India is the second largest producer of groundnut in the world but has very low productivity as compare to other countries. Pests and diseases incidence are the major reason for low productivity of groundnut in India An experiment was conducted at Oil Seed Research Station, VNMKV, Latur (Maharashtra, India) during kharif 2019 to 2021 to study the evaluation of insecticides for the management of Helicoverpa armigera (Hubner) and Spodoptera litura (Fabricius) infesting groundnut under field condition. Insecticides evaluated in the present experiment were Bt-127 SC @3ml/lit, Delfin (Bt commercial formulation) @1g/lit, Quinalphos 25 EC @ 2ml/lit and Chlorantraniliprole 18.5 SC @ 0.3ml/lit. Single sprays of respective insecticides were applied on appearance of early instars of lepidopteran pests. The observations were recorded on population of defoliators larvae per randomly selected 5 plants per treatment. The results revealed that all the four insecticidal treatments were significantly superior over untreated control in reducing the infestation of both defoliator pests of groundnut. However, chlorantraniliprole 18.5 SC was significantly most effective among four insecticides tested. The three years pooled data also showed, significantly higher dry pod yield (1770 kg/ha) of groundnut in Chlorantraniliprole 18.5 SC @ 0.3ml/lit, however, it was found at par with treatments Bt-127 SC @3ml/lit (1579) and Quinalphos 25 EC @ 2ml/lit (1566 kg/ha). The highest ICBR (1:20.35) was recorded in treatment Quinalphos 25 EC @ 2ml/lit, followed by Bt-127 SC @3ml/lit (1:18.07).

Bio efficacy, Groundnut, Helicoverpa armigera, Spodoptera litura

From the present studies it is concluded that all the four insecticidal treatments, were more effective than untreated control in reducing the S. litura and H. armigera larval population under field condition, among which chlorantranilliprole 18.5 SC @ 0.3ml/lit was found extremely effective for controling larval population of S. litura and H. armigera with highest dry pod yield of groundnut.

Dahiphale K.D., Mutkule D.S. and Ambilwade P.P. (2022). Bio Efficacy of Bio-pesticides and Insecticides Against Defoliators of kharif Groundnut. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 14(4a): 462-466.