Cole crop Tobacco caterpillar: Spodoptera litura
Symptoms of damage:
- Damage leaves and heads of cabbage and cauliflower
- Damage leaves of radish and beetroot
Identification of pest:
- Egg: Masses appear golden brown
- Larva: Young caterpillars are light green with black head or black spots. Well grown caterpillars are grey or dark brown
- Adult: Adult moths are brownish colour. Forewings are brown colour with wavy white marking, Hindwings are white colour with brown patches along the margin
Management:
- Plough the soil to expose and kill the pupae
- Grow castor along border and irrigation channel as trap crop
- Flood the field to drive out the hibernating larvae
- Set up light trap @1/ha
- Pheromone traps (Pherodin SL) @ 15/ha to attract male moths
- Hand pick grown up larvae and kill them
- Spray Sl NPV @ 1.5 X 1012 POBs/ ha + 2.5 Kg crude sugar + 0.1 % teepol
- Poison bait: Rice bran 5 Kg + Molasses or Brown sugar 500g + Carbaryl 50 WP 500g+ 3lit of water/ha
- Spray chlorpyriphos 20 EC 2lit/ha or dichlorovos 76 WSC 1 lit/ha
Source-
- TamilNadu Agritech Portal
