Population density of predators in early season cruciferous crops Satyanarayana C.*, Arunakumara K.T. Department of Plant Protection, College of Horticulture (University of Horticultural Sciences), Bidar, 585403, Karnataka *Email: skchitral@rediffmail.com
Online published on 23 October, 2018. Abstract An experiment was conducted to assess the relative abundance of predators and effect of pest management practices on their population dynamics in early season cruciferous crops at College of Horticulture, Bidar during 2013 and 2014. In the visual observations, members of Araneae were more abundant than insects, and were found consistently at all sampling sites from transplanting to harvest. Cabbage (77.96%), cauliflower (82.99%) and radish (75.32%) registered highest share of these spiders. Chinese cabbage recorded maximum number of predators (63.93± 6.93), of which coleopterans were major (48.36%). Sampling with sticky traps resulted in maximum number of coleopterans and hemipterans. Commonly trapped ground dwelling ones were Lycosidae, Labiduridae, Carabidae and Formicidae. In the pitfall traps the dermapterans (Labiduridae) were found to be more-in cabbage (67.87%) followed by, cauliflower (67.57%), chinese cabbage (70.68%) and radish (48.20%). Effect of pest management practices on predators living on the leaves was considerable as seen with visual observations and sticky trap catches, but with ground dwelling ones such effect was not perceivable. Top Keywords Crucifers, early season, IPM, effects, predators, spiders, Araneae, coleopterans, hemipterans, ground dwellers, sticky traps, pitfall traps. Top |