Efficacy of plant oils against insect pests of cowpea in farmscapes Meena B. M.*, Swaminathan R., Jain H. K., Meena A., Nagar R. Department of Entomology, Rajasthan College of Agriculture Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology, Udaipur-313001, Rajasthan *Email: meena.kabir8@gmail.com
Online published on 4 January, 2018. Abstract The relative efficacy of plant oils of neem Azadirachta indica and karanj Pongamia pinnata (3%) as aqueous sprays was evaluated under field conditions against insect pests of cowpea cultivated under farmscape treatments (sole cowpea, cowpea + niger, cowpea + marigold, cowpea + maize bordered with marigold and cowpea + maize bordered with niger) during kharif 2012 and 2013. Their efficacy in terms of population reduction revealed significantly maximum effect with cowpea + marigold (2:1); the respective pest population reduction pooled values for two years after 1 and 3 days of spray were 73.50 and 80.96 (aphids), 83.10 and 77.84 (jassids), 85.05 and 80.41 (whitefly), 85.42 and 81.59 (thrips), 77.62 and 72.76 (blister beetles), 78.341 and 73.80 (coreid bug), and 77.82 and 73.83 (green stink bug). Significant minimum population reduction was observed in the sole crop of cowpea for all the pests. Top Keywords Cowpea, farmscaping, niger, marigold, maize, efficacy, plant oils, insect pests. Top |