Mango Insect Pest Management

Despite the largest production base of mango in the world, with respect to number of varieties grown and area under cultivation, the productivity of the fruit in our country is rather low. Besides, some inherent limitations on high-yielding, suitable cultivars and incidence of diseases, this might be attributed to a high incidence of insects and pests. Many a time, this has also resulted in reduced exports due to the aversion of the mango importing countries for the fear of introducing alien insect species, particularly fruit fly and stone weevil. Due to the indiscriminate use of chemical insecticides and pesticides, many of the major insects and pests have developed resistance, this has led orchardists to use disproportionately high doses of insecticides, thereby leaving high toxic residues in the fruits. Furthermore, many of the insects, which were hitherto of minor importance, have attained criticality. Therefore, it had become necessary to bring out a comprehensive volume which not only deal with all the insect pest in greater details, but also incorporated the modern concepts of integrated insect pest management. The current manuscript has been organized systematically in twenty two chapters. The Chapters deal separately or in combination with each of the insect pest which attack mango crop. They are hoppers, mealybug, gall midge, psyllids, leaf bark eating caterpillars, leaf and flower feeding caterpillars, fruit borers, fruit sucking moths, leaf miners, termites, scale insects, thrips, aphids and ants. Each of the Chapter discusses taxonomy, geographical distribution, losses caused and nature of damage, alternate hosts, binomics and life history, control measures including biological-predators, parasites and pathogens, plant products, chemical cultural, integrated pest management of particular insect pest. In the end of chapter, future thrusts have also been included, Each chapter is followed by an exhaustive bibliography.