Insect Pests of Fruits, Plantation, Medicinal & Aromatic Crops

1. Leaf webber

1. Leaf webber or chickoo moth - Nephopteryx eugrapllylla Rag. (Pyraustidae: Lepidoptera)

Damage

• The caterpillar webs together the leaves scrape the chlorophyll and reduced to net work of veins.
• It also bores inside the buds, flowers and some time tender fruits become withered and shed.
• Presence of clusters of dried leaves hanging from webbed shoots and appearance of dark brown patches on leaves and cluster of dead leaves are the typical symptoms of attack.





Bionomics

• The adult moth is greyish with fore wings having brown or black spots and hind wing semi hyaline.
• The female lays pale yellow, oval shaped eggs in-groups of 2 or 3 or singly on leaves and buds of young shoots.
• The fecundity is 374 eggs per female.
• The egg period is 2-11 days.
• The larva is pinkish in colour with three dorso lateral brown stripes on each side.
• It pupates in leaf web itself for 8-9 days.
• The total life cycle is completed in 26 - 92 days.
• There are 7-9 overlapping generation per year.
• The maximum activity of pest is seen during June-July.
Management

• Plant less susceptible PKM 1 sapota variety.
• Collect and destroy webbed leaves, shoots and buds along with larvae.
• Use light trap @ 1/ha to monitor activity.
• Spray two rounds of carbary 10.1% or Bacillus thuringiensis 0.1% or NSKE 5% along with sticking agent or phosalone 0.05% or malathion 0.1% in alternation at 20 days interval from new shoot formation to harvest of fruits.