Indian scientists are gearing up for a massive campaign to kill an insect ravaging the country's crops. But they are divided over the strategy to control the American bollworm (Heliothis armigera), which is devouring crops at a rate of $500 million a year. The pest poses the biggest single threat to India's agriculture.
One of the country's leading entomologists, Kailash Narain Mehrotra, of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi, wants the government to pass a law restricting the spraying of cotton with pyrethroid insecticides. He argues that the insect's growing immunity to pyrethroids is being caused by indiscriminate use. Meanwhile, the Indian Council of Agriculture (ICAR) has drawn up a battle plan to control the pest by biological means, using its natural enemies.
The bollworm is not new to India, but its status as a pest has grown enormously. It has eaten its way south to Tamil Nadu ...
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