Impact of Chickpea Varieties and Sowing Dates on Pod Borer Helicoverpa armigera (Hubner)

Global warming and climate change will have a major bearing on population and incidence of insect-pests and their associated yield and quality losses in different crops. In chickpea, a number of insect-pests are observed which mainly limit its production and productivity. Among these, gram pod borer, Helicoverpa armigera (Hubner) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) is a major and prominent pest in different chickpea growing areas of the country. The increased demand of residue free crop produce will definitely motivate farmers to select alternative management strategies instead of insecticides for management of insect-pests. Therefore, the current study aimed to determine the effect of different chickpea varieties at different dates of sowing on the population and incidence of gram pod borer.

The present study was conducted at Regional Research Station, PAU-Gurdaspur during Rabi seasons of 2019-20 and 2020-21 to determine the effect of chickpea varieties (PBG 7 and PBG 8) and different sowing dates viz. 25^th October, 05, 15 and 25^th November on the larval population and per cent pod borer infestation of Helicoverpa armigera.

It was concluded that both the tested chickpea varieties had non-significant effect on population of pod borer, pod damage and gram yield. However, the pod borer’s larval population and pod infestation decreased across sowing dates from last week of October to last week of November. The mean larval population and incidence of H. armigera decreased with a delay in time of sowing i.e. 7.88 and 5.29 larvae/3 rows and 62.96 and 42.27% pod damage in the 25^th October and 25^th November sown crop, respectively. The maximum grain yield (17.45 q/ha) was obtained from 15^th November sown crop.