Pest Status of Maize Zea mays (Linnaeus, 1753) in Sipadol Village of Bhaktapur District, Nepal

Abstract

Insect pest cause serious threats to Maize farms, resulting heavy reduction in their yield. The present study focused on the insect pest of Maize (Zea mays) in the Sipadol VDC of Bhaktapur District. It was carried out in four months May, June, July and August 2016. The pests were collected through different methods such as hand picking, beating process, sweeping etc depending on size of pests. Two- way analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test the significance difference in number of pest observed in different sites. Multilevel pattern analysis was performed under R 3.3.2 platform by using multipatt package to see whether there is species associated with particular month. Management practices data were collected by direct observation and also by using semi-structured questionnaires was carried out ten from each plot altogether 40 farmers from surrounding of each plot were sampled. Altogether, 16 species of pests belonging to five orders and 12 families were found. However population density of pest was higher in June. Maize stem borer (Chillo partellus) was most common and dominant species occurring almost in all months. The overall diversity index of Maize pests was 2.593 and evenness 0.935. The use of synthetic chemical pesticides is commonly used pest management practice in this area. Commonly used pesticides include Chloropyriphos 50% EC + Cypermethrin 5% EC, Furadon 3 Gr, Confidor 200 SR and Chloropyriphos 20% EC. Because of lack knowledge of biological control and others increasing trend of chemical pesticide used day by day in study area of Sipadol.