Evaluation of insecticides against woolly apple aphid Eriosoma lanigerum and its parasitoid Aphelinus mali

Evaluation of certain insecticides and biopesticides against the woolly apple aphid Eriosoma lanigerum (Hausmann) on apple revealed that spirotetramat (0.015%) is the most effective resulting in reduction of 68.48 and 61.04% in colony count and colony size, respectively followed by flonicamid (0.05%). Higher concentrations of biopesticides viz., Beauveria bassiana (2x10¹⁰cfu/l), fish oil (1.0%), neem oil (2.0%) and azadirachtin (0.02%) remained at par with each other registering 29.17, 31.32, 28.95 and 29.83% reduction in colony count. Neem oil with 60 to 80% parasitoid (Aphelinus mali) emergence was the safest, whereas, chlorpyriphos (0.04%) with 15 to 20% parasitoid emergence was the most toxic. Spirotetramat and flonicamid were moderately safe to the parasitoid.