RESISTANCE DU SORGHO (SORGHUM BICOLOR L. MOENCH) AUX LEPIDOPTERES FOREURS DE TIGES: CAS DES VARIETES LOCALES DE CONTRE SAISON DANS LA REGION DE L'EXTREME-NORD, CAMEROUN

Among cereals, Sorghum is the most consumed as food in the Far North of Cameroon. Muskuwari, the off season sorghum, likely is attacked by stem borers (Sesamia cretica Lederer), which compromise its yield and reduce cereal supply. And yet ecological control measures to reduce losses are still little known. In order to identify resistant local accession of Muskuwari, tests in a Completely Randomized Block design was carried out on ten local varieties under natural infestations during the 2012 and 2013 agricultural campaign. Degrees of infestation were estimated by visual observation and destructive methods. Each year, Seed losses in term of percentage of total harvest loosed, were estimated from 30 ears per variety randomly selected from infested and uninfected. The results showed a large variation in agronomic performance depending on the parameters considered. Mandouéri, Bourgouri, Tchangalari and Soukatari with infestation rates ranging from 4% to 11% and seed losses ranging from 0.96% to 23.42% are more tolerant or resistant than other varieties while Safra's varieties are always the most susceptible to stem borers with over to 40% seed loss. Therefore, there are resistant or tolerant varieties of Muskuwari able to cope with the attacks of stem borers not exploited to mitigated damages. Since varietal resistance is an ecological and easily adoptable option, investigations that could lead to Muskuwari varietal improvement could boost cereal supply.