Population trend and varietal preference of mango mealy bug, Drosicha mangiferae (Green).
Solangi A. W., Lanjar A. G., Rustamani M. A., Khuhro S. A., Mehar-ul-Nissa-Rais
Author Affiliation: Department of Entomology, Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam, Pakistan.
Science International (Lahore) 26 : 1617-1622
Abstract : The experiment on population trend and varietal preference of mango mealy bug, Drosicha mangiferae (Green) was carried out in a 40 acre mango orchard at Jeelani Farm, Kamaro Sharif near Tando Allahyar from December 2011-March 2012. The orchard has 20-30 years old mango trees of Sindhri, Saroli, Sonaro, Chaunsa, Fajri, Began pali and Langra varieties. Five randomly selected trees of each variety were examined for mealy bug population on their trunk, shoots, branches and fruits. Results revealed that the population of 1st instar mealy bug nymphs emerged from soil in 1st week of December and started crawling on tree trunk till 1st week of February 2012. Maximum up ward movement was recorded in the last week of January. Sindhri variety had significantly maximum over all seasonal population (73.60±9.49) per 10 cm2 on the trunks compared with Saroli (66.74±12.26), Chaunsa (63.57±9.07), Langra (59.74±9.19), Fajri (45.22±8.47), Sonaro (35.13±7.43) and Began pali (30.37±7.37), respectively. After trunk, the majority of 1st climbers moved to bottom shoots and the following to the middle and the end climbers to top shoots. Maximum upwards movement on shoots was recorded from 1st to 3rd week of January. Saroli, Sindhri, and Sonaro had more population on bottom shoots i.e. (34.6±13.17), (34.3±11.26), and (17.42±6.39) per 10 cm2, respectively. However, over all mean of all varieties showed that the maximum population (21.32±2.40) of nymphs was recorded on top shoots compared with middle (21.30±2.27) and bottom shoots (21.26±3.78), respectively. Similarly, top branches had significantly (P0.01) maximum nymphal population (19.04±3.48) followed by middle (16.88±4.05) and bottom shoot (14.54±2.59) branches. Mealy bug behaved differently in case of fruits, its maximum activities on fruits were recorded from last week of February to 1st week of March on fruits. The overall maximum mean population (5.10±0.56) was recorded on middle fruits followed by bottom (4.89±1.10) and top fruits (3.69±0.40). On overall population base, it is concluded that sindhri had significantly maximum nymphal population (P0.01) followed by Saroli, Chuansa, Langra, Fajri, Sonaro and Began pali.