Cotton season in Brazil’s Mato Grosso starts with pest alert

The current cotton crop in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso starts with an alert for the boll weevil. Accounted for having destroyed cotton crops in the states of Paraná, São Paulo and Northeastern states in the early 1990s, the weevil has been monitored by the Mato Grosso Institute of Cotton - a technological arm of the Association of Cotton Growers of Mato Grosso. The elevated capture of adult in traps during the 2014/15 in seven regions of Mato Grosso have turned the red light on.

 

"Due to the big pressure of the boll weevil starting this crop, we give an alert to producers regarding the importance of early action to control the pest. If the control and monitoring of plots are not stringent and effective, in this first moment, the farmer has a high risk of having the weevil out of control causing severe losses to the crops," said Eduardo Barros, an entomologist at the Mato Grosso Institute of Cotton.

 

The researcher’s concerns, shared by the Association's president, Gustavo Piccoli, is based on data monitoring done since the 2012/13 crop season through traps under the responsibility of regional technicians and a research staff. 

 

"We have an average above 10 weevils per trap in a week in the Southern, Center, and Center-Eastern kernels. An index above two per trap already puts a crop on red alert," said Renato Tachinardi, a technician.

 

According to Tachinardi, after a fall of 58% in the number of boll weevils captured in the Central kernel during the 2013/14 crop season compared to the previous crop, there was a worrisome increase of capture during this year's 'pre-crop'. An index of 9.59 boll weevils per trap was registered during the second week of January, which corresponds to a 709% bounce.