Sugarcane and Industrial Crops
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Abaca mosaic
Light green to yellow streaks and stripes run along the leaf blade, and the plant grows smaller.
Crops it strikes
What you see
YellowingSpots or streaksStunted plants
When to act
Inspect every mat once a month, and every two weeks in dry, windy months when aphids fly most. Remove each sick mat as soon as the streaks show. For the aphids, act on the colonies on the sick mat and its neighbors before you dig it out.
Before you spray
No spray cures it. Kill the aphids on the sick mat and on plants within six meters, then remove the whole mat and replant with clean material.
How to prevent it
- Plant only virus free corms or tissue culture plantlets from a clean nursery.
- Remove sick mats at once: kill the aphids on them first, then kill and dig out the whole mat.
- Keep corn, sorghum and grassy weeds such as itch grass away from abaca, since they host the virus and the corn aphid.
- Keep a weed free circle around each mat, because weeds harbor the aphids.
- Never take suckers from a field that has mosaic.
Natural enemies and biological help
- Lady beetles, hover flies and lacewings eat aphids. They lower the spread but do not stop it.
Not sure it is this one?
Many diseases look alike. Send a photo to Anee, the smart farm technician in anee.io. She reads it with your crop, its age and the weather, and tells you what it most likely is and what to do first. In Tagalog or English.