management of insect pest

Management of Insect
Pests
Module 10
Dr. Muhammad Sufyan

 Pollinate
 Parasitize
 Predate
 Scavenge
 Promote decomposition etc.
Beneficial insects...

Harmful insect pests...
 Plant roots
 Stems
 Leaves
 Flowers
 Seeds etc.

Three main objectives...
 Prevention
— keeping a pest to become a problem
 Suppression
— reducing pest numbers or damage to an
acceptable level
 Eradication
— destroying an entire pest population

Pest control methods...
 Legislative control
 Cultural
 Physical
 Biological
 Reproductive
 Chemical etc.

Legislative control
 Control of insect pests by enacting
and enforcing insect laws by the Govt.
 Prevent the pest entry from foreign countries
 Prevent spread of pests within the country
 To enforce control and eradicative measures
 Chemicals neither adulterated nor misbranded

Legislative control...
In Pakistan 3 types of legislations to
control either pests or pesticides
 Pakistan plant quarantine act 1976
 Punjab agricultural pests ordinance 1959
 Agricultural pesticides ordinance 1971

Legislative control...
 Import of plant or plant material
a. medium of infestation b. pests destrucive to agri-
 Plant material with special permit required
a. new varieties b. propagating stock
 Penalty
a. Rs. 500/-
b. subsequent offence Rs. 2000/-
or 6 months prision
Salient features of Pakistan plant
quarantine act 1976

 Govt. may prohibit
a. cultivation methods b. sale or transport of infested crop
 Preventive measures
a. removal of stubbles b. proper sowing time
c. removal of weeds d. avoid ratooning
 Penalty
a. Rs. 25,000 to 50,000/-
b. subsequent offence Rs. 50,000 to
100,000/- or 3-6 months prision
 Inspection (DGA, DDA and Distt. Agri. Ext. Officers)
Salient features of Punjab agricultural pests
ordinance 1959 and rules 1960

 Import and registration of pesticide and distributor
 Adulterated importation may be prohibited
 Prescribed labelling
 Safe storage and use of pesticides
 Pesticide labs. for sample analysis
 Approved pesticide advertisement
 Safety precautions
 Penalties for substandard and adulterated pesticides
(5 to 10 lac with 6 months to 3 years imprisonment)
Salient features of Agricultural pesticides
ordinance 1971

Cultural control
Control of Insect pests by performing the regular
agricultural practices
Tillage
Irrigation
Clean seed
Clean culture
Manuring
Pruning and thinning
Trap crops
Resistant varieties
Timing of sowing
Crop rotation
Destruction of
crop residues

Cultural control...
Tillage
 The proper stirring and management
of soil can suppress pest population
e.g. surface grasshoppers, field crickets,
beetles and mealy bugs lay eggs in
the upper 5-10 cm of soil
• Seed bed preparation and weed control
• Timing and depth

Cultural control...
Clean seed
 Number of insect pests carried from
one crop to next through seeds, cuttings
or other infested plant parts
e.g. hibernating larvae of the pink bollworms
in seeds of cotton (can be killed by
fumigation), fumigation of nursery plants
to protect new orchards from infestation

Cultural control...
Irrigation
 By flooding a large number of insects
present in the soil can be drowned or
exposed to natural enemies,
 Sprinkler irrigation effective against foliage feeding insects
e.g. lucerne caterpillars can be killed by drowning. sugarcane
and wheat crops can be saved from attack of white-ants
Primarly plant culture activity and
little emphasis given to control
insects by irrigation, except
chemigation

Cultural control...
Manuring
 By putting fertilizers in right proportions
make plants healthy and vigorous
e.g. after sugarcane shoots attacked by top-
borer; application of ammonium
sulphate induces tillering.
early sown cucurbits in well manured fields
withstand the attack of red pumpkin beetle

Cultural control...
Clean culture
 Removal of all undesired plants,
plant debris and other material from
the field
e.g. undesirable plants in gardens
give protection and provide food
to the newly emerged nymphs of
mango mealy bug

Cultural control...
Time of sowing
 By adjusting time of sowing and
harvesting crop can be saved from
infestation
e.g. rice nursery should not sow before 20
May to avoid attack of rice borers.
sugarcane should be harvested before
mid-February to avoid egg-laying of
top borer

Cultural control...
Pruning and thinning
 Some pests are carried from old to
new crops, in case of perennial
plants, fruit trees
e.g. proper pruning of undesirable portions
of citrus useful to check the citrus leaf-
miner, citrus red scale etc.

Cultural control...
Trap crops
 Sowing of early or parallel in narrow
strips around a major crop; serve as a
trap for pests that might common
e.g. okra is a good trap crop to cotton to
attract jassid and spotted bollworms,
sesame around cotton attract red hairy
caterpillar

Cultural control...
Sowing of resistant
varieties
 Certain varieties of crops are tolerant and
less attacked by insect pests than other
varieties
e.g. Gossypium arboreum due to hairiness
character is more resistant to attack of
jassid, whitefly and bollworms. hard
rinded varieties of sugarcane are less
attacked by borers than soft rinded

Cultural control...
Crop rotation
 Growing a single crop year after year in the same
field provide continuous supply of food and breeding
facilities; results increase in pest population,
 Pest has narrow host range, eggs are laid before the
new crop is planted, the feeding stage is not very
mobile
e.g. okra following a cotton crop increase infestation;
therefore cotton should be rotated with maize, rice,
groundnut etc.

