Vol. 11, Special Issue 8 (2022)

Author(s):
Sanjay HN, Dr. R Manjunatha, Dr. N Sumithramma, Dr. Vidya Mulimani and Dr. G Narasa Reddy

Abstract:
Seasonal incidence of tea mosquito bug, Helopeltis antonii Sign. infesting tamarind was studied at fortnightly intervals during June 2020-May 2021 by sweep method at KVK, Chintamani. The population of tea mosquito bug started infesting tamarind during August 2020. The bugs were active on tamarind until January 2021 at varied levels of intensity and the pest population reached its peak during October 2020. The highest number of tea mosquito bug was recorded 15.84 per five sweeps during first fortnight of October 2020 with per cent damage of 31.55 and the lowest numbers were recorded during second fortnight of January 2021 with an average population of 0.4 bugs per five sweeps and per cent damage of 2.20. Correlation analysis between incidence of tea mosquito bug Helopeltis antonii and weather parameters revealed that incidence of tea mosquito bug, H. antonii showed positive relationship with total rainfall and number of rainy days with the r values of 0.579 and 0.458 and were found to be significant at 5 % level. Similarly, minimum temperature (T_min), morning relative humidity and evening relative humidity were found to be positively correlated with the population of tea mosquito bugs with the r values of 0.107, 0.446, and 0.602, respectively. While the maximum temperature (T_max) and sunshine hours were negatively correlated with the incidence of tea mosquito bug population with the r values of -0.597 and -0.489. Multiple linear regression analysis between weather parameters and incidence of tea mosquito bug showed a R² value of 0.928 indicated that 92.80 per cent influence of weather parameters on tea mosquito bug incidence.