BY CRIS DIAZ
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY: They attacked farms at night and vanished at the stroke of sunlight leaving a trail of destruction that left farmers in abject misery.
Army worms attacked about 1,000 hectares of corn plantations in Misamis Oriental starting the second week of June 2024 initially infesting five municipal towns in the province, the Provincial Agriculture office said here.
Gravely infested are the municipal towns Magsaysay, Jasaan and Villanueva in the province’s east coast and the component city of El Salvador and the town of Opol in the west coast.
Andrie Ardo, the focal person of Misamis Oriental’s corn program, on Friday said that the army worms are larvae that thrive on corn stalk until they mature into a moth within nine to 14 days.
He said that the more corn is planted means more army worms because a single army larva is posted in every corn with a mission to devour the entire plant.
“If left unattended, a swarm of army worms could devour a hectare consisting of 60,000 corn plants in two days,” Ardo told the Mindanao Daily News.
He said that the only way to control the army worms is by spraying insecticide while the worms are still on the larva stage else it would be too late to control the pest.
Ardo said that the province had a ready stock of 300 liters of insecticide, which was immediately distributed to farmers in infested.
However, he said, that the 300 liters insecticide were not enough because of the extent of the army worm’s infestation.
According to Ardo, the army worm insecticide is applied at a ratio of one liter to one hectare, which means that the 300 liters were not enough to cover the 1000 hectares.
He said that the regional Department of Agriculture might have ample stocks but it would take sometime to release the insecticide because the DA has yet to validate the infestation.
Several times, the Mindanao Daily News contacted the DA regional office in Cagayan de Oro to confirm reports that the army worm infestation has already infested corn plantation in Northern Mindanao.
The newly appointed DA regional director has not responded the call and the Mindanao Daily News learned that that the director is always in Manila
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