SANNAVEERAPPANAVAR, V TKITTURMATH, M S2017-02-232017-02-232007-02TH-4049http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810002291The tobacco caterpillar, Spodoptera litura (Fabricius), which was known earlier to be a sporadic pest, has emerged as destructive polyphagous pest in the recent past. This pest is distributed throughout southern and eastern world viz., tropical and temperate Asia, Australia and Pacific Islands (Feakin, 1973 and Kranz et al., 1977) and infests more than 112 crop species belonging to 44 families, of which 40 species are known from India. The major host plants of S. litura include tobacco, cotton, groundnut, castor, chilli, potato, soybean, cauliflower, cabbage, tomato, beans and sunflower etc. The damage is done by the larvae, which initially scrape the leaf tissue gregariously and feed in clusters and quickly skeletonize the leaves. The grown up larvae defoliate the plants completely. This pest is next only to Helicoverpa armigera (Hub.) in economic importance both at national and global level. Recently, the pest has been appearing in severe form, especially during rainy and post rainy seasons causing heavy yield losses throughout India. In 2003, its outbreak occurred in Pakistan throughout the cotton belt devastating the crop (Mushtaq Ahmad et al., 2007). The S. litura accounts for up to 17.71 and 70.00 per cent yield losses in groundnut (Anon., 1983) and black gram (Krishnaiah et al., 1983) in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, respectively. The monetary value of annual yield losses due to major insect pests including S. litura in all the important agricultural crops is estimated to be Rs. 29,240 crores (Dhaliwal and Arora, 1996).ennullThesis