A front-line demonstration on integrated pest management in cotton with special reference to pink boll worm, Pectinophora gossypiella (Saunders) and its economic analysis under farmer’s field conditions

Abstract

An Integrated Pest management for Pink Bollworm (PBW) in Cotton includes installing PBW pheromone traps (5acre-1) after 45 DAS, release of T. bactrae @ 60000acre-1 thrice at weekly intervals between 60-90 DAS, spray of Quinalphos 20 EC 2mllitre-1of water if 10% infested bolls with live larvae observed, were evaluated against PBW in Scarce rainfall zone of Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh during Kharif March to September for three years (2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22). Observations on % Rosette flower and Locule damage was noted based on total number and damaged fruiting bodies in each plant taken from 10 IPM and 10 farmer's practice (FP) fields and results show IPM fields registered significantly less rosette flower damage compared to FP indicating the suitability of IPM components. Rosette flower damage was found lower of 5.23%, 3.07% and 3.48% with a mean of 3.92% in IPM as compared to FP (16.77%, 5.81% and 8.43%) with mean of 10.33, similarly, Locule damage of 7.07%, 2.48%, 3.95% with a mean of 4.50% in IPM as compared to 12.14%, 6.48% and 6.71% with a mean of 8.52% in FP during 2018–19, 2019–20, and 2020–21, respectively. The benefit-cost ratio shows that IPM practice gives more benefit, i.e. 2.58, 2.54, and 1.80, with mean of 2.30 compared to FP, 2.10, 2.27, and 1.50 with mean of 1.95 respectively, during 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22, respectively.