Thursday, September 27, 2007 So: Armyworms By Michelle P. So Caught in the Net
BE all you can be. Join the army.
So goes the motto of the armyworms now invading parts of Negros Occidental. They’re not squelching a peasants’ rebellion; they’re attacking crops.
The armyworms, wearing their stripes insignia, are crawling their way into close to 900 hectares of sugarcane, corn and rice fields in Kabankalan and Escalante cities and Candoni town, Sun.Star Bacolod reports. The infestation of armyworms has worried the provincial agriculturist of Negros Occidental, the island west of Cebu.
The armyworms look like caterpillars when they’re still foot soldiers. They grow wings upon their promotion, thus turning into moths. Either as caterpillars or as moths, the armyworms pose a danger to the crops. They’re an insidious lot. The larvae feed only at night, when no one watches the fields, not even the carabao, and hide in the ground or under leaf litter during the day.
Farmers don’t notice their presence until the damage to crops has become severe. Armyworms chew on the leaves and do it slowly to avoid getting indigestion. That’s 900 hectares of free food out there. We should learn from the armyworms: chew our food 20 times and we won’t get fat because by the 20th chewing, the food would taste awful enough to be spat out. You no eat food, you no get fat. Thank you, Bruce Lee, for these words of wisdom.
In Negros Occidental, which supplies some of our sugar needs, the infestation of armyworms wasn’t noticed until this week when almost 900 hectares of corn, rice and sugarcane plantations have been damaged. What percentage of the entire agricultural fields of Negros Occidental 900 hectares is, the Sun.Star Bacolod report doesn’t say. Of the 900 hectares, 780 are in Kabankalan city, where sugarcane fields are plenty. The infestation of armyworms has likewise reached the fields of the adjacent city of Candoni in the south. The last armyworm infestation in Negros Occidental occurred in 1997.
What is surprising is, the infestation has jumped over to Escalante in the northeast and has missed the areas around Kabankalan and Candoni, which are in the southwest. In the absence of a scientific explanation from Negros Occidental Provincial Agriculturist Igmedio Tabianan, I offer a theory which I think even Bruce Lee will support: the grass is greener over in Escalante than in Isabela and Moises Padilla, the towns after Kabankalan and Candoni.
The infestation usually occurs in the wet months of the year after a long drought, a thorough google of some websites about armyworms reveals. One website (www.gnb.ca) says that the cool and wet weather is supposed to slow down the development of parasites, which usually keep armyworm populations under control.
Armyworms have the brains of a worm, I say. They come out in droves, demonstrate their military training of destruction, mate and multiply, but only to have their number controlled in the months that they’re supposed to infest the fields.
The intermittent heavy rains in Negros Occidental these days are relied upon to wash the armyworms out of the leaves of the sugarcane, rice and corn or whatever else they’re chewing on. Since the provincial agriculturist can’t impose his will on nature, he has tapped the farmers to help combat the infestation by having their fields sprayed with insecticide.
The armyworms, now well-fed and looking like striped churros, have become heavy for the perforated leaves to bear. A slight spray of mist can have the armyworm falling from the leaf. That’s the army for the worms: be all you can be and die sated.
