Impact of Intercropping Soybean on Natural Enemy Guilds in Cotton and Suitability of Trapping Methods for Various Insects Mahendra K.R.*, Anitha Gorthi1, Shanker Chitra2 Department of Entomology, College of Agriculture, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad-500 030, India 1AICRP on Biological Control of Crop Pests, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad-500 030, India 2Indian Institute of Rice Research, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad-500 030, India *E-mail: mahi1531996@gmail.com
Online Published on 20 February, 2024. Abstract Field studies were carried out in cotton in the experimental fields of College Farm, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad during kharif 2019-20 to determine the impact of soybean as an intercrop and study its role in mitigating pests and enhancing the diversity of natural enemies . The study also estimate d the efficiency of various sampling methods for insects of various orders. Insect pests of 18 families of 6 orders from intercropped cotton and 13 families of 5 orders from sole cotton were collected while predators of 22 families and 9 orders from intercropped cotton and of 22 families and 8 orders were collected from sole cotton. Diversity indices revealed a strong and robust natural enemy assemblage in the intercropped and sole cropped cotton ecosystems. However, intercropped cotton recorded lesser pest density (9.68/m2), higher predator (1.06/ m2) and parasitoid density (0.31/ m2) than sole cotton (11.21, 0.75 and 0.14/ m2, respectively). Yellow sticky traps were most effective for sampling major pests namely leaf hoppers, whiteflies and thrips at 66.02, 87.89 and 85.32 per cent of their total numbers, respectively. Coccinellids and hymenopterans could be effectively sampled from sticky traps ( 85.95 and 75.50-93.42 per cent, respectively ). Top Keywords Cotton, Intercrop, Soybean, Parasitoids, Predators. Top |