brinjal pests
by: Kanika SohaneyPosted on:

Pests of Brinjal

Brinjal is one of the most commonly grown vegetable crop in the country. India produces about 10.378 MMT of Brinjal from an area of 0.6 Mha with an average productivity of 17.3 mt/ha.There are various insect pests which are causing damage to crop at different stages and responsible for huge yield losses.

Major pests of Brinjal are:-

S.No.

Pests
1.  Shoot and fruit borer  Brinjal shootborer
2.  Stem borer  brinjal Stem borer
3.  Hadda / spotted beetle  Hadda
4.  Ash weevils  brinjal ash weevil
5.  Brown leaf hopper  brown leaf hopper
6.  Lace wing bug  Lace wing bug

Integrated Pest Management

Nursery raising

  •  Always prepare raised nursery beds about 10 cm above ground level for good drainage to avoid damping off etc.
  • Cover the nursery beds with polythene sheet of 45 gauge (0.45 mm) thickness for three weeks during June for soil solarisation which will help in reducing the soil borne insects, diseases like bacterial wilt and nematodes. However, care should be taken that sufficient moisture is present in the soil for its solarisation.
  •  Mix 250 gm of fungal antagonist Trichoderma viride in 3 kg of FYM and leave for about seven days for the enrichment of culture. After 7 days mix in the soil in a bed of 3 sq. m.
  • The seed of popular hybrids like F1- 321 is sown in beds in the first week of July. Before sowing, seed is treated with T. viride @ 4 gm/ kg. Weeding should be done from time to time and infected seedlings should be rogued out from the nursery. Natural enemies (Beneficial insects)

 

Main crop

 

  • Bird perches @ 10/ acre should be erected for facilitating field visits of predatory birds
  • Delta and yellow sticky traps @ 2-3/ acre should be installed for hoppers, aphids and white fly etc.
  • Give 2 to 3 sprays of 5 % NSKE against sucking pests. Sprays of NSKE also bring down the borer incidence significantly. Neem oil (2%) application is also helpful in reducing borer infestation, though marginally. If incidence of leaf hopper and other sucking insect pests is still above ETL, then apply imidacloprid 17.8 SL @ 150 ml/ha.
  • Pheromone traps @ 5/ acre should be installed for monitoring and mass trapping of shoot & fruit borer Leucinodes orbonalis. Replace the lures with fresh lures after every 15-20 day interval.
  • Release egg parasitoid T. brasiliensis @ 1 – 1.5 lakh/ ha for shoot & fruit borer, 4-5 times at weekly interval.
  • Apply neem cake @ 250 kg/ ha (in two splits) in soil along the plant rows at 25 and 60 DAT for reducing nematodes and borer damage. Don’t apply neem cake when there is heavy wind velocity or temperature is above 30 0C.
  • Clipping of borer damaged shoots and collection & destruction of damaged fruits i.e. clean cultivation helps in the management of borer and phomosis disease effectively.
  • If the borer incidence crosses ETL (5% infestation), apply cypermethrin 25 EC @ 200 g a.i/ha (0.005%) or carbaryl 50 WP @ 3 g/litre of water or endosulfan 35 EC @ 0.07%.
  • Continuous cropping of brinjal leads to more borer and wilt infestation. Therefore, crop rotation with non- solanaceous crops should be followed.
  • Periodically collect and destroy the egg masses, larvae and adults of hadda beetle.
  • Rogue out the little leaf affected plants from time to time. Use of green manure, mulching with polythene, soil application with bleaching powder will reduce the infection of bacterial wilt disease.

 

Source-

  • TamilNadu Agritech Portal
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