Department of Entomology, CSK H.P. Krishi Vishvavidyalaya, Palampur - 176 062, Himachal Pradesh, India.
1Division of Entomology, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Science and Technology, Udheywalla, Jammu, 180 002, J&K, India.
Studies revealed that seed treatment with imidacloprid 70 WS @ 3.5 g a.i./kg seed, chlorpyriphos 20 EC @ 5 g a.i./kg seed, soil application of chlorpyriphos 10G + NICAST (@ 2 kg a.i./ha+500 kg/ha, respectively) and chlorpyriphos 10G @ 2 kg a.i./ha resulted in decreased plant mortality in maize against white grub over control (75.85, 71.38, 66.67 and 56.59%, respectively). These treatments also exhibited corresponding increase in yield over control (46.15, 45.27, 44.39 and 37.52%, respectively) and reduction in grub population. Neem cake and castor cake (each @ 500 kg/ha) treated plots recorded 24.10 and 13.50 per cent decrease in plant mortality over control. Grub population in these treatments varied from 0.50–0.83/0.25 m2 as compared to 1.00/0.25 m2 in control. Application of entomopathogenic fungi, Beauveria bassiana and Metarrhizium anisopliae (@ 5 × 1013 conidia/ha, each) indicated 43.02 and 47.16 per cent decrease in plant mortality over control.
