Host Preference Studies in Rangeeni Strain of Lac Insect, Kerria lacca (Kerr)

Abstract

The investigations on host preference of Rangeeni strain of lac insect on beer, pigeonpea and flemingia were carried out at the lac insect gene bank and lac laboratory, situated at Department of Entomology, Rajasthan College of Agriculture, MPUAT, Udaipur during Katki season, 2017 with an aim to study the parameters of host preference viz., initial density of settlement of first instar crawlers on host plants varied in different parts of plants which ranged from 32-114, 23-120 and 30-110 crawlers per sq.cm with the mean initial per cent mortality 10.30, 9.70 and 7.97; 12.49, 11.83 and 11.49 and 14.54, 14.43 and 13.17 per cent on upper, middle and lower parts of beer, flemingia and pigeonpea respectively during Katki season, 2017. The final density of settlement first instar crawlers ranged from 37-112, 20-110 and 20-100 crawlers per sq.cm on upper, middle and lower portion of ber, flemingia and pigeonpea respectively. The density of female cells at maturity ranged from 2-9, 1-8 and 1-7 cells per sq.cm on ber, pigeonpea and flemingia. The broodlac ratio 0.186, 0.15 and 0.19; 0.05, 0.06 and 0.07; 0.010, 0.011and 0.009 was recorded in three sets of experiments each of beer, pigeonpea and flemingia. The mean female cell size, weight of female cell, resin weight and sticklac yield were recorded as 2.13, 1.81 and 1.47 mm; 22.54, 19.39 and 17.15 mg; 20.92, 17.82 and 15.57 mg and 3.69, 1.08 and 1.73 kg in ber, flemingia and pigeonpea respectively during Katki season, 2017.