A NON-CHEMICAL METHOD FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF LEAFMINER LIRIOMYZA TRIFOLII AND WHITEFLY BEMISIA TABACI IN BRINJAL

Brinjal, Solanum melongena, occupies a major portion in Indian vegetables.
These crops are ravaged by many insect pests, of which leafminer Liriomyza trifolii Burgess, poses a serious problem by way of extensive leaf mining and whiteflies Bemisia tabaci Desap, by resulting in yellowing and drying of leaves.
Frequent application of insecticides to control the above pests resulted in the development of resistance in insects and pesticide residues in food commodities.
As a part of integrated pest management (IPM), different coloured sticky traps (cylindrical, 20 X 15 cm dia) viz., blue (435-500nm), green (520-565nm), yellow (565-590nm), red (625-740nm), white and black were evaluated for mass trapping and monitoring of leafminer and whiteflies in brinjal field during 2004 and 2005. Yellow traps (565-590nm) trapped significantly higher number leafminer and whiteflies adults by 1879.1 and 544.5 respectively, while minimum leafminer adults (14.0) and whiteflies (2.6) were trapped in black trap.
Similar trend was observed for aphids (alate forms) also.
There was no significant variation in trapping of leafminer adults among the different yellow shades viz., lemon yellow (1384.8) and golden yellow (1408.2). Thus it is inferred that yellow sticky traps could be effectively used for monitoring as well as for mass trapping of leafminers, whiteflies and aphids and could be used as one of the IPM tools.

I International Conference on Indigenous Vegetables and Legumes. Prospectus for Fighting Poverty, Hunger and Malnutrition

C. Durairaj, R. Shobanadevi, S. Suresh, S. Natrajan

Yellow sticky traps, attraction, effective, mass trapping, monitoring

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2007.752.98