In Situ Evaluation of Different Refractive Color Sheets and Reduced-Risk Insecticide Formulation Against Bactrocera cucurbitae (Diptera: Tephritidae) on Bitter Gourd (Momordica charantia L.)
In Situ Evaluation of Different Refractive Color Sheets and Reduced-Risk Insecticide Formulation Against Bactrocera cucurbitae (Diptera: Tephritidae) on Bitter Gourd (Momordica charantia L.)
Abdul Basit1, Muhammad Zeeshan Majeed1,4*, Sohail Ahmed2, Gohar Ali2 and Muhammad Javaid3
ABSTRACT
Bitter gourd or bitter melon (Momordica charantia L.) is an important summer vegetable of tropical and subtropical world. Melon fruit fly, Bactrocera cucurbitae (Coquillett) is the key pest of M. charantia and other cucurbitaceous vegetables incurring 30 to 100% crop loss. This study evaluated the use of refractive color sheets on fruit fly incidence and infestation on bitter gourd plants and compared it with reduced-risk insecticide formulations of spinosad. Refractive sheets of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, black and white were installed in M. charantia beds at three different angles (30º, 60º and 90º). Results revealed that control treatment exhibited significantly higher fruit fly infestation (60%) with minimum marketable fruit yield (374g/bed) than all other treatments. Among treatments, yellow colored refractive sheet treatments exhibited maximum fruit fly incidence (i.e. 5 flies/net-sweep and 3-4 maggots/fruit) and fruit infestation (17%) as compared to other color sheets. Minimum fruit fly infestation (6%) and higher marketable yield (855g/bed) was recorded for reduced-risk insecticide spinosad, followed by blue colored refractive sheets. However, there was no significant effect of installation angles on any of the parameters measured. Moreover, maximum and minimum CBR were found for spinosad formulation (1:4.9) and yellow color refractive sheet treatments (1:1.8), respectively. It is concluded that, in combination with biorational insecticides such as spinosad, installation of different colored refractive sheets, except yellow, at 30° or 60° angles would be more effective and economical to control fruit fly incidence on different vegetable crops such as M. charantia.
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