Department of Agricultural Entomology, Centre for Plant Protection Studies, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore-641 003, Tamil Nadu (India).
*Present Address: Section of Entomology, Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore-641 007, Tamil Nadu (India).
Laboratory studies were conducted on the interaction of three predators, viz, mirid bug, Cyrtorhinus lividipennis Reuter; wolf spider. Lycosa pseudoannulata Boes et Str.; and rove beetle, Paederus fuscipes Curt. in the mortality of nymphs of brown plant hopper (BPH, Nilaparvata lugens Stal. When the predators were allowed separately into cages with BPH nymphs, the nymphal survival was highest (53.60%) in the case of P. fuscipes and the lowest (32.60%) in treatment with L. pseudoannulata followed by C. lividipennis (43.0%), indicating the significance of individual species as predator. When two predator species were released together, the nymphal survival was the lowest in the treatment with L. pseudoannualata and P. fuscipes (21.8%). This was, however, comparable with the treatments having C. lividipennis along with L. pseudoannulata (25.4%) and that of C. lividipennis with P. fuscipes (29.6%). A combination of all the three predators brought down the nymphal survival to lowest (20.6), but was not significantly different from other treatments except that with C lividipennis. In the control, nymphal survival was very high (90.6%) and significantly different from all the predator treatments.
