Agricultural Research Journal

Blister beetle, Mylabris pustulata (Thunberg) is a major flower feeding pest of grain legumes. Experiment on feeding preference on flowers of different pulse crops under laboratory conditions revealed that M. pustulata preferred pigeonpea flowers followed by urdbean. Mungbean flowers were least preferred by M. pustulata. Among the different host plants, M. pustulata consumed 87.22 per cent flowers of pigeonpea, followed by 43.52 and 30.38 per cent in urdbean and mungbean. Among different varieties, pigeonpea var. AL 201, mungbean var. ML 818 and urdbean var. Mash 338 were relatively more preferred than other varieties of these pulse crops.