Incidence of Tetranychus urticae Koch on tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) under screen house conditions

Abstract

Tetranychus urticae Koch, the two spotted spider mite populations initially show low acceptance for tomato as a host, but they can rapidly became adapted, causing crop losses worldwide. The present study revealed damage potential of T. urticae on tomato. The proposed study was carried out at Department of Zoology in collaboration with Department of Vegetable science, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar. The crop was planted two times from July, 2017 to June, 2018. A comparison of T. urticae population on tomato leaves of different ages revealed that the distribution of T. urticae was statistically more on grown up leaves (11.34 mites/sq. cm leaflets) as compared to tender (9.98 mites/sq. cm leaflets) and older leaves (9.55 mites/sq. cm leaflets), during 2017. During year 2018, T. urticae population on tomato leaves of different ages viz. tender, grown up and older, revealed that statistically more number of mite observed on grown up leaves (12.30 mites/sq. cm leaflets) as compared to tender (11.93 mites/sq. cm leaflets) and older leaves (11.44 mites/sq. cm leaflets).