Record of lac insect occurrence in Maharashtra

Abstract

In the present study, intensive surveys were conducted in 36 districts of Maharashtra state from 2015 to 2020 under the ICAR funded “Network Project on Conservation of Lac Insect Genetic Resources” to record the district level occurrence of lac insects on different host plants for in-situ and ex-situ conservation. During the survey, information was taken from the concerned Forest department, traders and farmers at the block level in each surveyed district. Randomly different lac host plants were also observed for identifying lac insect species on other host plants. The live lac insect population was traced through observations and through binoculars or visually. In the survey, lac insect occurrence was observed in 115 sites in 26 districts of Maharashtra on 10 different host plant species. The survey revealed maximum lac insect occurrence on Ficus religiosa in 46 sites (39.70%) followed by Butea monosperma in 34 sites ((29.30%), Albizia saman in 19 sites (16.4%), Ficus racemosa in 5 sites (4.31%), Ficus bengalansis and Ficus amphissimma in 3 sites (2.59%), Pithocobium dulce, Ziziphus mauritiana in 2 sites (1.72) whereas minimum occurrence sites were reported on Albizia lebbek and Ficus citrifolia in only one site (0.86%). Maximum lac insect occurrence sites were reported from Gondia in 26 sites (22.6%) followed by Washim in 10 sites (8.62%), Parbhani, Hingoli in both 8 sites (6.90%), Gadchiroli in 07 sites (6.03%), Nanded in 6 site (5.17%), Buladana, Jalna, Latur, Ahmednagar in each 5 sites (4.31%), Solapur in 4 sites (3.45%), Nashik, Bhandara, Aurangabad in each 3 sites (2.61), Beed, Osmanabnad, Satara, Sangli, Dhule and Nandurbar in each 2 sites (2.59). Minimum occurrence sites of lac insect were reported from Akola, Jalgaon, Mumbai, Chandrapur, Yavatmal and Pune in only one site (0.86%). During the present study, colour variation of lac, insects was also observed from 116 lac insect occurrence sites in Maharashtra. There is only 2 colour found, these are crimson and yellow. Crimson lac insect was reported from 70 sites in 17 districts and Yellow lac insect reported from 37 sites in 13 districts, while mixed lac insect populations (Crimson and yellow) were reported from 8 sines of 3 districts of Maharashtra.