Field assessment of synthetic and botanical insecticide against sucking insect pests and their associated predators in cotton

Abstract

Cotton is an economically important crop which is highly susceptible for sucking insect pests. Farmer community mostly depend on synthetic insecticides for quick management of sucking insect pests of cotton, however their continuous uses cause serious concerns regarding environmental pollution, pest resistance, and harmful effects on beneficial insects. Keeping in view these threats, present study was conducted to compare the effects of selected botanical insecticides with commonly used synthetic insecticides against major sucking insect pests of cotton crop and their natural enemies on the field conditions. In Present result, maximum pest population reduction of cotton sucking insect pest such as White fly, Jassid, Aphid, Thrips, Mealy bug and dusky cotton bug was observed on Synthetic pesticides Imidacloprid, Dimethoate, Acetamiprid and in Botanical pesticides, Neem seed, Tobacco, Eucalyptus, Garlic and Ginger respectively. While a minimum pest population of sucking insect pests was noticed in control group, similarly maximum reduction of natural enemies such as green lacewing and Lady Bird beetle was found on Synthetic pesticides, while a minimum reduction of natural enemies green lacewing and Lady Bird beetle was found on botanical pesticides. It was concluded that synthetic pesticides are more effective for sucking insect pests and caused lethal impacts on the population of natural enemies. Similarly, botanical pesticides were also found lethal on sucking insect pest but their effects on natural enemies was found less lethal as compared with syntactic pesticides. Therefore, uses of botanical pesticides can minimize the uses of synthetic pesticides and  which also safe guardnatural enemies