Cotton Production Plan by GROWTECH

Jassid:

Symptoms:

Nymphs and adults of jassids suck sap from underside leaves and causing of curling. Leaves turn red or brown then dry up and shed.

Chemical Control:

Thrips:

Symptoms:

Both nymphs and adults lacerate & feed the sap from under surface of leaves. Upper side of leaf turns brown and lower side becomes silvery white. Seed treatment with imidacloprid 70 WS@7 ml/kg protect the crop from aphids, leaf-hoppers and thrips up to 8 weeks.

Chemical Control:

Whitefly:

Symptoms:

Nymph are of yellow oval while adult are of yellow body covered with a white waxy bloom. They suck the sap from leaves, which lead into poor photosynthesis. It also act as a medium of transferring leaf curl virus disease. In severe infestation defoliation, shedding of boll and poor opening of boll is observed. Developed sooty mould and plant give sick, black appearance.

Cultural Control:

Avoid continuous growing of cotton in same field. Adopting crop rotation with non-preferred hosts such as sorghum, ragi, maize etc., Avoid excess vegetative growth for that avoid excess use of nitrogen. Do timely sowing of crop. Keep field clean. Cultivation of most preferred alternate host crops like eggplant, okra, tomato, tobacco and sunflower may be avoided. Install yellow sticky traps for monitoring white fly (2 traps/acre).

Chemical Control:

Mealybug:

Symptoms:

Found under surface of leaves in clusters and secrete wax like substance. Due to honey dew like secretion, sooty mould is developed and affected plant gives sick, black appearance.

Cultural Control:

Do not throw mealy bug infested uprooted plants in water channels or vacant spaces, instead burn them. Do not allow congress grass to grow around cotton fields, as they increase the possibility of attack by mealy bug. To control spread of mealy bugs in newer areas, avoid movement of human beings or animals from infected area to healthy crop.

Dusky cotton bug and Red cotton bug:

Symptoms:

Sucking behavior of these insects disturbs the cotton crop both at early and late stages. Both of these insects (nymphs and adults) sucks the cell sap from bolls and deteriorates the seed quality and stains the lint black.

Cultural Control:

to control mealybug, dusky cotton bug and red cotton bug spray clothianadin 20% SC @ 150 to 200 ml/ acre.

Pink bollworm:

Young larva is of white color and late instar is vary in color ranging from almost black, brown or green to pale or pink.

Mode of damage:

Pink bollworms damage squares and bolls, the damage to bolls being the most serious. Larvae burrow into bolls, through the lint, to feed on seeds. As the larva burrows within a boll, lint is cut and stained, resulting in severe quality loss.

Chemical Control:

Army Worm:

Mode of damage:

It attacks on crop in group and Scrapping the epidermal layer, leaving the skeleton of veins of leaf. During severe attack only stem and side shoots will be standing. Eggs of tobacco caterpillar are of golden brown and appears in masses. Larva is of greenish color.

Cultural Control:

Use light traps to know intensity of pest. Set up the sex pheromone trap 5/acre. Do manual inspection for pest. Larva are found in cluster, collect and destroyed early stage larva also grown up caterpillar

American Bollworm:

Mode of damage:

Eggs are laid singly on both upper and lower leaf surfaces. Newly hatched larva is yellowish white with brown black head. Later, body color changes to darker and after that changes to brownish. Due to infestation of this pest, circular holes are observed on boll. Presence of granular faecal pellets outside the bore hole. Single larva can damage 30-40 bolls. To check infestation use light traps, pheromone traps.

Cultural Control:

Avoid continuous cropping of cotton. Avoid mono-cropping. Growing of less preferred crops like green gram, black gram, soybean, castor, sorghum etc., along with the cotton as inter-crop or border crop to reduce the pest infestation. Before sowing of cotton, remove crop residue of previous crops. Use optimum quantity of water and avoid excess use of nitrogen fertilizer. Use resistive varieties.

Spotted Bollworm:

Mode of damage:

Larva is of dull green, black bristles color and having lines of black spots on body. Due to incidence of bollworm, drying and drooping of terminal shoots during pre–flowering stage is observed. It create holes on boll and then causes rotting of boll.

Chemical Control: