Insect Pests of Zucchini and their Natural Enemies

Authors

  • Dhiraj Bhattacharjee Department of Horticulture, Agricultural University, Jorhat 785013, Assam
  • Deepa Borbora Phookan Department of Horticulture, Agricultural University, Jorhat 785013, Assam
  • Archita Ojah Department of Agronomy, Agricultural University, Jorhat 785013, Assam
  • Sailen Gogoi Department of Horticulture, Agricultural University, Jorhat 785013, Assam
  • Sangita Das Department of Plant Pathology, Agricultural University, Jorhat 785013, Assam
  • Palash Debnath Department of Crop Physiology, Agricultural University, Jorhat 785013, Assam

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.55446/IJE.2023.1645

Keywords:

Cucurbita pepo, diseases, insects, mosaic, natural enemy, polyhouse, pests, predators, quality, yield, zucchini, Pseudodendrothrips

Abstract

Zucchini (Cucurbita pepo L.) is a trending crop for every health enthusiast today. The market demands for quality zucchini, bearing the best shape and size, free from all blemishes have gone sky high recently. Nevertheless, this cucurbitaceous crop is susceptible to many pests and diseases during its growth period, including its post-harvest life, which bring down the yield both in terms of quality and quantity.The time and intensity of the incidence of the pest varies greatly with crop growth stages. Therefore, an investigation was carried out during 2021-2022, for studying the incidence of various insect pests’ of zucchini and their natural enemies under naturally ventilated polyhouse condition at the experimental farm of Department of Horticulture, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat, Assam, India. Five insect pests viz., Aleurodicus dispersus Russell, Aphis gossypii Glover, Aulacophora foveicollis Lucus, Bactrocera cucurbitae Coquillett and Pseudodendrothrips species Niwa were found to be very active from October, 2021 till March, 2022. Among them, A. dispersus and A. gossypii caused viral infection (zucchini yellow vein mosaic) in the early vegetative stage whereas B. cucurbitae caused severe damage by distorting and malformation of fruits during the flowering and fruiting stage. Two predators, namely Coccinella transversalis F. and Coccinella septempunctata L. were abundant during the growing period which fed on these insect pests.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Downloads

Published

2023-09-01

How to Cite

Bhattacharjee, D., Phookan, D. B., Ojah, A., Gogoi, S., Das, S., & Debnath, P. (2023). Insect Pests of Zucchini and their Natural Enemies. Indian Journal of Entomology, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.55446/IJE.2023.1645

Issue

Online First

Section

Research Communications
Crossref
Scopus
Google Scholar
Europe PMC

References

Abubakar M, Koul B, Chandrashekar K, Raut A, Yadav D. 2022. Whitefly (Bemisiatabaci) management (WFM) strategies for sustainable sgriculture: A review. Agriculture 12(9): 1317.

Arivoli S, Tennyson S. 2020. Antifeedant activity of leaf extracts against the adults of red pumpkin beetle Raphidopalpa foveicollis Lucas 1849 (Coleoptera:chrysomelidae). Sustainability in Food and Agriculture 1(1): 15-19.

Bhattacharjee D. 2022. Zucchini (Cucurbita pepo L.) cultivation in India: A review. Bhartiya Krishi Anusandhan Patrika 37(1): 88-90.

Bose T K, Som M G. 2000. Vegetable crops in India. Naya Prokash.

Chikkaswamy B K, Paramanik R C. 2014. Studies on the incidence of whitefly in the Pongamia tree garden. International Journal Current Microbiology and Applied Science 6: 1001-1003.

Kalaivanan D, Selvakumar G, Hebbar S S. 2020. Effects of varying N, P and K concentrations on growth, biomass, yield and nutritional quality of zucchini squash grown under open and polyhouse soilless culture. Indian Journal of Horticulture 77: 100-106.

Mani M, Kulkarni N S, Banerjee K, Adsule P G. 2008. Pest management in grapes. National Research Centre on Grapes, Extension Bulletin 2: 44.

Parajuli S, Shrestha B, Puspa R D, Sapkota B, Gautam S, Pandey S. 2020. Efficacy of various insecticides against major insect pests of summer squash (Cucurbita Pepo) in Dhading district, Nepal. Science Heritage Journal (GWS) 4(1): 35-42.

Regmi S, Paudel M. 2020. A review on host preference, damage severity and integrated pest management of red pumpkin beetle. Environment Contam Review (ECR) 3: 16-20.

Singh N N, Rai S. 2000. Relative abundance of different coccinellids in the natural ecosystem. Indian Journal of Entomology 4: 422-426.

Sridhar V, Nitin K S, Swathi P, Chakravarthy A K. 2020. IPM in protected cultivation: lending pesticide-free Produce. Innovative pest management approaches for the 21st century: Harnessing automated unmanned technologies, pp. 481-506.

Sun X H, Qiao N, Zhang X P, Zang L Y, Zhao D, Zhu X P. 2022. First report of natural infection of zucchini by tomato chlorosis virus and cucurbit chlorotic yellows virus in China. Plant Disease 106(4): 1313.

Tripathi S, Shah K K, Tiwari I, Shrestha J. 2020. Farmers’ perception about major insect pests of cucurbits and their management. Indonesian Journal of Agricultural Research 3(3): 153-170.

Ullah M K, Akram M S, Haider A. 2022. A review of whitefly management techniques for sustainable agriculture. International Journal of Research and Advances in Agricultural Sciences 1(1): 12-34.

Most read articles by the same author(s)