Biorational management of insect pests in mandarin, Citrus reticulata

摘要

Mandarin (Citrus reticulata Blanco.) is one of the major citrus fruits grown in India, occupying nearly 50 per cent of the total citrus area. The North Eastern region of India has been described as one of the major centers of diversity of citrus withseveral local cultivars and the Sikkim mandarin, is a major commercial cultivar widely grown in Sikkim. Of the several factors responsible for yield reduction, citrus decline is a major threat for mandarin cultivation in Sikkim and poses a severe challenge to the livelihood of farming community. Insect pests play an important role in causing citrus decline and the insects viz., trunk borer, bark eating caterpillar, fruitfly, shoot borer, lemon butterfly, leaf miner, leaf roller, mealy bug, scale insect,white flies, aphids, fruit fly were reported to cause significant yield loss in Sikkim mandarin (Pathak and Rao, 1999). India is losing Rs. 2945 crore annually due to the infestation of fruit flies alone in fruit crops including citrus (Mishra et al., 2012). The strategy for the control of insect pests in fruit crops is necessarily to be different from others because of the nature of utilization. This calls for extra attention, especially in case of chemical insecticides because of hazardous residues of insecticides. Additional problems like insecticide resistance, resurgence and adverse effect on natural enemies also warrant the use of insecticides. Biorational agents and approaches will be the key for elevating our IPM strategies to meet the societal challenges before us (Horowitz and Ishaaya, 2004; Ishaaya et al., 2005). In this context, the present investigation was done to undertake a systematic study and survey of the insect pests of Mandarin in Sikkim and to develop a biorational management of insect pests of Sikkim mandarin.