Bio-Systematic Investigations on Insect Pests of Sweet Potato
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Date
2016
Authors
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Publisher
MPUAT, Udaipur
Abstract
Bio-systematic investigations oninsect pests of sweet potato were carried outin
the Department of Entomology and at the Horticulture Farm, Rajasthan College of
Agriculture, MPUAT, Udaipur, with an aim to estimate the species diversity of insect
pests of major tuber crops, ascertain relationship of environmental factors with the
insect fauna associated with sweet potato andmorphologically characterize to identify
dominant insect pests of sweet potato up to generic level.The diversity of insect pests
on tropical tuber crops comprised insects belonging to 13 families representing 4
orders: Coleoptera (3); Orthoptera (1); Lepidoptera (2); and Hemiptera (7).Family
Chrysomelidae emerged as the dominant pestiferous fauna in the cultivated tuber
crops with the relative density values ranged from 42.85 to 54.54 per centwith highest
(54.54%) recorded in yam followed by that for sweet potato (43.47%). The Shannon
and Simpson’s diversity indices were highest for sweet potato 1.65 and 3.724,
respectively. The incidence of the members of Chrysomelidae, Curculionidae,
Pyrgomorphidae, Noctuidae andApionidaeinitiated to infest the crop from 29th SMW
and prevailed thought the cropping season; whereas,Pentatomidae from 30th
SMW;Coreidae and Membracidae from 31st SMW; Cicadellidae and
Delphacidaefrom 33rd SMW and Aleyrodidae from 41st SMW. Members of the family
Coccinellidae, Gryllidae and Staphylinidae began to be active in the 29th, 30th and
32nd SMW respectively.Population of chrysomelids, apionids, cicadellids and gryllids
exhibited significant positive correlation with mean atmospheric temperature (r= 0.60,
0.22, 0.65 and 0.45 respectively) and relative humidity (r= 0.41, 0.39, 0.70 and 0.38
respectively); whereas, noctuids and coccinellids exhibited significant negative
correlation with relative humidity (r= -0.70 and -0.24 respectively); curculionids
exhibited significant positive correlation with relative humidity (r= 0.37);coreids and
delphacids exhibited significant positive correlation with mean atmospheric
temperature(r= 0.28 and 0.58 respectively);pentatomidsexhibited significant negative
correlation with mean atmospheric temperature (r= -0.21) and significant positive correlation with relative humidity (r= 0.49);aleyrodidsexhibited significant positive
correlation with mean atmospheric temperature (r= 0.68) and significant negative
correlation with relative humidity (r= -0.38).The morphological characterization of
the dominant species belonging to 11 genera of family Chrysomelidae (Coleoptera)
and one genus of family Apionidae (Coleoptera) has been described.
Description
Bio-Systematic Investigations on Insect Pests of Sweet Potato
Keywords
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Citation
Purushan and Swaminathan, 2016