Agricultural Sciences, 2015, 6, 14-21 Published Online January 2015 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/as http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/as.2015.61002 How to cite this paper: Ambrosano, E.J., Lourenção, A.L., Wutke, E.B., Rossi, F., Dias, F.L.F., Tavares, S. and Ambrosano, G.M.B. (2015) Infestation of Diatraea saccharalis (Fabr.) during Five Consecutive Cycles of Sugarcane Crop Succeeding Le- guminous Crops. Agricultural Sciences, 6, 14-21. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/as.2015.61002 Infestation of Diatraea saccharalis (Fabr.) during Five Consecutive Cycles of Sugarcane Crop Succeeding Leguminous Crops Edmilson José Ambrosano 1* , André Luiz Lourenção 2 , Elaine Bahia Wutke 3 , Fabricio Rossi 4 , Fábio Luis Ferreira Dias 1 , Silvio Tavares 1 , Gláucia Maria Bovi Ambrosano 5 1 Department of Regional Center South Pole, APTA/Agronomic Institute of Campinas/IAC, Piracicaba, Brazil 2 Department of Plant Diseases, APTA/Agronomic Institute of Campinas/IAC, Campinas, Brazil 3 Department of Grains and Fibers, APTA/Agronomic Institute of Campinas/IAC, Campinas, Brazil 4 Department of Biosystem Engineering, University of São Paulo/FZEA, Pirassununga, Brazil 5 Department of Social Dentistry, University of Campinas/FOP, Piracicaba, Brazil Email: * ambrosano@apta.sp.gov.br Received 24 October 2014; revised 13 November 2014; accepted 2 December 2014 Copyright © 2015 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract The area cultivated with sugarcane in Brazil is expanding, and increasingly using legumes cover crop in new deployed areas and in those which were reformed. Long-term trials were carried out in Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil, to evaluate the effect of leguminous green manure on the natural infestation of Diatraea saccharalis (Fabr.) during five cropping cycles of sugarcane “IAC 87-3396”. This study was carried out from October 1999 to October 2005 in Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil, at coordinates 22˚42''S and 47˚38''W, 560 m above sea level, in soil classified as Typic Paleudult. Green manure crops were assigned to five treatments: peanuts (Arachis hypogaea L.) (cultivar “IAC-Tatu” and “IAC-Caiapó”), sunn hemp (Crotalaria juncea L.) (cultivar “IAC 1”) and velvet-bean [Mucuna aterrima (Piper & Tracy) Holland] (cultivar “common”). A treatment without any green manure or weed was used as the control. The previous sugarcane crop was destroyed and the soil was prepared in a conventional way (using plow and harrow) before the leguminous crops were sowed. Thirty days after the sowing, weeds were removed and, 120 days later, the crops were cut and its biomass was deposited on the soil surface without incorporation. Experimental plots com- prised five rows of sugarcane, each one measuring 10 m long and spaced 1.40 m apart. The sugar- cane was harvested 18 months after biomass deposit, on October 25th, 2001 and its stalks were collected at intervals of approximately 12 months in: 07/09/2002, 08/01/2003, 11/07/2004 and 10/06/2005. At harvest, the masses were determined from a sample of sugarcane, cut from three rows (2 m long) in the center of the plot. The losses caused by the sugarcane borer were estimated by the intensity of the infestation by randomly observing and collecting sugarcane stems from * Corresponding author.