Abstract:
A study of the mealybug wilt disease of pineapple (MWP) in the Central and
Eastern regions of Ghana was conducted. The objective was to study the
features of the mealybug species responsible for the MWP to characterize the
mealybugs to facilitate their recognition and management in pineapple
production in Ghana. The study was divided into a questionnaire survey, field
disease assessment, identification of species of mealybug causing the MWP
together with their symbiont ants, determined the effect of the MWP on the
photosynthetic ability of the pineapple plants during the attack by the virus and
evaluated alternative management strategies for minimizing incidences of virus
spread and mealybug wilt of pineapple. Farmers did not harvest suckers from
infected mother plants and did not harvest from within I m2 perimeter of an
infected plant and those farmers had a high level of knowledge of the MWP on
their farms. Many of the farms surveyed from the two regions from Ghana had
MWP incidence of 10-20%, indicating that the disease seriously threatens
pineapple production in the regions. The patterns ofspread or distribution ofthe
MWP across the various districts surveyed in the Central and Eastern regions
of Ghana is more of clustering than random or even distribution on the field.
Propagation with crowns gave a lower incidence of the MWP disease and a
lower population of ants and mealybugs compared to the slips and the suckers.
The feeding by the mealybugs and attack by the PMWaV in the MWP are
responsible for the loss of the chlorophyll in the leaves that eventually lead to
wilting of the plants. White vinegar and neem oil worked best in reducing the
incidence and severity of the MWP and the mealybug and ant populations and
could be used alternately with insecticides.
