Insect Pest Attack Research Articles

Evaluation of resistance in cotton genotypes against leafhoppers Amrasca biguttula biguttula (Ishida), (Homoptera: Cicadellidae)

Cotton production is affected by various insect-pests attack. Among the insect pests, sucking pests impose serious crop damage. In sucking pests, the leafhopper Amrasca biguttula biguttula (Ishida), considered as a severe pest. Cultivation of susceptible hybrids and reduction in conventional insecticide applications wreak havoc of sucking pest problem. Up to 50% yield losses been reported for the pest leafhopper alone. Host plant resistance is an important component of integrated pest management strategy for leafhopper resistance. Identification of sources of resistance is way to minimize yield losses. In this study, 54 genotypes along resistant check (NDLH1938) and susceptible check (DCH32) screened for resistance in field. Based on initial resistance evaluation studies at field level, 21 genotypes were selected for further studies such as host preference studies and nymphal emergence studies in greenhouse and host plant resistance by pest infestation evaluation in field. In field screening, nine genotypes namely AKH1355, GISV 216, AKH 2012–8, GSHV 173, GISV 267, AKH 1301, GSHV 171, NDLH 2010 and AKH 2006–2 constantly showed resistance on par with resistant check (NDLH1938). Both host preference studies and nymphal emergence tests identified seven genotypes RS 2711, GISV 267, LHDP 1, AKH 1355, RS 2765, F 2164, and GISV 216, which performed on par with resistant check. Leaf anatomical parameters like distance from the lower epidermis to phloem, thickness of phloem bundle are major obstacles for stylet penetration and affect the feeding of leafhoppers. However, leaf thickness, which facilitates the insect to feed easily, succulent nature of such thick leaves preferred by the insects. Biochemical profiles revealed that higher level of chlorophyll, nitrogen, protein and amino acids favors the leafhopper infestation. In contrast, phenol compound act as feeding deterrent, as most of the resistant genotypes showed higher level of phenol.

Challenges of soybean self-sufficiency policy in Indonesia

Indonesia deals with adverse soybean trade balance deficit as its domestic production is far below its demand. The study aims to analyze the challenges of achieving soybean self-sufficiency based on a survey in Lampung, West Java, Central Java, and West Nusa Tenggara Provinces in 2018. The special program (UPSUS) of soybean distinctively designed to achieve soybean self-sufficiency is characterized by heavily subsidized inputs, intensive practice on existing farm land area, as well as newly-planted area enhancement (PATB) on fragmented, less fertile and unsuitable land areas. Nevertheless, it results in unsatisfactory soybean production enhancement. Soybean farming is not competitive in term of farm business due to its relatively low yield and unfeasible farm-gate price. To enhance national soybean production, this crop should be grown on the suitable farm land at appropriate scale. A soybean variety resistant to insect-pests attack is mandatory to be adopted by farmers. In addition, the government needs to restructure the marketing aspect consisting of an effective floor price establishment through Bulog purchase with sufficient state budget allocation. It is also urgent to regulate soybean trade such as soybean import during off season as well as reasonable import tariff.

Socio Economic Determinant and Profitability of Bari Mungbean Variety in Some Selected Areas of Bangladesh

