Survey and monitoring the incidence of pests of castor
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Author:M. SUGANTHY
p-ISSN:0024-9602, e-ISSN:2582-5321, Vol:94, Issue:jan-jun
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29321/MAJ.10.100650
Abstract
Castor, Ricinus communis Linn, is an
important non-edible oilseed crop, widely grown
under rainfed conditions. In Tamil Nadu, the
castor hybrid, TMVCH 1 and TMV 6 are
widely grown as pure crop during kharif in
districts viz., Salem, Erode, Namakkal and
Dharmapuri due to their high seed and oil
yield and heavy demand for castor oil in many
industries. Castor crop cultivation has attained
a momentum to become as a cash crop and
intensive cultivation with hybrid castor TMVCH
1 has picked up under irrigated and rainfed
conditions in Tamil Nadu. Castor cultivation
is constrained by more than 60 insect pests
through out the crop period (Rai, 1976) resulted
in heavy yield loss. Among them the castor capsule borer, Dichocrocis punctiferalis and the
leaf eating caterpillars, especially, the
semilooper, Achaea janata, tobacco caterpillar,
Spodoptera litura, the occasional pest slug
caterpillar, Parasa lepida and jassids are causing
a considerable damage and reducing the yield
(Lakshminarayana and Raoof, 2005). Extensive
survey and monitoring of pest incidence on
castor throughout the crop period
over several years is essential to know the
seasonal occurrence of castor pests, their peak
incidence, nature of damage, and occurrence
of natural enemies. These informations are
useful to find the vulnerable stage of the pest
for taking control measures and to formulate
the effective management practices. Hence, the
present study was conducted to make survey
and to monitor the incidence of major pests
of castor
Key words : Ricinus communis, Kharif