Development of an integrated pest management strategy for eggplant fruit and shoot borer in South Asia.
Abstract
Eggplant, Solanum melongena L., a versatile vegetable, is one of the three most popular and economically important vegetables among small-scale farmers and lowincome consumers of South Asia, especially during hot-wet summers when other vegetables are in short supply. During the past two decades this crop has been increasingly ravaged by an insect, eggplant fruit and shoot borer (EFSB), Leucinodes orbonalis (Guenée), the larvae of which bore inside eggplant fruit. Farmers have resorted to frequent sprays of pesticides to kill the larva before it enters the fruit. Such extensive use of pesticides cuts into profitability of eggplant production, makes eggplant more expensive to consumers, poses health hazards, and causes environmental pollution and resource degradation.
A regional collaborative research and development project, funded by the Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom, was undertaken in Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka to develop a sustainable IPM strategy and validate its utility in pilot project studies on farmers' fields. Research results indicated that prompt cutting and removal of pest-damaged shoots reduces pest damage to fruit if such practice is coupled with other community-wide means to reduce immigration of pest adults into the area. This latter point reinforces the need for a community-based approach where all farmers practice sanitation and destroy other sources of EFSB, such as old eggplant stubble stored in the field or near dwellings.
This report contains chapters detailing: Biology and Nature of Damage of EFSB; Mechanical Control; Host-plant Resistance; Biological Control; Sex Pheromone; Socio-economics of Eggplant Protection in Bangladesh; and Pilot Project Demonstration and Promotion of IPM.
Citation
Shanhua, Taiwan: AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center. Technical Bulletin no. 28. AVRDC Publication no. 03-548. ISBN 92-9058-126-3, 56 pp.
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