The study was undertaken to find out the socio economic determinants and profitability of BARI mungbean variety in some selected areas of Bangladesh. The study has been conducted three district viz. Jashore, Jhenaidah and Kushtia during June-July, 2020. A total of 90 farmers, 30 from each district were selected randomly for present study. It was observed that most of the farmer cultivated BARI mung-6 (67.78%), BARI mung-5 (21.11%) and BARI mung-7 (11.11%) in the study areas. BARI mung-6 was the popular variety among the farmers in the study areas as its adaptability to diverse nature and high yield. Total cost of mungbean cultivation was Tk. 46368ha-1, where as variable cost was Tk. 27391ha-1 and fixed cost was Tk. 18977ha-1. Among the cost item highest cost was land preparation cost Tk. 7684ha-1 (16.57%) followed by hired labour Tk. 4927ha-1 (10.63%), Seed Tk. 3584ha-1 (7.73%), pod picking cost Tk. 3487ha-1 (7.52%), pesticide Tk. 3029ha-1 (6.53%), fertilizer Tk. 2740ha-1 (5.91%) etc. Pod picking is important cost at mungbean cultivation and farmer expense averages Tk.12.00/kg of green pod. Women (64%) along with children (31%) were involved in pod harvesting. Average yield of mungbean was 1.030 tonha-1 in the study areas. Average Gross return was Tk. 66966ha-1 and net return was Tk. 20598ha-1. Benefit cost ratio was 1.44 that means the mungbean cultivation was profitable. Due to not synchronous ripening of pod mungbean harvest by the mechanical was not possible. Bad weather, pod picking and insect pest attack was major constraints for mungbean cultivation.

Modern drifts in bioengineered nanoparticles toward insect pest management: a review

The development of molecular tools for agricultural analysis promoted property crop production improvement to rising food security from stress caused by organic phenomenon factors, as well as the insect pest attack. Crop productivity has inflated quintuple over the past few decades due to high-yielding varieties, irrigation, fertilizers, and pesticides. However, the planet population is anticipated to grow staggeringly over subsequent four decades, from nine to ten billion individuals. It’s so imperative to extend the assembly of food grains to feed the population. As way as ancient agriculture technology is bothered, it still incorporates a good distance to travel. The molecular tools wont to shield crops from organic phenomenon stress during this instance like plant alpha-amylase inhibitors, vacuolar ATPase, hemoprotein P450 monooxygenase, enzyme modulating oostatic issue (TMOF), enzyme inhibitors (PIs), with the exception of sterol enzyme (CHOx), lipoxygenases (enzyme), and technology, etc. despite not being wholesome. Additionally to delivery ecologically property farming practices into our daily lives, bionanotechnology will give opportunities for developing nations and developed nations shortly. It should have an enormous impact on farming systems while not the employment of pesticides. There area unit considerations concerning the food safety risks related to transgenic plants since the unfold of antibiotic resistance, the changes within the nutrient composition of plants, and also the production of noxious proteins and allergens can not be answered currently. Besides victimization high-yielding varieties, irrigation, and fertilizers, it’s a potent role in minimizing the economic losses caused by insects. Within the current context of insect pest management, it’s imperative to develop bionanotechnology-based tools for pest management. However, their economical use necessity takes for reckoning the numerous ecological role useful insect play for the longer-term development of agriculture.

Adsorption of Triterpene Extracts of <i>Momordica charantia</i> (Cucurbitaceae) Leaves by Local Kaolin from Boboyo, Far North Region (Cameroon)

Plant extracts are nowadays cited as suitable tools for better protection of stored grains insect pest attacks. These chemical insecticides are less attractive to producers because of their low persistence and difficulty to use as pure product. The present work aimed to study the formulation through adsorption of tetracyclic triterpene of the leaves of Momordica charantia (Cucurbitaceae) on kaolin. tetracyclic triterpene was obtained by macerated in methanol solvent. In this study, we tested the technical properties of kaolin physically and chemically, which include XRF, XRD, and FTIR. Based on the XRF test, the main composition of kaolin, SiO2, Al2O3, and Fe2O3, CaO, MgO, K2O, Na2O, SO3, P2O5 were 45.41, 20.54, 8.10, 0.13, 0.79, 01.10, 01.09, 0.04, and 0.03% respectively, while the rest were impurities. The FTIR spectra showed the functional groups of Al-OH, Al-O and Si-O. While the XRD diffractogram identified kaolinite as the main mineral phase in the presence of quartz, muscovite, and grossite tested in small quantities in the sample. The experimental parameters such as contact time, adsorbent dose, initial concentration of extract of triterpene and temperature were studied. The study revealed that the maximum quantity of adsorption is reached after 10 minutes, it is believed that the quantities adsorbed with the increase in the concentration of the adsorbate and quantities adsorbed decreases with the increase of the mass of the clay and temperature. The adsorbent showed good potential for adsorption with a maximum take up of 0.34 mg/g. The equilibrium data were well fitted by the Langmuir isotherm. Thermodynamic parameters suggested that the adsorption involved a chemical process, spontaneous, and endothermic in nature. The kinetic study showed that the second-order model gives a better description of the kinetics of the adsorption reaction. The study of the adsorption of triterpene extract by kaolinite can be used for a powdery formulation of insecticide.

