Participatory analysis and evaluation of IPM practices against sucking pests of Bt cotton

Farmer’s participatory demonstrations were evaluated during kharif seasons of 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 at four villages of Panchmahal district, Gujarat to introduce IPM practice and to evaluate their effectiveness through demonstrations. Farmers identified several constraints of which, increased infestation of sucking insect pests viz., aphid (Aphis gossypii Glover), leaf hopper (Amrasca biguttula biguttula Ishida) and whitefly (Bemisia tabaci Gennadius) were the most important. IPM practice consisting of one spray application of Beauveria bassiana (2 x 108cfu) @ 4 g /l water, two spray applications of thiamethoxam 25 WG @ 0.01 per cent (0.4 g /l water) and one spray application of acephate 75 SP @ 0.075 per cent (1 g /l water) following threshold level (5 sucking pests /leaf) was found effective and economical for the management of sucking insect pests without any adverse effect on the natural enemies in Bt cotton. The application of this practice also resulted higher seed cotton yield as compared to farmers practice.