Management of Pink Bollworm, Pectinophora gossypiella (Saunders) through Mass Trapping in Cotton

An experiment on mass trapping was conducted, at farmers’ fields at Hirehonnalli village (Dharwad dist, Karnataka state, India) to evaluate the efficacy of this technique in combination with plant protection measures. The results indicated superior control of pink bollworms (PBW) through mass trapping over farmers’ practice where there was no target specific treatment for pink bollworm through mass trapping management. The mean reduction in green boll damage in mass trapping block with 35 traps ha⁻¹ was 56.1% over farmers practice. Reduction in the incidence of PBW larvae in fruiting bodies as influenced by mass trapping was 59.9%. Significant difference with respect to open boll and locule damage ie 56.3 and 62.7% was noticed between mass trapped block and farmers fields, respectively. Significantly higher seed cotton yield was obtained from mass trapping block accounting for 28.7% increase over farmers’ practice.