An Evaluation of Biopesticide Beauveria Bassiana and PFP (Preptual Fungal Power) to Control Pomegranate Fruit Borer, Rapala Varuna

INTRODUCTION

In the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world Pomegranate (Punica granatumL.) is one of the important commercial fruit crop. In case of India,

pomegranate has a production of 26,13,000 MT[1]

while net shown area is 2,16,000 ha. According

to a report by Butani, 1979 in India, pomegranate is

attacked by more than 45 insects. From these all insects Rapala varuna is one of the main pest infesting both cultivated and wild pomegranate. It

shows its regular occurrence, the caterpillars of Rapala varuna eating on the bark of tree and bore

into developing fruit and feed on the seeds and

pulp. This hole carved by the larva invites

secondary infection of fungus and other

pathogens causing fruit to rot and drop. The loss due to Rapala varuna varies between 50 to 90 per cent. To control its population the

organophosphates and pyrethroids[16,7,15,6] are used. Many problems like resistance, adverse effect on

human health, environmental degredation etc. are

associated with these insecticides is proved by many standard studies. So there is a great requirement of a environmently and human health wise alternative to control the fruit

borer.Therefore the present study was carried out to test some new locally available biopesticides against pomegranate fruit borer, Rapala varuna.

The bioefficacy studies were carried out in a 2 year old well managed orchard of pomegranate (var. Kandhari and var.Ganesh, var.Bhagwa)

in the pomegranate Charkhi Dadri

Haryana.The biopesticides viz. Beauveria

bassiana and a consortium of entamopathogenic fungi trade name PFP were evaluated and were compared with each

other. In control, however, foliar application of water was given. Both the biopesticides were sprayed on the selected trees with the help of a tractor driven sprayer upto run off stage. The second and third spray was given after the 20 and 40 days of first spray, respectively. The observations on fruit infestation in different treatments were recorded before the application of the first spray and thereafter the data were recorded 7, 14 and 21 days after each spray application by randomly selected 20 fruits/ tree.

The mean data of each spray presented in Table 1 reveals that after first spray application, were at par and effective in managing the fruit borer infestation B. bassiana 5.57% and PFP 2.34%.

maximum infestation was recorded in control 49.44%, PFP proved more efficacious recording

only 1.04 per cent infestation while B. bassina

showed 13.27 percent, after the third spray application, where the maximum fruit infestation was

recorded in control 76.11%, in B. bassiana 28.68%

and in PFP only the few 0.01 percent. All the test treatments were found superior to control. In the present study use of PFP with the minimum fruit infestation and maximum yield were the most effective treatments.

Among the local bio insecticide evaluated in the present study (Table 2), the highest marketable yield

and maximum losses were avoided with the treatment of PFP that is 285.00 %, while in case

of B. bassiana it is 50%.

When cost of increased yield and cost of treatments were taken into consideration to calculate the BCR

(Table 3), the value obtained for PFP is 50.81:1while in case of B.bassiana it is 2.33:1. So in case of PFP benefit is far more then

B.bassiana

Among the locally available biopesticides PFP is

found far more effective in checking the pomegranate borer, Rapala varuna infestation. Overall the biopesticides PFP may found much

more effective then its corresponding chemical

pesticides if a further study will do. From economic point of view, this also may emerge as the most effective insecticide in managing the pest,

due to its lower cost of the treatments and can

yield high benefit cost ratio.

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Research Scholar, OPJS University, Churu, Rajasthan monikasharmajhajjar@gmail.com