IPM Packages for Crops

maize IPM techniques

Farmers harvest Desmodium and Bracharia for Push-Pull implementation with maize

• Maintain weed-free field to avoid alternate hosts of pests and diseases. • Use clean seeds, well-decomposed farmyard manure/compost, remove weed growth and keep irrigation and drainage channels free from weeds. • Avoid the use of sand or soil from the weed-infested area. • To remove weeds, hand pull, hand weed, burn, flood, hoe, till, mulch, earth up. • Crop rotations help to eliminate crop-associated weeds. • Sowing of crops at the proper time at optimum seed rate enables the crop to cover the ground and hence avoid weeds. • Destruction of stubbles and dead heart. • Select insect/disease-resistant variet - ies. • Select pure high-quality certified seeds free of disease, weed seeds, and insect damage. • Treat seeds with Trichoderma / Pseu- domonas to protect from soil-borne diseases. • Crop rotation helps to manage weeds, insect pests, nematodes, and diseases. • Use balanced soil fertility, avoid high level of N and low level of K to man - age diseases. • Avoidance of moisture stress at the time of flowering to grain filling stage helps to avoid diseases. • Stripping of 2 lower leaves along with leaf sheath, rouging, and destroying infected plants also manages diseases.

• Release of egg parasitoids, Trichogram- ma chilonis and Telenomus remus , for control of cutworms and other caterpillar pests. • Both foliar and seed treatments are used to protect maize crops. Need-based pesticide application at the various stages of growth to manage diseases and insect pests. Use pesticides as last option and do not use pesticides with the same mode of action repeatedly. Follow the recommend- ed dose of the manufacturer. Consult local extension officials for pesticide selection.

• Seed treatment with Trichoderma har- zianum 2.0% WP @ 20 g/kg of seeds for control of banded leaf and sheath blight. • Set up pheromone traps for lepidopter- an pests to monitor and to take up timely interventions. • For conservation biological control, pre- serve parasitoids Trichogramma spp., (such as Trichogramma chilonis, Trichogramma dendrolimi, Trichogramma evanescens, Trichogramma mwanzai ), Trichogrammatoidea armigera, Cotesia flavipes, Bracon chinensis, Xanthopimpla punctate, Tetrastichus ayyari, Telenomus remus, Apanteles marginiventris, Microp- litis sp., Campoletis flavicincta, Hyposoter annulipes, Ophion flavidus (Hymenoptera), and tachinid flies (Diptera), and predators ladybird beetles, carabid beetles, spiders, earwigs, dragon flies, preying mantids, pentatomid bugs, reduviid bugs, robber flies, rove beetles, wasps, and lace wings. • If pesticide applications are necessary, apply biopesticides e.g. Metarhizium sp., Beauveria bassiana, Bacilllus thuring- iensis, Nomuraea rileyi , NPV (nuclear polyhedrosis viruses), nematode ( Steiner- nema carpocapsae ), and botanical insecti- cides (e.g. neem).