Evaluation of some management practices for the suppression of cucurbit fruit fly in bitter gourd

Abstract

The experiment was conducted at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University farm, Dhaka, Bangladesh during the period from March to June 2007 with seven treatments viz; T₁: Hand picking of infested fruits of bitter gourd at 7 days interval; T₂: Neem seed kernel at 5 gm/l of water at 5 days interval +T₁; T₃: Spray of shobicron 425EC @ 2ml/l of water at 7 days interval + T₁; T₄: Micronutrient-Zn @ 6.72kg/ha; T₅: Micronutrient-B @ 1.96kg/ha; T₆: Micronutrient Zn + B and T₇: Untreated control. The lowest fruit infestation (13.78%) by weight was recorded from the treatment T₂, while the highest (46.09%) fruit infestation by weight was recorded from T₇ untreated control. The highest (85.00) number of fruits per plot was recorded for T₂ treated plots while the lowest (61.00) number of fruits per plot was recorded from the untreated control T₇. The application of neem seed kernel at 5 days interval + hand picking of infested fruits in T₂ treated plots gave the highest yield (12.88 t/ha) while it was lowest (10.02 t/ha) in T₇ untreated control plots. The combined application of micronutrients was more effective in T₆ than the single application of micronutrients in T₄ and T₅ respectively. The results of economic analysis of bitter gourd showed that the highest benefit cost ratio (9.44) was estimated for T₆ treatment and the lowest (1.06) benefit cost ration for T₃ treatment. Among the different treatments neem seed kernel at 5 days interval + hand picking of infested fruits in T₂ treated plots was more effective than the insecticide Shobicron 425 EC at 7 days interval + hand picking of infested fruits followed by the T₆ treated plots in combination of micronutrients Zn +B.

Keywords: Cucurbit fruit fly; Bitter gourd; Various management practices

DOI: 10.3329/jbau.v8i1.6393

J. Bangladesh Agril. Univ. 8(1): 23-28, 2010