09-08-2013, 03:43 PM
Relative efficasy of biopesticide and insecticides against red pumpkin beetle, Aulacophora foveicollis (LUCAS) infesting long melon, Cucumis melo var. utilissimus (L.)
ABSTRACT
Long melon, Cucumis melo var. utilissimus (L.) is an important cucurbit crop which has high nutritional value, used as salad and vegetable. The red pumpkin beetle, Aulacophora foveicollis (L.), is an important pest of cucurbitaceae in the tropical, subtropical and temperate regions of the world.It causes considerable losses in long melon in India.Thapa and Neupane (1992) observed that Aulacophora foveicollis (L.) prefers to infest Cucumis melo as compare to Lagenaria siceraria (Mol.) and Cucurbita moschata. The beetles attacks the plants right from their cotyledonary leaf stage and continue to feed on the foliage and flowers of late maturity (Borah, 1997). The strategies for the management of red pumpkin beetle are completely based on chemical pesticides without giving much importance on available natural products and resources. Therefore, the present investigation was undertaken to develop ecofriendly and economic technology based on the biopesticides. The experiment on the bioefficacy of ecofriendly insecticide and biopesticide against red pumpkin beetle, was laid out during summer 2003 and 2004 in RBD with four replications. The seeds were sown in plot size of 2.5 x 2.0 m. The bioefficacy of some newer ecofriendly insecticide such as Azadirachtin, Beauveria bassiana and Spinosad were tested against red pumpkin beetle on the long melon, using acephate and betacyfluthrin cyfluthin as standard checks. All the treatments including biopesticides and standard checks (acephate and beta-cyfluthrin) were significantly effective in controlling the red pumpkin beetle infesting long melon at each spray.Among the biopesticide azadirachtin was most effective because it exhibited 50.36 percent mortality.The next effective pesticide was be spinosad with 45.28 percent reduction.Whereas Beauveria bassiana with 40.63 percent reduction was lowest effective.Thus acephate and beta cyfluthrin could be replaced by Adaziractin or spinosad for effective management of red pumpkin beetle.