Evaluate the efficacy of eco-friendly pesticides against the lepidopteran pests

Abstract

Insect pest act as a limiting factor in harvesting high yields of healthy and quality tomato fruits, especially Helicoverpa armigera and Spodoptera litura. Botanicals become promising tools against these insect pests, because of the safety and ecofriendly nature as compare to chemical insecticides. The mean larval population of Helicoverpa armigera ranged from 0.4 in T9 to 1.50 in T1. The treatment T10 had the highest mean larval population (2.90/plant). The treatment T9 caused 84% reduction in larval population followed by T8 (81.8% reduction), T4 (76.1% reduction) and T2 (72.7% reduction). In other hand Spodoptera litura mean larval population per plant varied from 0.2 to 0.70. The treatment T9 caused 84.4% reduction followed by T8 (77.7% reduction) whereas in other treatments the per-cent larval reduction ranged from 44.4% (T1) to 68.8% (T4).