Elasmopalpus lignosellus

Isas, Marcos, L., María, Pérez, P., Salvatore, Analia, Gastaminza, Gerardo, Willink, Eduardo & White, William, 2016, Impacts of crop residue on damage by sugarcane pests during the tillering phase in Argentina, Florida Entomologist 99 (1), pp. 1-5 : 2-3

Elasmopalpus lignosellus

Removal of the crop residue by burning resulted in significantly greater insect-inflicted damage in all locations and years compared with residue retention; all burned plots received damage by E. lignosellus . The main effect (treatment of crop residue) was the most important source of variation (F = 139.5; df = 1; P <0.0001), far exceeding the year effect (F = 5.08; df = 2; P = 0.0027) and the location effect (F = 3.73; df = 2; P = 0.0228). The year*treatment interaction was marginally significant (F = 2.38; df = 2; P = 0.0815) ( Table 1).

At the Simoca location for the 3 yr of the study, no dead hearts were found on those rows where the crop residue was allowed to remain unburned. At Fronterita, the unburned plots showed some injury during the 2011 season, although this level of damage did not differ significantly from zero. Conversely, the 1-sample t -test in all burned plots from Simoca and Fronterita showed that the levels of damaged shoots were significantly different from zero, with maximum values of 17 and 23%, respectively ( Fig. 1a ).

In Luisiana, the injury levels observed in both “residue burned” and “residue retained” plots were significantly different from zero. The 2-sample t -test showed that damage was greater in the “residue burned” treatment during the 3 yr of the study: year 2011 (t = 2.92; df = 22; P = 0.0079), year 2012 (t = 5.14; df = 11; P = 0.0003), and year 2013 (t = 4.72; df = 13; P = 0.0004). Maximum injury levels were 23 and 8% for “residue retained” and “residue burned” treatments, respectively ( Fig. 1a ).

Figures

Fig. 1. Injury (proportion of damaged shoots) caused by Elasmopalpus lignosellus (a) and Pseudaletia unipuncta (b), for 2 harvest residue management schemes at 3 locations, 2011 to 2013.