Seasonal incidence of major insect pests of brinjal (Solanum melongena) and their correlation with weather parameters

Abstract

The present investigation was undertaken to find the seasonal incidence of major insect pests of brinjal during kharif 2019 at the Research farm, College of Agriculture, Tikamgarh (M.P.). The results revealed that the incidence of sucking insect pests viz., whitefly (Bemisia tabaci) started from last week of September (39th standard week) with a population of 4.89/ 3 leaves and reached to a peak level during the second week of October (41st standard week) with a population of 8.96/ 3 leaves whereas jassid (Amrasca biguttula biguttula) started from last week of September (39th standard week) with a population of 0.80/ 3 leaves and reached to a peak level during the second week of October (41st standard week) with a population of 1.29/ 3 leaves. The incidence of shoot and fruit borer started from second week of October (41st standard week) with 4.0% shoot infestation and reached its peak during the second week of November (46th standard week) with 20.0% shoot infestation. Highest fruit infestation of 50% was recorded during the first week of December (49th standard week). Correlation studies showed that among the various abiotic factors, maximum (r= 0.73) and minimum temperature (r= 0.79) exhibited highly significant positive correlation and morning relative humidity exhibited significant negative correlation (r= -0.56) with whitefly population. In case of jassid population, maximum temperature exhibited significant positive correlation (r= 0.59) and minimum temperature exhibited highly significant positive correlation (r= 0.79) with jassid population. The incidence of shoot and fruit borer showed significant negative correlation with minimum temperature and rainfall (r = -0.77, -0.56, respectively).