Vol. 11, Special Issue 4 (2022)

Author(s):
Dharmendar Singh, Rajesh Kumar, SS Yadav and AK Saini

Abstract:
Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is one of the most important vegetable crops widely grown throughout the world under open field conditions and protected conditions for fresh market consumption and processing. It is ranked second in importance among vegetable crops after potato in India. Under poly house conditions, the observations on population dynamics of major insect-pests were recorded from crop establishment stage (35 SMW i.e. 27^th Aug.- 02^nd Sept., 2019) till crop maturity stage (18 SMW i.e. 30^th April – 06 May, 2020) and worked out their correlation with weather parameters under polyhouse conditions. The whitefly remained active from 39^th SMW till whereas leaf miner appeared on 43^rd SMW till crop maturity. The peak population of whitefly (5.20 nymph & adults/three leaves) and leaf miner (6.40 live mines/3 leaves) was observed in 12^th SMW (19^th-25^th March), when maximum temperature was 33.5 ^oC, minimum temperature 18.7 ^oC and relative humidity was 70%. The weather parameters were further correlated with the population build up of whitefly and leaf miner. Maximum and minimum temperature had significant positive correlation with whitefly and leaf miner population, while significant negative correlation with mean relative humidity under polyhouse conditions. Under polyhouse conditions, after establishment of tomato plants, the observations on population dynamics of major insect-pests viz., whitefly (nymphs and adults/3 leaves) and leaf miner (live mines/3 leaves) were recorded from 20 randomly selected and tagged plants and pests population were correlated with temperature and humidity.