Commissioner Charges Farmers On Tomato Disease

In a bid to contribute
his quota to the fight against tomato ebola in the country, the Lagos State Commissioner for Agriculture and  Rural Development, Dr Mufutay Animashaun has said that the deployment of different strategies locally remained key in tackling tomato disease rather than using foreign technology that may not be applicable to the Nigerian climate.
The commissioner who stated this recently while speaking to newsmen in Lagos said the tomato ebola which is also known as Tuta absoluta described the condition as soil born pest.
According to him, it is considered as one of the most devastating pests on  tomatoes, garden egg, potatoes and tobacco plants.
He explained that the pest spreads very quickly and has a high reproductive potential and a life cycle that could take between 24 to 76 days, depending on the environmental conditions.
According to the agric boss, their activities are concentrated in the early morning and daily, during the rest of the day they remained hidden among leaves.
Animashaun said the adult lifespan ranges between 10 and 15 days for females and 6 to 7 days for males.
He said the female laid their eggs mainly on the leaves, although they could also be found on stems and sepals, adding that eggs where laid isolated, thus facilitating their distribution on the crop.
“The number of eggs per female is usually between 40 and 50 and may reach 260”, he said.
He buttressed further that the idea of providing chemicals to combat the pest was not the best, rather, a long term approach should be used by studying the lifecycle and involved all the entomologists who will provide a long term plan to eradicate the disease totally.
The five states that have witnessed the outbreak of the disease  include, Kaduna, Katsina, Kano, Jigawa and Nasarawa. The disease has also spread to Lagos, Oyo and Ogun states.
To prevent further spread, the commissioner recommended. Professional synergy, stressing that “I am equivocally saying that we can solve this ebola tomato outbreak locally through synergy with other indigenous plant protection experts, he said.