Abstract
The insect-pests infestation in cucumber leads to severe injury to its’ vegetative parts and fruits by epilachna beetle, red pumpkin beetle, whitefly, pumpkin caterpillar, leaf minerand fruit fly. The present investigation was taken upduring 2014 and 2015 to study the population dynamics of prevailing six insect-pests of cucumber and its natural enemies inrelation to weather parameters.The correlation studies between insect pests and weather parameters revealed that the melon fruit fly (Bactrocera cucurbitae Coquillett), epilachna beetle (Epilachna vigintioctopunctata Fabricius), red pumpkin beetle (Aulacophora foveicollisLucas), whitefly (Bemisia tabaci Gennadius), pumpkin caterpillar (Diaphania indica Saunders) and leaf miner (Liriomyza trifolii Burgess) showed significant positive correlation with maximum and minimum temperature,whereas negative and nonsignificant correlation with relative humidity and rainfall. The natural enemies such ascoccinellids and spiders showed significant positive correlation with maximum and minimum temperature, and non significant negative correlation with relative humidity and rainfall. Sunshine hour showed positive correlation with all the insect pests and natural enemies except epilachna beetle.
Highlights
Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) is an important vegetable crop and one of the most popular members of the Cucurbitaceae family
Cucumber is being subjected to damage by wide array of insect pests’ right from the initial stages of the crop toharvest of the products in India.The extent of loss caused by these dipteran flies is varying from 20 to 100 per cent depending upon cucurbit species and environmental conditions (Rai et al, 2014)
For observation of pumpkin caterpillar and leaf miner, randomly tagged five vines per plot were selected and number of larvae per vine and no. of mines per vine were counted at weekly interval
Summary
Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) is an important vegetable crop and one of the most popular members of the Cucurbitaceae family. Cucumber is being subjected to damage by wide array of insect pests’ right from the initial stages of the crop toharvest of the products in India.The extent of loss caused by these dipteran flies is varying from 20 to 100 per cent depending upon cucurbit species and environmental conditions (Rai et al, 2014). Are the most destructive pest of cucurbits (Barma and Jha, 2013;Khan et al, 2012; Krisha Kumar et al, 2006) Keeping this in view, the present investigation was carried out on occurrence of melon fruit fly, epilachna beetle, red pumpkin beetle, leaf roller, leaf miner, whitefly, natural enemies (coccinellids and spiders) with abiotic factors to develop economical strategies of pest management
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