Influence of intercropping with leguminous crops on the incidence of early shoot borer, Chilo infuscatellus snell in sugarcane

Abstract

Early shoot borer, Chilo infuscatellus Snell. is a major insect pest affecting sugarcane crop, reducing the cane yield and juice quality. Management of this pest would avoid inter node borer damage in the grand growth period. Field experiment was conducted to find out best companion crops for sugarcane shoot borer management and its effect on yield and juice quality parameters. In order to generate information on the impact of intercropping with certain legumes viz., cow pea, cluster bean, black gram, green gram, soya bean, sun hemp and groundnut on sugarcane early shoot borer experiments were conducted at Sugarcane Research Station, Vuyyuru for two years. In general all the intercrops gave suppressing effect on dead hearts due to shoot borer and percent incidence and intensity due to inter node borer. Lowest percent incidence of dead hearts due to shoot borer was recorded in sugarcane + black gram followed by sugarcane + cow pea and sugarcane + soya bean which were at par. Highest cane yield of 114.74t /ha was recorded in sugarcane + soya bean plots followed by sugarcane + cow pea (109.42 t /ha) which were at par. The percent juice sucrose was not altered significantly due to different intercrops.