LAS ARVENSES Y SU ENTOMOFAUNA ASOCIADA EN EL CULTIVO DEL MAÍZ (Zea mays, L.) POSTERIOR AL PERIODO CRÍTICO DE COMPETENCIA

In Cuba, one of the reasons causing low corn yields and high production costs is the great occurrence of harmful organisms frequently becoming into pests; thus, different weed species existing inside crops have had a deep impact on its entomofauna composition and interactions, so that predators and parasitoids are more effective in complex habitats, and beneficial insects have more possibilities of mee- ting alternative preys, dormancy shelter and reproductive sites. Therefore, the present work was aimed at determining weed occurrence with its associated entomofauna inside corn crop (Zea mays, L.) and its beneficial or harmful direct relationship. It was carried out on a Red Ferralitic compact soil at the expe- rimental area of the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences (INCA). Weed management was studied along the whole crop cycle, even up to the end of the critical period, that is to say, weeding for 35 days whereas the non-weeded crop until the beginning of the critical period. Corn spatial arrangement was 0.90 m between rows x 0.30 m between plants. A randomized block design with four repetitions was used. A total of 15 weeds, and 21 natural organisms were recorded, out of which 16 co- rresponded to harmful insects and five to beneficial ones; just two of those were pest organisms: S. frugiperda and H. zea, whereas S. halepense, A. dubius and P. hysterophorus were hosts of beneficial organisms in a higher rate than in crops. RESUMEN. En Cuba, una de las razones por la que se obtie- nen rendimientos bajos y altos costos de produccion en el maiz, es la elevada incidencia de organismos nocivos que se convierten en plagas con frecuencia, por lo que se ha conside- rado que la presencia de diferentes especies de arvenses den- tro de los cultivos tiene un profundo impacto en la composi-