Seasonal incidence of shoot and fruit borer, Earias spp. on okra var. Konkan bhendi and correlation with weather parameters

Abstract

The studies on seasonal incidence of shoot and fruit borer, Earias spp. on okra var. Konkan bhendi revealed that percent shoot and fruit infestation was ranged from 2.0 to 6.0 and 6.56 to 27.57 percent, respectively. The highest shoot infestation of 6.0 percent was observed in 12th SMW corresponding to 6th week after sowing, whereas, the fruit infestation reached at its peak (27.57 percent) in 18th SMW corresponding to 12th week after sowing. The shoot infestation exhibited negative correlation with maximum temperature (-0.202), minimum temperature (-0.256), afternoon relative humidity (-0.018), wind speed (-0.160), rainfall (-0.079) and bright sunshine hours (-0.109), while non-significant positive correlation with morning relative humidity (0.318). Fruit infestation showed highly significant positive correlation with minimum temperature (0.812), afternoon relative humidity (0.793) and wind speed (0.758) and positive correlation with rainfall (0.278), whereas, it exhibited significant negative correlation with maximum temperature (-0.414) and negative correlation with morning relative humidity (-0.230) and bright sunshine hours (-0.155).