ANALYSIS OF THE RANGE OF PESTS AND THEIR EFFECT ON MAIZE PLANTS GROWING IN THE ORGANIC SYSTEM

Organically grown corn has attracted the attention of producers and traders and is increasingly in demand on the world market. With the expansion of this type of crop in which the use of pesticides is not allowed, the species of harmful insects have also multiplied. In this paper we set out to evaluate two lots of corn in western Romania, one with organic corn after 3 years of practice and another in the first year. Thus, we found that in the lot of 3 years under the organic system, the range of species was much more comprehensive and the population level of each species higher than in the lot in the first year. The active stages (as the case may be, of adults, larvae or nymphs) of the species of hemipteran, coleopteran and lepidopteran, which were the most frequent in the lots under observation, affected both the aerial and the underground part of the plants. The damages produced in the lot with 3 years affected the plants in vegetation (from the plant emergence until the maturity of the cob) in percentages of 17-18% as opposed to the damages from the lot in the first year in which the damages were of 5-7%. It is obvious that the longer the culture is on the same substrate, the more the pests become and produce damage with definite repercussions.