Demonstration and Promotion of Hermetic Bag Storage for The Management of Maize Weevil in Mid- Altitude Agroecologyandrsquo;s of Ethiopia

The experiment was conducted for two years in 2018 to 2019 cropping seasons to demonstrate and promote hermetic bag storage for the management of maize weevil and to disseminate/scale-out possible knowledge of maize storage. The experiment was replicated 3 × 5 in randomized complete block designs. Three farmers from each selected kebele’s are used as replication 3 × 5 from five agroecology’s of Bako, Ambo, Hawassa, Jimma and Bure. From each kebele’s in each agroecology’s nine household farmers were selected where a total of 270 samples were collected. All the data the collected were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and difference among means were separated by the least significant difference (LSD). The correlation between parameters were examined using Pearson‘s correlation coefficient using PROC CORR procedure of the SAS software. The result revealed that hermetic bag storage structures was significant different (P < 0.05) form the two storage and caused 100% mortality of the weevils. Significant (P < 0.05) high mean values 9.22 and 9.66% of grain damage and weight losses was observed in the untreated sack from this research, it can be concluded that hermetic bag storage showed better result in reducing insect-damage, maintaining weight loss, germination percentage and grain quality than chemically treated sack in each location. This is due to the biochemical analysis between the grains and insect respiration which reduces oxygen in the storage and increases carbon dioxide and cause of lack of oxygen resulted in insect’s mortality. Therefore, it is concluded that hermetic bag better than using insecticides in reducing of weevils, grains damage and weight losses and maintaining grain quality as well as germination percentage.