Insect Pests of Vegetable, Ornamental and Spice Crops (2+1)

Exercise: Insect Pests of Chillies

1. Chilly thrips, Scirtothrips dorsalis (Thripidae: Thysanoptera):

• Damage: Damage is caused by nymphs and adults which lacerate the host tissue and imbibe on the oozing sap. Sometime buds and flowers are also attacked, but tender leaves and growing shoots are the preferred plant parts. Infested leaves start curling and crumbling and are ultimately shed, whereas, buds become brittle and drop down. Incidence is more in dry weather and if there is no rain, the entire plant may dry and wither away. This thrips is also responsible for transiting leaf curl disease. Chillies grown after sorghum are more susceptible to these thrips. Similarly in mixed cropping of onion and chillies, both crops suffer badly.
• Eggs: Eggs are minute and dirty white in colour.
• Nymphs & Adults: Nymphs as well as adults are also very small, slender, fragile and yellowish-straw in colour. Adults have heavily fringed wings which are uniformly gray in colour.

 

2. Aphids:

• Cotton aphid (Aphis gossypii) and green peach aphid (Myzus persicae) are found infesting chilies.
• Small, ovate, soft bodied nymphs and adults are found in large number on underside of tender leaves and shoots sucking the cell sap from the tissues. Infested leaves curl and dry up. Aphids also excrete honey dew which attracts ants and harness the development of sooty mould. This black superficial coating, covering the dorsal surface of leaves and twigs, hinders the photosynthetic activity, thus causing further retardation in growth and fruiting capacity of the infested plants

3. White grubs: Discussed under potato.

 

4. Whiteflies: Discussed under tomato.

5. Fruit borer, Longitarus nigripennis (Chrysomellidae: Coleoptera):

• It is a serious pest of pepper. Eggs are generally laid on fruits. On hatching grubs bore inside and feed within the fruits.

Storage pests:

• Cigarette beetle, Lasioderma serricorne and drug store beetle, Stegobium paniceum (Anobiidae Coleoptera): As the name suggests, the primary hosts of the former are tobacco, cigarettes and cigars, while the grubs of the later feed on stored spices, dry vegetables and animal matter.
• Grubs of L. serricorne are white, fleshy, crescent shaped with dense hairs all over the body and those of S. peniceum are also white and fleshy but not hairy. L. serricorne beetles are 2-3 mm long, robust, oval and those of S. paniceum are slightly bigger is size, cylindrical in shape and light brown in colour having striated elytra.