Sucking Pests of Cotton

Abstract

The adoption of genetically modified cotton expressing genes from soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis Berliner has changed the entire pest scenario in the cotton ecosystem. The pest status of bollworms and leaf feeding insects has declined, but the incidence of sap feeders including whitefly, Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius), leafhopper, Amrasca biguttula biguttula (Ishida), mealybug, Phenacoccus solenopsis Tinsley, thrips, Thrips tabaci (Lindeman), aphid, Aphis gossypii (Glover) and green mirid bug, Creontiades biseratense (Distant) has increased owing to reduction in insecticide use during reproductive phase of the crop. The outbreaks of mealybug in entire cotton belt and mirid bug in Central and South India were witnessed during the last decade. Similarly, recent occurrence of whitefly outbreak in North India (Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan) in 2015 caused havoc to cotton crop, inflicting huge economic losses to farmers. The population of thrips early in the season, leafhoppers during vegetative–flowering phase and aphids at fag end of the crop season are also gaining importance. A brief description on sucking pests, their damage symptoms and management strategies have been discussed in the chapter.