Pests probed by brochure, survey

Press, 24 April 1986, Page 23

Pests probed by brochure, survey

New Zealand cereal growers are to receive a free copy of a comprehensive publication on stored product pests and to be asked to take part in the first widespread, national survey of the extent of infestations. The Ireland milling group has funded the printing and distribution of 5000 copies of a new brochure, written by a storage pest consultant in Christchurch, Mr Derek Knibb. As a second part to this major extension and publicity exercise in the arable industry, the Entomology Department of Lincoln College will analyse and classify thousands of one kilogram grain samples to be sought from growers this year. With the Ireland Group booklet will be a simple questionnaire on grain storage which growers will be asked to complete and return. Those with cereals stored away this year will be asked to sample three times and co-operate with representatives from agricultural merchants in getting the samples to Lincoln. Mr Knibb said recently that this would generate the first comprehensive data on stored grain pests on New Zealand farms. Until now New Zealand has relied on United Kingdom and Australian surveys.

To collect the samples from stored grain, farmers have been asked to read and follow the technique outlined in the booklet. Other sections of the booklet describe the common pests of stored grain, crop and storage hygiene techniques and some of the history of insect infestations of grain. Some of this information has been available to growers before through newspaper and magazine articles, titles in the M.A.F.’s Aglink series and by talking with merchant, agricultural chemical and millers’ representatives. But growers have had to seek out the information whereas the new booklet will present it to them, free of charge. The milling manager of the Ireland Group and the chairman of the N.Z. Flour Millers’ Association, Mr Roger Keenan, said the benefits of the brochure and the survey would be to the whole cereal industry and not just to his company. He believed the brochure was well enough presented to be held by growers and referred to in subsequent years. The Ireland Group would publish amendments and additions when necessary. Mr Knibb hoped that growers would continue to use his publication, particularly as many stored grain problems started at

or before harvest. Combine harvester hygiene is one area which has been emphasised by the M.A.F. and others recently and has been covered again by Mr Knibb. As a consultant with 20 years experience in grain, Mr Knibb has seen many preventable cases of widespread pest damage in stored cereals. Recently in New Zealand a 1000-tonne silo lost 46 per cent of its grain weight over eight months from the lesser grain borer and the rice weevil and the remainder was not suitable for milling because of ureic acid contamination. Mr Keenan said the brochure would be posted free to all growers on the Wheat Board computer but it was not aimed only at growers of wheat. The deregulation of the wheat industry and the expansion of the arable industry in New Zealand had created a climate in which growers would have to be more professional in their approach to storage. No longer could they stand idle while insects attacked their silos or bins expecting that someone, perhaps a pig farmer, would eventually buy the grain regardless. “It is about time people woke up to how much a bad pest problem in stored grain can cost them," said Mr Knibb.

“If farmers come in with infested grain it will not be accepted at the mills,” said Mr Keenan. When the anticipated information is generated from the industry-wide survey, Mr Knibb expects that maps of infestation types and regions could be drawn. Links might be found between cereal lines and localities, variations in infestations due to climatic differences may become apparent and so on. Fungal problems

could enter the survey also, depending on the people available at Lincoln College to do the very demanding work of sieving and identifying. Mr Knibb is very excited by the exercise because it is the first to generate domestic indus-try-wide information in his field. He hopes that it can be repeated in the future, when a different harvest year could be expected to generate different pest problems.