Incidence and Diversity of Stored Product Insects in Processed Millets

A study was taken up to know the incidence and diversity of various grain insect pests that attack processed millets retailed in the markets of Guntur district. Primarily processed millets of eight species (sorghum, pearl millet, finger millet, foxtail millet, kodo millet, proso millet, barnyard millet and little millet) available in the markets were sampled for grain and insect populations and diversity indices were worked out. The indices indicated the existence of higher diversity of grain insects in millets. Out of the ten insect species noticed in all the millets together, sorghum and pearl millet recorded seven and eight insect species, respectively. Further, the results indicated that sorghum and pearl millet were more vulnerable to insect pest attack particularly by primary storage insects. In little millet and finger millet, the numbers of insects were negligible. Rice weevil Sitophilus oryzae (L.) was the most common species found in sorghum samples, whereas, meal moth Corcyra cephalonica (Staint.) and red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) were common in small millets.

Biology, Ecology, and Management of Hemipteran Pests in Almond Orchards in the United States

AbstractAlmond, Prunus dulcis (Miller) D. A. Webb, is an important tree nut crop cultivated primarily in the Mediterranean climatic regions. However, the United States, specifically the state of California, is the largest producer and exporter of almond nuts in the world. At least 60 species of insect pests attack almonds worldwide. Hemipterans can be important pests in almond orchards. Some hemipteran insect pests in almonds include lace bugs, plant bugs, stink bugs, and leaffooted bugs. These pests use needle-like mouthparts to pierce and feed upon fruits or other parts of the plant, causing direct or indirect crop damage. Nonetheless, the biology, life history, and management practices for many hemipteran pests of almonds are not available in the literature or come from research of these insects on other crops and host plants. In this article, we discuss the current understanding of biology, ecology, and management of hemipteran pests of almonds and outline future research to advance the integrated pest management of these pests in almond orchard systems.

Review on integrated management of brinjal shoots and fruit borer, Leucinodes orbonalis (Guenee)

Eggplant Solanum melongena is one of the most important vegetables of south Asia. It is the most important vegetable of hot and wet climatic zones. It is commercially very profitable vegetable crop to farmers. It has a wide range of bio chemicals, minerals, vitamins, proteins, calcium and phosphorus. Several insect pests attack the brinjal crop among those, Leucinodes orbonalis is the most obnoxious, destructive damaging pest to the brinjal .It is a key pest of brinjal, causes damage to shoots buds stems and fruits. Larva of this pest is the damaging stage to brinjal crop. Larvae bore inside the shoots petioles and fruits and reduce the crop yields up to 80% damage to fruits has been identified. This sitsuation has posed a hindrance to the farmers in commercial cultivation of eggplant; hence relevant literatures were collected, studied and reviewed regarding biology and management of borer. Available management tools are not being enough to control the population of this pest and in such condition it is needful to have a holistic approach towards IPM practices. In this article, several control measures for L. orbonalis including resistant varieties, cultural methods, physical and mechanical barriers, sex pheromones, bio-pesticides and bio-control agents; chemical and botanical means are outlined and evaluated with supportive facts and figures with reference to previous works and researches in this area.

