Seasonal Abundance of Piercing Sucking Insect Pests Associated with Cotton Plant and their Relation to Natural Enemies

Abstract

The cotton aphid, Aphis gossypii (Glover.) had four peaks during the first season and three peaks during the second season, the cotton thrips, Thrips tabaci Lindeman had two peaks during both seasons, the sweet potato white fly, Bemisia tabaci (Genn.) had two peaks during the first season and four peaks in the second season and Empoasca spp. exhibited three peaks during the first season and two peaks in the second season. Also, the lady bird beetle, Coccinella undecimpunctata L. had seven peaks during both seasons. Whereas the green lacewing, Chrysoperla carnea ( Steph.) had seven peaks during 2018 season and eight peaks during 2019 season. The parasitoid, A. colemani had three peaks during 2018 season and five peaks during 2019 season on the cotton aphid.There was a correlation between insect pests and the natural enemies, insignificant positive correlation was observed between C. undecimpunctata and both of A. gossypii and T. tabaci in both seasons. However, C. undecimpunctata has highly significant positive correlation with B. tabaci in the first season only, but it has a significant positive correlation with Empoasca spp. in the first season only . C. carnea, has a highly positive significant correlation with the aphid and the whitefly numbers in the season 2018, whereas during the second season 2019 the correlation was highly positive significant with the whitefly and the green leafhoppers only. The correlation between the parasitoids A. colemani and the aphid was highly significant during both seasons.