Economical Impact Of Some Selected Cultural Practices On Population Build-Up Of Leucinodes Orbonalis In Brinjal Crop

Cultural practices are key tool for ecofriendly management of destructive pests in fruits and vegetables. Clipping, hoeing. mulching, crop rotation, intercropping and synchronization of sowing time are some most important cultural practices to control Leucinodes orbonalis in brinjal crop. The cm-rent study was planned to evaluate four different cultural practices against brinjal shoot and fruit borer in brinjal crop during two consecutive years 2018 and 2019 at two locations university research farm (URF) Koont and a farmer's filed Rawat, Rawalpindi including polythene mulching, hoeing, clipping and mulching clipping as treatments. The results revealed that mulching clipping reduced about 61 % and 60 % shoot infestation over control at URF Koont and Rawat respectively. Fruit infestation was decreased 67 % and 61 % in the same treatment with increase of 133% and 226% increase of marketable fruit yield over control at URF Koont and Rawat respectively. Maximum cost benefit ratio was also higher in clipping + mulching as compared with other three treatment. Clipping, hoeing and polythene mulching were significantly effective over control but statistically at par with each other. It is concluded that ecological pest management techniques specially adoption of cultural practices may perform better to mitigate the climate changes, market demands and reduction of reliance on chemical options to control Leucinodes orbonalis.