Insect pests in the forests of Bulgaria and their economic importance

Based on the forest-pathological inventories for the last 30 years, the economic importance of the insect pests in the Bulgarian forests and its dynamics for the periods 1990–2002 and 2003–2018 were determined. Insect pest attacks have declined sharply in the last sixteen years- in coniferous forests they have decreased three times and in deciduous ones - almost six times. Generally, the health status of the forests, with regard to pest status, after 2003 is improving, and this is more clearly expressed in the deciduous forests. As a result of this development, the pest control measures areas gradually shifted from deciduous to coniferous forests. Since 2003, deterioration in the health status of ageing coniferous plantations has been identified, however, with the attacks of two major groups of pests escalating- pine sawflies and bark beetles.

Insecticidal potential of some plant extracts in nano and normal form on immatures stages of red palm weevil Rhynchophorus ferrugineus

Red palm weevil, R. ferrugineus (Coleoptera: Dryophthoridae) is the principal insect pest attacks date palm all over Egypt, Current work aims to take advantage of effective, ecofriendly, and safer plant sources in pest control. Toxicity of some plant crude extracts on both normal and nano form against eggs and larvae stags of RPW was assessed in laboratory exposure experiments. The treatments comprised three different concentration of plant extracts (5, 10 and 15 mg/100 ml) for both normal and nano extracts of selected plants using aquatic solutions. Data showed that all the evaluated extracts showed potential ovicidal and larvicidal activity against RPW, nano extracts recorded the highest ovicidal and larvicidal activities compared to normal extract, as ovicidal potential eucalyptus nano extract at 15% was the most toxic which give (80.00±1.00%) mortality, (LC50=9.011) followed by oleander nano extract at 15% 76.67±0.58% (LC50=9.48) and Datura extract at 15 (70.0±1.0 %) (LC50=9.652), while, in Larvicidal activity, nano eucalyptus was the highest effect among all extraction (LC50=5.228) followed by Oleander(LC50=6.042).

Effectiveness of different plant extracts along with new chemistry insecticide against Tribolium castaneum

Different insect pests attack stored grain products during storage. T. castaneum are the most threatening pests of stored grains. Feeding of adults and larvae is stored grains. The extracts of Datura stramonium and Zingiber officinale prepared with acetone and Deltamethrin was applied. Five concentrations 0.01%, 0.02%, 0.03%, 0.04%, 0.05% were prepared with one controlled concentration of both the plants and the Deltamethrin. Treatments were applied on the filter paper check their possible lethal effects against T. castaneum. The data concerning mortality was recorded after time interval 24, 48 and 72 hours and analyzed statistically using ANOVA (analysis of variance) and comparison of means of treatment means was analyzed with the help of Tuckey’s honestly significant difference (THSD) test. The mean mortality of Tribolium castaneum were 90% after 72 hours by exposure of Deltamethrin. The mean values of % mortality caused by effect of Datura stramonium against T. castaneum was 52%. The mean values of % mortality caused by plant extract Zingiber officinale against T. castaneum was 41% after 72 hours. Results revealed that Deltamethrin is more effective than plant extracts. Datura stramonium is more effective than Zingiber officinale.

Infestation of Magulacra nigripennata Dognin (Lepidoptera: Cossidae) in a commercial cupuassu plantation in Nova Califórnia, Rondônia State, Brazil

The cupuassu (Theobroma grandiflorum (Willd ex Sprengel) K. Schum.) is a native tree from the tropical rainforest and one of the most important fruit trees in the Amazon region. Its pulp and seeds are widely used in the alimentary industry, as well as food by the people of northern Brazil. Among the factors that can compromise the production of cupuassu are the attack of diseases and insect pests. The aim of this work is to report the attack of a wood-borer lepidopteran in commercial cupuassu plantation located in the district of Nova Califórnia, Rondônia State, Brazil. In April 2019 an infestation of a wood-borer insect was observed causing the death of branches. Branches containing caterpillars in their inside were collected and taken to the Entomology Laboratory of the Embrapa Acre, where they were placed in a screened cage. After about 60 days, an adult insect emerged, which was identified as Magulacra nigripennata, a lepidopteran associated with cocoa and cupuassu plantations in that country. A random survey of 100 plants in the plantation area detected an infestation level of 36%, indicating the harmful potential of this pest to the cupuassu crops in the Amazon region.

