Abstract
The pod borer [Helicoverpa armigera Hubner (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)] is responsible for causing up to 90% damage in chickpea due to its regular occurrence from the vegetative growth to the pod formation stage. In order to manage this problem, growers are tempted to increase the amounts of pesticides, but indiscriminate or injudicious use of pesticides has resulted in residues in the food chain, pesticide resistance, and pest resurgence, in addition to causing harm to non-targeted beneficial organisms and the environment. Here, we reviewed the sustainable approaches to reduce the incidence of pod borer and achieve sustainability in chickpea production systems through the adoption of an integrated approach involving host plant resistance, good agronomic practices, and judicious use of chemical and biological methods. We found that the following major points have been reported to reduce the survival and damage of pod borer: (1) use of resistant varieties (the cheapest and the best method of pod borer management); (2) implementing a number of good agronomic practices, such as early sowing with optimum planting density and fertilizer levels, including inter/trap crops (coriander, mustard, linseed, sunflower, sorghum, and marigold) and installing animated bird perches and T-perches at 2 m distance of predatory zones; and (3) monitoring pod borer through pheromone traps (which is also necessary to understand the major factors influencing pest population and to make the pest control program more effective). Integrating all of these approaches with biological control has shown some encouraging results for sustainable pod borer management and has resulted in high chickpea yields. This review highlights examples of successful management approaches from past studies that were implemented in experimental and farmers’ fields. These approaches can be explored as reproducible practices for managing the pest in locations with similar H. armigera concerns. We conclude that an integrated approach is most effective for long-term sustainable management programs.
Highlights
Preparations of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)-based insecticides, with BioBit, Delfin, and DiPel together with nuclear polyhedrosis viruses (NPVs) showed minimum pod damage (Anonymous 1997). It appears that Bt-based insecticides can act as effective Integrated Pest Management (IPM) tools if an awareness is developed among farmers about the critical time and method for their safe application
Most natural pod borer populations have at least some degree of infection by species-specific nuclear polyhedrosis viruses (NPVs)
These results are in line with the findings of Suganthy and Kumar (2000) and Vikram et al (2000), who evaluated different IPM modules composed of insecticides and bio-pesticides
Summary
Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is a legume crop of the Fabaceae family, Faboideae subfamily. There are two different kinds of chickpea, Desi and Kabuli, based on the size, shape, and color of the seeds It contains 24% protein, 59.6% carbohydrates, and 3.2% minerals (Bakr et al 2004). Eleven different insect-pests have been reported as the main damaging pests of the chickpea crop (Rahman et al 1982). The past decade has seen three major pod borer outbreaks, causing 10–80% yield losses due to pod damage (Yelshetty 1999). H. armigera and H. punctigera (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) are the major pod borers in chickpea. In northern Pakistan, up to 90% pod damage due to H. armigera has been recorded in unprotected chickpea fields (Ahmed et al 1986; Anonymous 1987). In Pakistan, during the chickpea season of 2001–2002, an outbreak of H. armigera was reported by farmers growing chickpea near cotton areas (Anonymous 2002)
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