Seasonal incidence and management of aphid, Aphis punicae on pomegranate.

摘要

The population dynamics of A. punicae were recorded at weekly intervals from August 1992 to July 1994 at the Horticultural Research Station, Yercaud and on farms at Namakkal, Tamil Nadu, India, on the pomegranate variety Ganesh. The maximum incidence of aphid was observed on pomegranate during the third week of February in the hill area at Yercaud and in the third week of March in the plains at Namakkal. In laboratory tests, both grubs and adults of the predatory coccinellid beetle, Scymnus coccivora, were highly effective as predators of A. punicae. A grub could feed on an average of 423 nymphs or 216 adults of aphids during the entire grub period. In field experiments conducted in a farmers field, inundative release of the green lace wing, Chrysoperla carnea @ 50 first instar nymphs/flowering branch four times at 10-day-intervals, coinciding the first release with the occurrence of aphids, resulted in a 53.67% reduction in aphid population. In another field experiment conducted at Naravalur, Namakkal, to test the efficacy of 8 chemical treatments against A. punicae, spraying of neem oil at 3%, fish oil rosin soap at 2.5%, phosalone and endosulfan at 0.07%, malathion at 0.1%, dimethoate and phosphamidon at 0.03%, and methyl demeton [demeton-methyl] at 0.025% were highly effective in controlling the aphid population.