A high yielding and wilt resistant castor (Ricinus communis) hybrid for India

The breeding efforts were made at Sardarkrushinagar (Gujarat) during 2006-07 to 2015-16 for development of castor (Ricinus communis) hybrid suitable for irrigated and rainfed condition. The castor hybrid GCH 8 (SHB 896) was evaluated in IVHT, AVHT-I and AVHT-II (irrigated and rainfed) along with checks, viz. DCH 177, DCH 519 and GCH 7 at different AICRP (castor) locations during 2013-14 to 2015-16. The hybrid GCH 8 (SHB 896) exhibited wider adaptability and consistent superiority in seed yield and oil yield under irrigated as well as rainfed conditions over checks during the years of evaluation. On the basis of weighted mean, GCH 8 yielded 18.95 q/ha and 35.88 q/ ha over checks, viz. DCH 177, DCH 519, and GCH 7 to the tune of 16.03, 14.02, and 13.01 % & 16.19, 17.64 and 16.57 % higher under rainfed and irrigated condition, respectively. This hybrid also recorded 48.30 % and 48.60 % oil content in seed with extract on an average 9.15 q/ha and 16.37 q/ha oil yield under rainfed and irrigated condition, respectively. This hybrid has profuse branching, tolerance to lodging and resistant to shattering. It was resistant against major diseases like wilt and root rot and showed at par as well as somewhat less attack of major insect pests of castor like semilooper, Spodoptera, leaf hopper, white fly, capsule borer and thrips.

Effect of Bagging on Quality and Shelf Life of Mango (Mangifera indica L.) cv. BARI Mango- 4

The study was conducted to manage mango pests with maintaining fruit quality through fruit bagging technology. This research was executed from April, 2019 to August, 2019 for ensuring safe mango production with minimum use of pesticides. The fruits were bagged at the age of 45 to 50 days with different types of bags. Four treatments viz: No bagging (control), Brown paper double-layered bag; White paper single-layered bag; Transparent polythene bag were included. Apparently, brown and white paper bag showed maximum fruit weight (557.90 g and 498.67g), fruit length (10.77 and 10.67 cm), fruit diameter (24.90 and 24.67 cm) and pulp weight (465 and 453 g) respectively, compared to control treatment while polythene bag gave the minimum result. Meanwhile in bagging fruit chemical parameters of ascorbic acid, reducing and non reducing sugars, total sugars, total soluble solids, percent of citric acid and β-carotene were improved over polythene bag and control. The fruit color was non-persistent in brown paper bag. The sensory attributes of color and flavor in fruits of brown bags were improved over control. Fruit retention was significantly enhanced with brown paper bag (88.67%), white paper bag (87.00%) and control (82.33%) compared to polythene bag (61.33%). Fruits with brown paper bag gave the highest shelf life up to 12.67 days with the lowest weight loss and good physical appearances as against 10.67 days of control fruits. The infestation of fruit fly also had reduced by pre-harvest fruit bagging. These results indicate that fruit bagging can enhance fruit quality and shelf life of mango cv. BARI mango-4 through reduction insect-pest attack.

