The grassland moth is a sign of alien species invasion, and in the case of unable to find its natural enemies, it can use scientific and technological means to intervene artificially according to its flight route, including chemical pesticide killing, biological pesticide killing and technical booby-trapping.
On April 30, the grassland nightcrawler left a hole in the corn leaf of Shajiang Village, Hengxian County, Guangxi Province. Beijing News reporter Wang Wenqiu photographed
Text | Zhang Tiankan
According to the Beijing News, since January this year, the grassland night moth has migrated from Southeast Asia to invade China and rapidly spread to 18 provinces, posing a serious threat to China's grain production.
On June 3, the General Office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs issued a notice requiring local agricultural and rural bureaus to do a good job in the emergency prevention and control of grassland night moth. On the 3rd, the Shandong Provincial Expert Group on the Prevention and Control of grassland moth was established, which will guide the province to carry out scientific monitoring and prevention and control, and effectively do a good job in the prevention and control of grassland moth.
The grassland moth is a marker of alien invasion
What exactly is the Meadow Nocturnal Moth? Why make us feel like enemies?
The grassland night moth, also known as the autumn armyworm, is a major agricultural pest that originated in the Americas and is extremely destructive. This seemingly inconspicuous bug was included in the world's top ten plant pest "blacklist" in 2017 and was also a major migratory pest in the 2018 FAO global warning.
A single meadow moth larvae can destroy a plant, while a moth can lay 1,000 eggs. Moreover, the grassland night moth has the characteristics of wide suitable growth range, long migration distance, strong reproductive ability and heavy damage loss.
Nicknamed the "Marching Worm", the insect can fly 100 to 500 kilometers with the air current in one night, and the farthest can be moved to 1500 kilometers; it can survive and reproduce in the temperature environment of 11 ° C to 30 ° C; it can feed more than 80 kinds of plants, mainly harming corn, sugarcane, sorghum and other crops.
It can be said that the grassland night moth is a landmark event and landmark organism for the invasion of alien species, and it is also a invasive alien species with great destructive effect. How to prevent it has always been a scientific problem.
Ecology, agriculture, animal and plant professionals around the world are immersed in research on how to deal with invasive alien species. Various countries have also strictly guarded against death everywhere, especially increasing the inspection and investigation of customs, as well as scientific dissemination of public entry and exit work and tourism.
However, biological invasions through migration are still difficult to control, such as the grassland night moth. The characteristics of the grass moth determine that they can quickly become a powerful creature without natural enemies. Due to the three super characteristics of the grassland moth - super eating, raw and flying, it is determined that they can "look at the crowd", quickly dominate one side, and become a harmful species that lacks natural enemies or has no natural enemies.
The meadow moth is a typical natural invasion. The so-called natural invasion is caused by non-human causes, through flight, wind medium, water flow or by insects and birds, so that plant seeds or animals, including larvae, eggs or microorganisms natural migration and cause ecological harm to alien species. The natural invasion of alien species is obviously more difficult to control than the introduction of biological invasions.
This also raises the question of how to prevent the invasion of alien species and how to find natural enemies to restrain alien species.
The test base of Guangxi Plant Protection System in Shitang Town. Beijing News reporter Wang Wenqiu photographed
At present, chemical pesticides are the main means of prevention and control
The meadow moth invades by flight, making it difficult to build models to predict. However, it can still be predicted and prevented according to its living habits, flight characteristics and routes.
According to experts' predictions, this year's grassland night moth will enter the main corn-producing areas in northern China through the east and west paths, or will enter the main corn-producing areas of Huanghuai in June and reach the main spring corn-producing areas in Northeast China in July.
At present, in the case of unable to find natural enemies, according to their flight routes, manual intervention can be carried out by scientific and technological means, including chemical pesticide killing, biological pesticide killing and technical booby-trapping.
Since the grassland moth is an exotic species, there is no registered pesticide available in China. However, the Institute of Plant Protection of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has evaluated the control effect of 21 commonly used chemical pesticides on the grassland moth, and selected a number of highly efficient and low-toxic chemical pesticides for emergency control.
Among them, methamovectin benzoate, chlorantran benzamide, ethyl polybactericide and acetamidine have very strong insecticidal activity against the grassland night moth. In addition, spraying of albicans, green zombies, bacillus thuringiensis preparations, and biopesticides such as polybactericides, matrine, and neem can be selected for bio-killing at the beginning of egg hatching of the grassland moth.
Of course, booby-trapping by technical means is also a method, such as the use of light booby-trap or sexual trapping to trap adult insects, reduce egg laying, reduce disasters; you can also take manual removal methods to reduce the density of insect populations in the field in fields where the area of insect infestation is relatively light. This is also an adjunct.
At present, the harm caused by the grassland moth is already very serious, in 12 corn-growing countries in Africa, the grassland moth has caused an annual reduction in corn production of 8.3 million to 20.6 million tons, and economic losses of up to 2.48 billion to 6.19 billion US dollars. The grassland moth has also spread to 17 provinces (autonomous regions) and 785 counties (cities, districts) in China, causing 2.68 million mu of food crops to be affected.
If the harm caused by the grassland moth continues to expand, it will not only require chemical and biological methods of insecticide, but also more research to find natural enemies that can be restrained. This may be a more effective way to kill the grassland moth and reduce the environmental and ecological damage caused by chemical pesticides.
□ Zhang Tiankan (columnist)
Editor: Li Bingbing Proofreader: Wu Xingfa
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