Cultural control...
Destruction of crop
residues
 Stubbles of various crops, rice,
sugarcane, maize etc. should be
uprooted and destroyed thoroughly
e.g. sugarcane ratooning provides
protection to root borers, cotton sticks
should be cut below the ground level
to remove stem borers

Physical control...
 Reduce of pest population by the
involvement or special manipulation
of physical factors i.e. temperature
and humidity
 Hot or cold treatment
 Moisture
 Light traps

Physical control...
Hot or Cold treatment
 Application of heat including exposure to
sun rays during summer helps in killing
pests in seeds and stored commodities
e.g. exposure of cotton seeds to heat helps in
killing diapausing larvae of pink bollworm
treatment of sugarcane setts with heat or
hot water kills scale insects.
cold storage of fruits and vegetables
escape fruit fly, pathogens

Physical control...
Moisture
 Insects are highly sensitive to
reduction in moisture
 Manipulation of humidity in field
conditions not feasible
e.g. stored grain pests (moisture < 8%)
and greenhouse conditions

Physical control...
Light traps
 Light had been used to control many
insects in the form of light traps. Traps
can be used for monitoring pest
population in the area
e.g. several species of moths and beetles
can be attracted to light and killed

Biological control...
 Method of controlling pests
using other living organisms
 Parasites
 Parasitoids
 Predators
 Pathogens

Parasitoids vs Parasites:
What`s the difference ?
Parasitoids kill their hosts;
Parasites do not;
Parasitoids Parasites

Parasites
 An organism that lives in a symbiotic
relationship with a phylogenetically
unrelated organism over a prolonged
period of time
 A Parasite lives in or on its host
 It obtains nourishment from its host
 Parasites cannot live independently
 Relationship lasts the lifetime of the
host
e.g. Epipyrop spp. (Lepidoptera) parasite of
sugarcane leafhopper, Trichogramma chilonis egg
parasite of ABW

Parasitoids vs Parasites:
 A parasitoid is an organism that spends a
significant portion of its life history attached
to or within a single host organism
 A parasitoid ultimately kills and often
consumes its host in the process
 Parasitoids obtain nourishment from host,
but is not needed to survive
 Relationship lasts the life cycle of its host
Parasitoids

Parasitoids
 Parasitoids either lay eggs inside
the host or attach eggs to the
outside of host body
e.g. Insects from Coleoptera, Diptera,
Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera and
Neuroptera

Parasitoids with respect to host stage

Parasitoids with respect to effect on host
 Idiobionts:
host development arrested or
terminated upon parasitization (e.g.
egg parasitoids)
 Koinobionts:
host continues to develop following
parasitization (e.g. larval-pupal
parasitoids)

Parasitism may be:
 Hyperparasitism (secondary parasitoids)
It is common for a parasitoid to itself serve
as the host for another parasitoid's offspring
 Superparasitism
In which host is attacked by more than once
by a single species of parasitoid
 Multiple parasitism
When host has been parasitized by more
than one species

Merits of parasitoids
 They possess good survival
 Require one host to complete life history
 Sustain their population at low host levels
 Mostly have a narrow host range

Dmerits of parasitoids
 Host searching capacity strongly
reduced by weather conditions
 Only female search host for egg laying
 Even best female searcher lay few
eggs
 Synchronization is difficult problem
with most parasitoids

Predators
 Are free living organisms that feed
throughout their life on other
animals and kill their prey
 Larger than prey and require more than
one to complete their development
 Both immature and adult of many species
are predacious but some only on
immature stage

Pathogens
 The pest population management
through disease causing microorganisms
Bacteria
NematodesViruses
Fungi

Bacteria
Primary prey:
Caterpillars, beetles and flies
Key characters:
larvae stop feeding, become limp and
shrunken

Viruses
Primary prey:
Caterpillars, moths, butterflies
Key characters:
limp, black and die

Fungi
Primary prey:
Caterpillars, flies, thrips,
whiteflies, leafhoppers
Key characters:
lethargy, swollen, reduce
feeding and fungus
covered

Nematodes
Steinernema spp.
Heterorhabditis spp.
Primary prey:
Soil dwelling insects of beetles and lepidoptera
Key characters:
flaccid and discolored

Techniques
in biological
control
Classical
biological
control
Augmentative
biological
control
Coservation
biological
control
Techniques in
biological control

Classical biological control
Involves the introduction of a pest's natural
enemies to a new location where they do not
occur naturally

Augmentative biological control
Mass rearing and production
The handicap natural enemies can be
removed in the field by releasing in desired
numbers and time periods
 Inoculative releases
 Inundative releases

Inoculative releases
Involves the releases of small numbers
and may be made infrequently as once a
year to re-establish a species of natural
enemies killed out periodically due to
unfavourable environmental conditions

Inundative releases
Involves the mass-releases of natural
enemies at frequent intervals to suppress
the pest population

Conservation biological control
Involves the avoidance of measures that
destroy natural enemies and providing
resources that enhancing their population
 protection from pesticides
 avoidance of harmful cultural practices
 maintenance of biodiversity
 supply of food and shelter resources

Reproductive control...
 Control of insect pests by lowering their
reproductive potentials
Pest insects are used against members of
their own species to reduce population level;
may also called Autocidal or Sterile insect
technique (SIT)
Methods of sterilization
 radiation
 chemosterilization
 other genetic tactics

 In this method male insect population
exposed to high energy radiations like X-
rays and gamma rays cause mutation in
DNA, zygote formed but die early
e.g. mutation of drosophila melanogaster
pupae of screwworm produce sterile
adults
Radiation

 In this method certain chemicals are
used to sterile insects, chemicals are
used to prevent gamete production
e.g. Alkylating agents, phosphorus
amides, Triazines, anti-metabolites
Chemosterilization

Genetic techniques
 Inherited sterility
 Condition lethal mutations
 Behavioral changes
 Hybrid sterility
 Molecular genetic techniques
 Genetically engineered crop

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