Assessment of quality biomass production potential of forage sorghum hybrids in semi-arid conditions of Haryana

Sorghum being a C4 crop has diverse uses as food, feed, fodder and fuel. But among kharif forages sorghum has great potential to provide quality forage and fodder for animal use. It is best suited in semi-arid regions due to its drought tolerance nature as compared to fodder maize. By keeping these points in consideration, we have planned an experiment to evaluate eleven CMS based forage sorghum hybrids for green and dry biomass potential along with their fodder quality along with two checks. The most productive hybrids among them were SHH 1836 (GFY: 673.5 and DFY: 161.2 q/ha); SHH 1911 (GFY: 645.0 and DFY: 159.0 q/ha); SHH 1903 (GFY: 642.0 and DFY: 159.3 q/ha); SHH 1812 (GFY: 631.5 and DFY: 154.6 q/ha); SHH 1513 (GFY: 627.3 and DFY: 153.3 q/ha) and SHH 1916 (GFY: 624.3 and DFY: 148.3 q/ha) having 18.2, 13.0, 12.7, 10.8, 10.1 and 9.6 % increase for green biomass yield and 15.1, 14.0, 14.1, 10.7, 9.8 and 6.2 % increase for dry matter yield, respectively. As far as quality of these hybrids are concerned SHH 1836 was best among all hybrids having crude protein content 11.37% and 61.2% IVDMD clubbed with highest green biomass yield and tolerance to foliar disease and insect pest attack.

Efficacy of Eucalyptus Leaf (Eucalyptus camaldulensis), Moringa Seed (Moringa oleifera) and Pirimiphos-methyl Powders against Maize Weevil (Sitophilus zeamais) in Stored Maize

Annually, Nigeria loses 20–40% of maize grain due to insect pests attack. However, insect pest control in stored products relied heavily on the use of gaseous fumigants and residual contact insecticides. The control method is limited as it is toxic to beneficials and humans. Efforts have now shifted to the use of edible plant materials as protectants of which the tropics are well endowed with. Therefore, a study was conducted in laboratory in order to evaluate the effectiveness of powders of eucalyptus leaf (Eucalyptus camaldulensis Schlecht,) moringa seed (Moringa oleifera Lam.) and Pirimiphos-methyl against maize weevil (Sitophilus zeamais) on stored maize (Zea mays L.).
 
 camaldulensis leaf powder showed 100% repellence effect at a concentration of 2.0 g / 20 g maize seeds while M. oleifera seed powder had 75% repellence effect against S. zeamais. Contact toxicity of E. camaldulensis leaf powder on S. zeamais was 65% at 1.0 g/20 g maize seeds after 96 hours of exposure. Contact toxicity of M. oleifera seed powder on S. zeamais was 60% at 96 hours of exposure at a concentration of 1.0 g/20 g maize seeds. The powders of E. camaldulensis leaf and M. oleifera seed showed promising effects against S. zeamais in stored maize, hence could be incorporated in an integrated approach as alternative to synthetic pesticides when used in reducing weevil infestation in stored maize seeds.

Molecular identification of sugarcane black bug (Cavelarius excavates) from Pakistan using cytochrome C oxidase I (COI) gene as DNA barcode

Sugarcane is one of the major cash crop whose low productivity is due to low nutrients supply and insect pest attacks. The nutrient requirement may be fulfilled by increasing the amount of fertilizer supplements but pest attack is difficult to control through poisonous chemicals due to their harmful effects on plant growth as well as human health. Recently, sugarcane black bug (Cavelarius excavates) was reported to attack sugarcane crop in Pakistan which caused plethora of damages to the crop yield. To control the insect pest, first step is to identify the enemy insect precisely. Therefore, a DNA barcode based study was required for the correct identification of bug species. DNA barcoding is one of the most powerful and sophisticated tools for identifying insects where sequence of mitochondrial gene cytochrome C oxidase I (COI) is used as DNA marker. Sugarcane black bug was sampled and its genomic DNA was subject to PCR for amplification of COI gene. Sanger sequencing of targeted gene was done commercially from Macrogen (South Korea). Sequence analysis revealed that our sequence was first DNA barcode sequence of sugarcane black bug (Cavelarius excavates) in the databases. This study will help us to open more ways to understand and controlling sugarcane black bug.

