Succession of insect pests in sorghum

Abstract

Insect pest species were found to infest the different growth stages of sorghum plants at Agricultural Research Station, Navsari Agricultural University, Tanchha, Dist-Bharuch during Rabi 2006-07, 2007-08 and Kharif 2007, 2008. The early stage of the crop i.e., seedling stage was mainly attacked by shoot fly and flea beetle wherein the shoot fly was predominant. Later vegetative stage was attacked by all the pests except shoot fly and earhead bug. The peak activity of aphid, leaf hopper, stem borer, flea beetle were also noticed at vegetative stage. Army worm incidence was negligible. The reproductive stage of crop was attacked by aphid, leafhopper, stem borer, flea beetle, earhead worm and earhead bug. The three predators viz., green lacewing, lady bird beetle and spider appeared simultaneously with sucking pest incidence indicating some natural check of sucking pests. Study on succession of insect pests on the sorghum also revealed that the population of different insect pest species occurred in over lapping manner and the crop was continuously infested by one or the other insect pests.