PEST NOT SERIOUS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 116, 26 February 1937, Page 2

PEST NOT SERIOUS

BUG-INFESTED WHEAT. NO NEED FOR GENERAL ALARM. RESEARCH COMMITTEE’S CONCLUSIONS. The conclusion that there is no cause for general, alarm lias been reached by the Wheat Research Institute after an investigation of the bug that has been reported to have attacked wheat this season and last season. The damage has been traced to three native bugs, hut it is considered that the peculiarities of the season have been responsible for their attacks, not a sudden change of habit in the hugs. In a statement yesterday, the institute said:

During the time when the hugs might be expected to attack the wheats, that is, during the early ripening period, Mr L. Morrison, of Lincoln College, visited the localities from which bug wheat had come in the previous season. Ho found many kinds of native hugs on grasses and weeds and in./ wheatfields. They are common on g’r.ass and weeds all over New Zealand, and Mr Morrison was able sometimes to capture a dozen hugs with one sweep of the net. He collected five- species of bugs, and some hundreds of individuals. These were brought to the Wheat Research Institute’s field at Lincoln, and were caged on growing wheat plants. Three species of the bugs, which had now no other food than the wheat, attacked the wheat and made the characteristic markings on the grain. This grain, when milled and baked, gave the characteristic sticky dough. Since it is alniost inconceivable that three wheat •bugs should have been accidentally imported, it was practically certain that the hugs responsible for the damage already recorded were natives. But the matter is now placed beyond doubt by the identification by the Cawthron Institute of all the three hugs as natives to New Zealand, two of them being endemic and the third cosmopolitan; Wide Distribution. It is, of course, possible that a native bug should suddenly change its. habits and become a pest, as the keai did. But that three species should suddenly change their habits is most unlikely. Further than this, observations made during the last fortnight have disclosed slight attacks of wheat hug from the whole length of Canterbury—from Culverden, Waijpara, Ellesmere, Rakaaa, Wakanui, and North Otago. That three species of insects over such a large range of country should have suddenly changed their liahits is unbelievable. Pest Not Serious. We are thus driven to the conclusion that the attack by hugs on wheat is no new thing—that, it has been with us for years, but that its attack is usually so slight as to have passed unnoticed. Some peculiarity of season acting on the food supplies of the hug, or on the presence of its enemies, causes the attack to rise to observable proportions in particular seasons and particulai districts, as occurred in parts of Otago last year. This probability is strengthened by the fact that very low baking scores due to no assignable cause are to be found among the records of the institute, and the probability is that these wheats had been attacked by the bug. The general conclusion, therefore, is that although) careful watch should be kept to prevent the inclusion of badly-affected lines in mill gnsts, ylet the situation is not such as to cause any general alarm.