Institute of Horticultural Research, Bangalore-6.
Experiments conducted to findout the effect of application of different insecticides on whitefly (Bemisia tabaci Gen.) population in relation to the incidence of the tomato leaf curl virus in variety Pusa Ruby revealed that raising the tomato seedlings under insect proof condition alone will not help in raising a good tomato crop with less tomato leaf curl virus. Application of systemic insecticides such as Rogor, Ekatox, Metasystox, Thimet and Dimecron regularly from the nursery stage resulted not only in reducing whitefly population from 65 to 13, 17, 16, 20 and 20 for every seventy five leaves counted but also reduced the incidence of the tomato leaf curl virus from 16.5 to 1.6, 2.5, 2.6, 4.6 and 6.0 per cent respectively, even when the tomato nursery was not raised under insect proof conditions. The yield of the tomato in treated plots was able to increase from 149.5 q/ha to 224.2, 221.8, 204, 198 and 190 q/ha with the application of Rogor, Ekatox, Metasystox, Thimet and Dimecron respectively, with the extra income to the grower varying from Rs. 1,270 to 3,320 per hectare over the plots where no insecticide has been applied.
