Seed Dressings for the Control of Wheat Bulb Fly

Abstract

GOUGH¹ has referred to the serious damage caused by wheat bulb fly (Leptohylemyia coarctata Fall.) in Great Britain in 1953 and discussed various means of preventing or reducing attacks. Of the possible methods of chemical control, seed dressings seemed worthy of investigation; previous experiments had given conflicting but usually negative results. One of the possible reasons for this was the length of time between the date of sowing and the egg-hatching period, and we therefore laid down two field-experiments to study this time-factor. The seed dressings were: (1) a standard proprietary one containing 1 per cent of an organo-mercurial fungicide applied at 2 oz./bush.; (2) 40 per cent gamma-BHC containing 0.8 per cent of an organo-mercurial applied at 3 oz./bush.; (3) 40 per cent dieldrin containing 0.6 per cent of an organo-mercurial also applied at 3 oz./bush.