Author(s):

DR Kachave, MM Sonkamble and SK Patil

Abstract: The present investigation was carried out on population dynamics of major insect pests of tomato at Research Farm of Department of Agricultural Entomology, Vasantrao Naik Marathwada Krishi Vidyapeeth, Parbhani - 431402 (Maharashtra), India during Kharif 2018-19. The results revealed that the appearance of sucking pests, fruit borer and leaf miner on tomato was recorded two weeks after transplanting up to the end crop season. However, the peak incidence of sucking pests i.e. aphids (Aphis gossypii Glover), whitefly (Bemisia tabaci Gennadius) and thrips (Frankliniella schultzei Trybom) of 8.0, 10.2 and 6.7 population/3 leaves of plant on 41^st, 42^nd and 44^th standard meteorological week (SMW), respectively. Whereas, the peak activity of tomato fruit borer, Helicoverpa armigera (Hubner) was recorded on 41^st SMW (3.7 larvae/plant) and tomato leaf miner, Tuta obsoluta (Meyrick) was reached its peak on 41^st SMW (3.5 larvae/ 3 leaves/ plant). As regards the fruit damage, the tomato fruit borer, H. armigera and leaf miner, T. obsoluta was recorded of 44.48 and 10.58 per cent fruit damage at the time of 6^th picking i.e. the last picking of the fruit on 20^th November. The relationship of the insect pests with the abiotic factors revealed that the maximum temperature (r = 0.606**, 0.679**, 0.706**, 0.638** and 0.618**), Evaporation (r = 0.592**, 0.658**, 0.704**, 0.622** and 0.645**) and Bright sunshine hours (0.601**, 0.625**, 0.726**, 0.570* and 0.683**) was highly significantly positive correlated with tomato fruit borer, leaf miner, aphid, whitefly and thrips population, respectively. While, negative significantly / non-significantly correlated with minimum temperature (r = -0.414, -0.522*, -0.822**, -0.399 and -0.729**), morning relative humidity (R = -0.285, -0.544*, -0.630**, -0.328 and -0.479*), morning relative humidity (r = -0.631**, -0.755**, -0.900**, -0.657** and -0.795**), rainfall (r = -0.216, -0.274, -0.383, -0.232 and -0.258) and wind speed (r = -0.489*, -0.551*, -0.634**, -0.499* and -0.543*), respectively.

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