Abstract
The pink bollworm, Pectinophora gossypiella (Saunders) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) is an important insect pest of the cotton crop worldwide. Sex-pheromone and light traps were used to monitor the adult P. gossypiella population in Bt cotton field for the years 2017-18 at southern Punjab, Pakistan. The sampling of infested bolls was done to record the damage level of P. gossypiella. The sex-pheromone traps captured approximately 2-3 times more adults than light traps in all locations during 2017-18. For sex-pheromone traps, temperature showed negative and strong relation (R2 = 0.63-0.80) with trap catches. Fewer bolls (7.0-9.0%) were infested in plots where sex-pheromone traps were installed compared to check plots (32-37%). Therefore, the pheromone trapping proved an effective and eco-friendly tool for the monitoring and management of P. gossypiella. Our findings enable forecasting of seasonal P. gossypiella population providing additional information for the development of an integrated pest management program for this pest.
Highlights
The pink bollworm, Pectinophora gossypiella (Saunders) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) is an important insect pest of the cotton crop worldwide
The pink bollworm, Pectinophora gossypiella (Saunders) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) significantly affects the cotton crop and is difficult to control with insecticides (Lykouressis et al, 2005)
For the last few decades, extensive research work has been done on the development of integrated pest management program (IPM) for P. gossypiella (Naranjo and Ellsworth, 2010; Tabashnik et al, 2012)
Summary
Gossypium hirsutum (L.) is one of the principal commercial crops and is cultivated on an area of 2.699 million hectares with an average of 11.94 million bales (Pakistan Economic Survey, 2017-18). For the last few decades, extensive research work has been done on the development of integrated pest management program (IPM) for P. gossypiella (Naranjo and Ellsworth, 2010; Tabashnik et al, 2012). This insect has largely been exposed to transgenic cotton in cottonproducing countries; China, United States of America and India (Carrière et al, 2005; Huang et al, 2011; Wan et al, 2012; Choudhary and Gaur, 2015). Our main objective was to evaluate the comparative effectiveness of gossyplure sexpheromone [Z7 Z11 – 16AC (50), Z7 E11 – 16AC (50) hexadecadienyl acetate with light traps in monitoring of P. gossypiella adults in cotton crop at the southern region of Punjab, Pakistan
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