Pest/disease management

  • Fruit borers: Gather and destroy the grown-up larvae on the plants and the fruits which are infected. Plant the American tall marigold of 40 days old and tomato seedling of 25 days old at the ratio of 1:16 in rows. Install pheromone trap (12 in number per hectare) with Helilure. Application of Trichogramma  pretiosum @ 1 lakh no./ha/release at the interval of 7 days beginning from initiation of flowering (based on ETL of 10% damage).

Helicoverpa armigera is controlled by HaNPV 1.5 x 1012 Polyhedral Occlusion Bodies (POBs)/ha i.e. NPV of H. armigera 0.43% AS @ 3.0 mL L-1 or

2 % AS @ 1.0 mL L-1 and Spodoptera litura is controlled by Sl NPV 1.5 x 1012 POBs ha-1.

  • Serpentine leaf miners: Collection and destruct mined leaves. Spray neem seed kernel extract (5%).
  • Leaf eating caterpillars: Plough the field to expose the pupae for killing. Grow trap crop (castor) along border and irrigation channel. Set up a light trap (1 number  ha-1) and pheromone traps (Pherodin SL) (15 number per ha) to attract the male moths. Collect and destruct the egg masses and grown-up larvae from castor and tomato. Spray admix of Sl NPV @ 1.5 x 1012 POBs ha-1), crude sugar (2.5 kg) and teepol (0.1 %).
  • Thrips: Uproot the diseased plants and destroy them and apply yellow sticky traps @ 15 numbers ha-1.
  • Tomato leaf curl virus: Grow nursery in greenhouse/net house. Use yellow sticky traps @ 12 numbers per ha to control whitefly. Grow barrier crops-cereals around the field. Remove weed host.
  • Tomato mosaic virus: Use healthy seeds from disease free plants. From nursery infected seedlings should be isolated carefully and dumped at far away distance. Rotate the crop in the main field other than tobacco, potato, chili, capsicum, brinjal, etc.
  • Damping-off disease: Use raised seedbed. Provide light and frequent irrigation with well drains. Seed treatment by fungal culture Trichoderma viride (1 g 250 g-1 seed) controls the pre-emergence damping off.
  • Early blight disease: Remove and destruct the crop debris and rotation of crops minimizes the disease incidence.
  • Bacterial wilt management: Rotation of crops (cowpea-maize-cabbage, okra-cowpea-maize, maize- cowpea-maize and finger millet-egg plant) can reduce the wilt.