Management of Phytophagous Mites, Panonychus ulmi and Tetranychus urticae in Apple

Laboratory and field experiments were conducted to study the effectiveness of four commercially available horticultural mineral oils (HMOs), viz., Caltax DC-Tron Plus, Orchex 796, IPOL Orchard Spray oil and Servo orchard spray oil and standard treatment of fenazaquin (Magister 10 EC)/dicofol (Kelthane 18.5 EC) against phytophagus mites, the European red mite (Panonychus ulmi (Koch)) and two spotted mite (Tetranychus urticae (Koch)) infesting apples in Himachal Pradesh. Under laboratory conditions all the oil treatments at 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 per cent concentration and fenazaquin 0.0025 per cent proved superior to control and no larva or protonymphof either species was found to survive for more than 48 h in these treatments. However, adult survival ranged between 0–2.8% and 0–6.6% for P. ulmi and T. urticae, respectively at 48 h of application of these treatments. In the field results revealed that all the HMOs at 1.0 and 1.5 per cent, applied consecutively five times in a season at 3–4 week intervals starting from pre-pink stage managed the phytophagus mites below four motiles per leaf throughout the season. However, low motile count up to second spray application during both the years rendered the 2^ndspray application at petal fall superfluous. All the HMOs at 0.5 per cent and acaricides registered more than four mite motiles in at least last two applications.