised and stopped them. Had to pay the farmer some dosh to leave them alone. A bit like paying the BinB for nothing but this wasn't for nothing. We saved the trees and now get the benefit of neem oil and leaves.

 

Mozzie repellent, tooth paste, effective hair wash for nits. Just wipe the diluted oil onto a surface to keep the ants away.

 

Dilute it and put it into a sprayer and spray the house. Just watch the bugs and creepy crawlies scatter in terror.

[user68677878]

23 hours ago, marko kok prong said:

Not good,anything to do with global climate change i wonder?

I assume that you refer to naturally occurring episodic climate change as has occurred for billions of years!!!

[attrayant]

12 hours ago, aqua4 said:

I don't think that they allow GMO in Thailand. 

 

That's true.  The powers that be (or were) are firmly in the grasp of the anti-science luddites and this fits in perfectly with the Thai disdain/distrust of technology.  I could sort of understand this cautionary stance if GM crops were something new or untested, but Bt corn has been around for more than twenty years.  After two decades and a hundred billion meals of Bt corn, you'd think something would have turned up by now.  Strangely, Thailand has no qualms about importing GMO crops once they're on the market.

[marko kok prong]

6 minutes ago, porphyry said:

I assume that you refer to naturally occurring episodic climate change as has occurred for billions of years!!!

I do not dispute that fact,it is the rate of change driven by human activities that is the problem,where as in the past changes happened over thousands of years,now we are talking decades,plus pollution, especially in the oceans,loss of insect species[proven] and a myriad of other scientific research,in my mind we are now on the edge of the precipice,of course nothing will be done until it is too late,already the permafrost is melting do you have any idea how catastrophic that will be,i suggest you read six degree world article by Mark Lynas,to see what will happen,we have 12 years to act,yet global co2 emissions rose last year,co2 in atmosphere now at levels not seen since the pliocene era but your saying you don't believe were on the the eve of destruction?

[attrayant]

16 minutes ago, porphyry said:

I assume that you refer to naturally occurring episodic climate change as has occurred for billions of years!!!

 

It doesn't matter which climate change is being referred to.  Changes in ecosystems is a stressor on crop yields from a number of different angles.

[ThaiFelix]

I wonder if this was the same critter the CIA dropped all over Cuba to destroy their sugar industry after Castro took over. 

[xtrnuno41]

On 6/21/2019 at 4:37 PM, kickstart said:

I take it you do not farm ,to spray twice a week ,a farmer using a contractor will charge 120 /rie just  to spray a 10 rie field that is 2400 baht a week,for how long  ? that is his profit margin gone,what if it rains, that would render the spray ineffective.

If corn prices are low  like last year not much money to make ,and where I am it is almost a drought,another bad year for corn farmers ,and they do not receive government help like the rice farmers .

   

That is what i said. You do have plants, genetically engineered with the BT gen included in the plants.

They are resistant, but you do have to buy it from a company and also cost you.

As company you first kill all other crops by spreading the fall armyworm.

Then you buy there products and ktsjing ! See wikipedia for what they are doing.

You can use the seed just once for crops, also modified, and then you have to buy new seed from THEM.

Also you get a manual on how to grow, you are not allowed to do any other way. I think you have to pay additional after crops is harvested.

Monsanto is one of them, its now bought by Bayer.   

[Gecko123]

The fall armyworm is a real nightmare for farmers. The local fertilizer store said the armyworm was "everywhere." They recommended a combination of three separate pesticides which often require repeat applications: one for killing the egg laying moth, one for killing already laid eggs, and another kills the caterpillars. Because the moth lays the eggs on the underside of the leaf, farmers are probably going to have to spray upwards to reach the underside of the leaf which means the pesticide will be airborne longer during  application and more likely to be inhaled by the farmer. Also, once the caterpillar bores into the plant it becomes a lot more difficult to kill it. The moth lays up to an incredible 1,500 eggs at a time which is why it does such incredible damage.

 

Edited June 28, 2019 by Gecko123