Population dynamics of sucking insect pests of french bean, Phaseolus vulgaris (Linnaeus)

Abstract

The investigation on the population dynamics of major insect pests and natural enemies of French bean was conducted during Rabi 2023 on the experimental farm of Department of Entomology, College of agriculture, Latur, Maharashtra, India. French bean crop variety Phule Varun was raised on an area of 10 m x10 m with all recommended agronomical practices except insecticidal sprays for pest management for the conduct of the studies in non replicated design. It was observed that the incidence of aphids, Aphis craccivora (Koch) attained peak population during 1st SMW (8.55 aphids / 3 leaves / plant). Thrips, Scirtothrips dorsalis (Hood) attained the peak population during 51st SMW (1.30 thrips /3 leaves /plant). The whiteflies, Bemicia tabaci (Gennadius) population reached to peak of 1.50 whiteflies / 3 leaves / plant during 1st SMW, while leafhoppers reached to peak of 1.70 leafhoppers /3 leaves/ plant during 52nd SMW. The results revealed that the aphid showed positive and significant correlation with morning relative humidity (r = 0.658*). The aphids and leafhoppers were negatively but significantly correlated with minimum temperatures (r = -0.647* and r = - 0.603*, respectively).