Termites tunnelled slowly in the dry sand, but diverted their tunnelling into the wet sand once it had been discovered.
The percentage of stem tunnelled, internodes bored and cobs damaged did not significantly vary among treatments in the insecticide-treated plots (table 5).
These second choice treatments were reached by day 3, after the termites had tunnelled from the boundary gaps of first choice treatments with gaps.
Likewise, severity of borer damage, as evidenced by the % stem tunnelled and % cob damaged, was directly proportional to numbers of attacking larvae.
The termites tunnelled slowly in dry sand, but after discovering a patch of wet sand, increased tunnelling five-fold until it was completely explored, after which activity declined.
Maize monocrops had 3.0-8.8 times more stems tunnelled and 1.3-3.1 times more cob damage than intercrops.
Borer damage was assessed as the percentage of plants infested, number of internodes bored, length and percentage of stem tunnelled, and percentage cob damage.
At harvest, the following additional data were taken: plant height (cm), stem diameter (cm), % stem tunnelled, cob weight (g), cob length (cm), cob width (cm), % cob fill and % cob damaged.