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PLANT AND PESTS
The most devastating pests of crops are insects e.g. grasshoppers, locusts and caterpillars. Other plant, pest includes nematodes, rodents and birds. Insects and rodents always destroy stored crops like cocoa, coffee, groundnuts and yam. Pests cause plant diseases. Specific plant pests include the following:
Caspid bugs of cocoa: they feed on leaves, stems and pods. The pest is more prevalent in dry season. Caspids are controlled by spraying with Aldrex 40, BHC, Dieldrin and Gamalin 20.
Cotton stainer bugs are commom in cotton growing are. They are tiny, red-coloured insects which pierce the young bolls and seeds in the open bolls and suck the sap. These insects transmit viral, fungal and bacterial diseases from one plant to another. The fungus causes the boll to rot internally and stain the ling.
- Yam beetles can destroy a whole yam crop plantain within a year. The pests are controlled in Nigeria by treating yam setts and seeds with Aldrin just before planting. Other pests of yam are eel-worm which feed on tuber rodents and wild animals which destroy the tubers.
- Pests of cassava are grasshoppers that feed on the leaves and young shoots, some rodents that feed on cassava tubers and stems and untethered goats and sheep can eat up all the leaves and stems of cassava.
Control of plant pests
Pest control is aimed at protecting crops from damage and getting rid of the pest population. Control measure of plant pest can b applied through the following methods:
- Physical methods e.g. handpicking of pests and deterrents such as bird scares on small farm area with low infestation.
- Cultural method: modifying farm practices to discourage pest multiplication.
- Chemical method e.g. use of pesticides.
- Biological methods e.g. introduction of predators.
- Sterilizing male technique.
PESTS OF ANIMALS
Animals or livestock pests are often parasitic on their victims. Livestock pests are either ectoparasites or endoparasites.
- Ectoparasites: some of them are vectors of diseases e.g. ticks vectors of tick fever and heart water disease of cattle, sheep and goats. Other ectparasites of livestock are lice, nites, fleas and flies.
- Endoparasites: these include flat worm (e.g. tapeworm and liver fluke) or round worm (e.g. Ascaris, Hookworms) or protozoa e.g. Trypanosome and coccidian which cause coccidiosis. Endoparasites injure the tissue or organs in which they live. They cause wasting, stunting and death of livestock when they occur in large numbers.
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