Expert Help

[?]et Season Wogs: [?]ghlands Farmers Need Expert Help

(From Our Own Correspondent)

Goroka, Jan. 30.

FARMERS and settlers in the NG Highlands believe in going ahead with the job without iting for official aid. Unfortun >ly, hard-pressed officialdom, has in inclined to let it go at that, i has not bothered to provide • expert scientific assistance that needed. It is usually found that gs follow the crops—and the time assistance is with the first on ught. Whether the Rhinoceros iles eating Goroka Cassias are i same Rhino, beetles that eat w Britain coconut palms, our cor pondent does not say. There are palms of any sort in the High ds. and Oryctes will eat other station only as a last resort. If s pest has got into the Highlands, should be easy enough to dicate it now, before it has ipted itself to its new environ nt. 3e current wet season, which ex tends from October to May, has brought on the annual ant svil pest; particularly in the item Highlands. Two other ts, the pasture grub and the :ee stem borer are also giving able.

Jlassified as Cylas formicarius, ant weevil attacks sweet potato m Kau) and common potato ers and has no known enemy. It ndigenous to the Highlands and natives have never taken active isures of control.

Reports from patrols and Agri ;ural Extension Officers indicate t the pest may be getting worse, has 'been suggested that the >ation of grass fires may mean t the ant-weevil can breed in cover of grasslands adjacent to dens during the dry season. •r. J. Szent-Ivany, an ento ogist already highly regarded by bland Settlers, and Mr. Ron ne, District Agricultural Officer, experimenting with chlordane [ other methods of chemical con l such as prior treatment of nts with lead arsenate dipping are planting, and standard DDT aying.

Ithough the pest has done greater nage in European potato fields n in native gardens the main rce of breeding continues to be native gardens. Patrols will ise the natives (who grow both atoes and sweet potatoes as cash ps as well as for consumption) nit fire-breaks in grassland sur nding proposed garden areas, n burn off around their gardens. ; grass cuttings from the fire

;aks are to be spread over the rdens and burnt on these sites; d infected gardens replanted with ips unattractive to the weevil. fhe white pasture grub, first covered when it invaded the air ids and lawns of Goroka and dis :t, has been under continued oride attack by Agricultural icers and show signs of coming der control. ?he coffee stem borer grub found several plantations has caused ensive damage by ringbarking i coffee trees. Breeding of the yae is being carried out under direction of Doctor Szent-Ivany an urgent project in order to I a parasite. This pest, known Crytorhynchin seems to be the y serious menace to coffee grow- A similar pest was known in a, 50 years ago. Planters have n recommended to carry out ting and to collect larvae with ive labour. Well-cleared and efully looked after trees are not ly to suffer. est control in the Highlands de ads constant attention from the >artment of Agriculture. A local omologist should be appointed, jre is no reason why several ;s should not be dealt with by ultaneous investigation and con ere is an opportunity for the iculture Department to cease ,ting this area as a Cinderella i and not worth bothering about, i latest invader is the Rhino is beetle which has been at :ing Cassia trees in the Goroka i. is significant that the Dutch gation of' 1953 was insistent that II coffee-areas of no more than icres were the only plantations :h could be properly cared for settlers. This is at variance i Moresby policy of refusing to late anything under 100 acres.

Dutch officers were impressed he re’ative freedom from pests yed by the Highlands but they hasised that although Java was h worse off in this respect, it essential to maintain continued control right from the begin : in the Highlands.