A Deep-Learning Approach for Automatic Counting of Soybean Insect Pests

The occurrence of insect pest attacks in soybean fields has worried farmers around the world. Early and automatic diagnosis of insect pests number could assess the infestation level of each plantation area to optimize the applications of pesticides in the crop and, consequently, reduce production costs and environmental impact. Recent research on insect count has adopted deep neural networks. However, researches have employed models trained to count only one species of insect, using images captured in a controlled environment, quite different from a real scenario. In order to obtain high accuracy, we evaluated three models of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) with three different training strategies: 100% fine-tuning with the weights obtained from ImageNet, a complete network with the weights initialized randomly and transfer learning with the weights obtained from ImageNet. Data augmentation and dropout were used during network training to reduce overfitting and increase generalization of the model. Our approach consists in segmenting an image from the plantation with the simple linear iterative clustering (SLIC) method and classifying each superpixel segment into a pest insect class using the CNN-trained classification model. The pest insect count is obtained by adding the insects of each superpixel class identified by our computer vision system. The results indicate that the deep-learning models can be used successfully to support specialists and farmers in the insect pest management in soybean fields.

Pre-harvest Fruit Bagging Enhanced Quality and Shelf-life of Mango (Mangifera indica L.) cv. Amrapali

A study was performed during 2016 from January to July for safe mango production by applying the minimum use of pesticides. The mango fruits were bagged at marble stage (45 days after fruit set) with various treatments viz: T0: No bagging (control), T1: Brown paper double-layered bag (BPB); T2: White paper single-layered bag (WPB); T3: Perforated polythene bag (PB) and T4: White cloth bag (WCB). In physical parameters, brown and white paper bag recorded the maximum fruit weight (169.10 g and 147.6 g), fruit length (8.57 and 8.33 cm), fruit diameter (5.63 and 5.87 cm) and pulp weight (124.47 g and 105.60 g) respectively, while minimum result was found in the other treatments and control. Meanwhile, in bagging fruits, chemical parameters of total soluble solids, ascorbic acid, percent of citric acid, reducing sugars and β- carotene were increased over control. Brown paper bag changed fruit color. The sensory qualities in fruits of brown and white paper bags were improved over control. Fruit retention was significantly improved by pre-harvest fruit bagging with a brown paper bag (95.90%), white paper bag (95.50%), and control (90.00%) over polythene bag (80.00%). Fruits with brown paper bags showed shelf life up to 18 days with good physical quality and the lowest weight loss against 15 days of control fruits. The sensory attributes were better in fruits of brown, white paper and white cloth bags over control. Bagging at marble stage also reduced the occurrence of spongy tissue and the incidence of mealy bugs. These results indicate that fruit bagging can improve the quality and the shelf life of mango cv. Amrapali through the reduction of disease and insect-pest attack.

Seasonal incidence of major insect pests in the multi-storey farming of Mahaneem, pulses and castor in south west Haryana

In the present study, no. of insect pest infestation was observed on the Mahaneem (Ailanthus excelsa) plant. Themajor loss in the form of mean infestation level in castor was observed by red hairy caterpillar, Amsacta moorei (30% defoliation); castor semilooper, Achaea janata (25% defoliation); tobacco caterpillar, Spodoptera litura (55%defoliation) and leafhopper, Empoasca flavescens (20 % leaf infestation). It was noticed that castor shoot and capsule borer Conogethes punctiferalis infestation was only 8 percent capsule damage, however, its damage was 25% on capsule in monocrop of castor. The major infestation in the pulses i.e. urd bean, cowpea and mung bean was observed by spotted pod borer Maruca testulalis 80 percent pod damage, red hairy caterpillar (25% defoliation) and leafhopper Empoasca kerri (27% leaf infestation). It was concluded in the present study that there was no effect on the incidence of insect pests on mahaneem, pulses and castor except castor capsule borer damage. It might be due to least host preference of this insect towards multi-storey farming system plantation. The study proved successful multi-storey farming system of Mahaneem, pulses and castor in reference to insect pests attack in south west Haryana.