Further record of natural enemies on the insect pests of tobacco in Andhra Pradesh.

Abstract

Routine field surveys were carried out during 1984-90 in tobacco growing areas of Rajahmundry and Guntur for collection and identification of natural enemies of tobacco insect pests namely Spodoptera litura F., Myzus persicae Sulz ., Bemisia tabaci Gen. and Heliothis armigera Hb. The main object of these faunal surveys was to enrich our knowledge of tobacco agro- ecosystem and its biotic elements, which subsequently will facilitate development of techniques to conserve and utilise the indigenous natural enemies of tobacco pests. Several natural enemies of tobacco pests have been collected and got identified by CIE, London during the present study, which are in addition to those that have been already recorded earlier on tobacco. (Joshi et al., 1976; Rao et al., 1981, 1983, 1984a, 1984b).