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Result from 2 ½ Years of BWACT Use in the Boll Weevil Suppression Program of Paraguay

Oscar Guillermo Manessi


 
ABSTRACT

Cotton in Paraguay is the main "cash" crop for more than 100,000 small family farms. The Paraguayan system of cotton production is unique and currently provides employment for approximately 1,000,000 people (20% of country's population); it generates an annual "cash flow" of US$ 400,000,000.

Even with the a social and economic importance of this crop, from 1990/91 to 1996/97 the planting decreased 80%, from 1,375,000 acres to 275,000 acres. One of the main reasons for this reduction was the arrival of the boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis Boh.); it entered from Brazil and quickly established in 90% of the production zones, causing an increase in the production cost of 35% and a decrease in the cotton production of 40%. In the cotton crop 1997/98, the Ministry of Agriculture designed and started a "NATIONAL PLAN TO REACTIVATE COTTON" (NPRC); as part of the NPRC, there is a "National Boll Weevil Suppression Program". The weevil program is based on the installation Boll Weevil Attract and Control Tubes (BWACTs or TMPs or TMB) at cotton planting and stalk destruction.

BWACTs are used in the entire cotton cultivation area at a rate of 1 per field or 2.5 acres, maximun. After 2½ years of the Program, the boll weevil population has been decreased by 85% and there has been a decrease in the quantity of insecticide used for boll weevils from 6-8 applications per crop to less than 1 in the cotton crop of 1998/99.

Equally important there was a decrease in production losses from boll weevil damage of about 40% in the 1996/97 crop to damage levels of no economic importance in the 1998/99 crop. The cost of the BWACT program is $ 8.80 per acre per crop.



Reprinted from Proceedings of the 2000 Beltwide Cotton Conferences pp. 1306 - 1309
©National Cotton Council, Memphis TN

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Document last modified Saturday, Jun 17 2000