Efficacy of biopesticides against major arthropod pests and their natural enemies on okra Meena A*, Sharma R K, Chander S, Sharma K, Sinha S R Division of Entomology, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, 110012 *Email: anilbatawada03@gmail.com (corresponding author)
Online published on 18 April, 2020. Abstract Efficacy of six biopesticides against insect pest of okra was evaluated in terms of population reduction over control during kharif, 2016 and 2017. Four foliar applications were done and results revealed that all the treatments were effective. Neem-baan was the most effective at 3rd and 7th day in all the sprays against whitefly (65.25, 28.80), (64.35, 27.88), (64.82, 27.71), (63.65, 26.54) and leafhopper, (64.08, 26.35), (64.09, 27.20), (64.45, 27.44), (64.39, 27.35), respectively. Neem baan was also effective at 3rd and 7th day against red spider mite during 4th spray and brought significant reduction in the shoot and fruit borer infestation up to 62.67%. Biopesticides treatments did not show any detrimental effect on the coccinellids and spiders’ populations. However, in laboratory experiments neem based pesticides brought significant reduction when treated aphid (A. gossypii) was fed to both species of coccinellids viz., C. septempunctata and C. sexmaculata. 3% neem oil reported maximum feeding reduction (28.05%) for C. septempunctata while in C. sexmaculata it was 34.74%. Top Keywords Okra, biopesticides, sucking pests, whitefly, leafhopper, mite, fruit and shoot borer, natural enemies, coccinellids, spiders, safety. Top |