Management of cauliflower aphid (Myzus persicae (Sulzer) Aphididae: Hemiptera) through environment friendly bioinsecticides

Azadirachtin based insecticides have a significant pest controlling ability. Additionally, they are environment friendly, highly degradable and have low persistency as well as residual effects. The use of azadirachtin based insecticides becomes limited due to instability of azadirachtin and requires their repeated application at short time intervals. On contrary the bacterial derived spinosad is also being used as an environmentally safe product. Present study was carried out to evaluate the performance of two bioinsecticides (biosal 10EC and spinosad 240SC) in comparison with three conventional insecticides (imidacloprid 25WP, endosulfan 35EC and profenofos 500EC) for aphid (Myzus persicae; Sulzer) management on cauliflower crop. The crop was sown in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replicates each having six treatments including control. The crop was sprayed when the insect population reached economic threshold level (ETL). Pre-treatment data were recorded before 24 hours and post treatment data were collected after 24, 72 and 168 hours of each spray. All of the three conventional insecticides were found effective against cauliflower aphid. The order of effectiveness in decreasing sequence was found to be imidacloprid greater than endosulfan greater than profenophos demonstrating 81, 72 and 67% reduction in aphid population, respectively. Azadirachtin based biosal performed well with 57% reduction, where as spinosad was found least effective with 15% reduction in aphid population. Higher yield of cauliflower indicates the more effectiveness of insecticides and vice versa.