Efficacy of Plant Extracts Against Mustard Aphid, Lipaphis erysimi on Mustard

摘要

The mustard aphid, Lipaphis erysimi (Kaltenbach) (Homoptera: Aphididae) is the key pest of rapeseed-mustard crops and infest all plant parts by sucking the sap. In severe infestation plants wither resulting in low pod formation and thereby reduction in seed and oil content (Bakhetia & Sekhon, 1989). The avoidable losses in seed yield of mustard due to aphid infestation have been reported from 35.4 to 91.3% (Brar et al., 1987) and loss in oil content up to 15% (Verma and Singh, 1987). A large number of insecticides have been recommended for the management of mustard aphid by many workers (Misra, 1993 and Kumar et al., 1996). Plant extracts having the insecticidal properties (Phyto-chemicals) are being recently explored as an alternative to chemical insecticides for protecting the crop due to growing awareness of harmful effects of pesticides. The present study was conducted to screen some indigenous plants and their derivatives to explore the alternative management of mustard aphid.