Evaluation of Plant Extract against Onion Thrips, Thrips tabaci Lindeman (Thysanoptera: thripidae)

Abstract

Thrips tabaci (Lindman) is a serious pest of onion. It sucks the plant sap, which causes chlorosis and leads to a remarkable loss in yield annually. Besides direct damage, Thrips tabaci is the vector of TSW, IYS, and TYR viruses. Application of chemical pesticide against thrips causes the more incidences of resistant individuals and causes the major environmental pollutant effects on the food safety and quality. The efficacy of four eco-friendly botanical extracts i.e. Mahanadi, Ferula-Powder, Datura and walnut along with Lemda cyhalothrin as positive and water as a negative control were applied to reduce rely on chemical insecticides against onion thrips. The experiment was conducted in RCBD design with three replications. The data was collected 24 hrs before and after 24, 48 and 72 hours of spray/treatments. There were similarities with the positive control in observed P-value with 0.388, 0.911, 0.636, and 0.474, respectively. High mortality obtained as compare to the negative control plot with the P-value 0.000, 0.001, 0.000 and 0.000) after 24-, 48-, and 72-hours timing interval, respectively. Onion yield with the P-value (0.006) has quite differences among the treatments. The yield checked with the negative control plot that significantly effected with obtained P-value 0.25, 0.002, 0.020 and 0.034. In result, the plant extracts effectively controlled the onion thrips and performed the positive role in increasing the onion yield. It has been concluded that, the botanical insecticide is the best option to substitute the chemical Insecticides with having high mortality performance and less residual effects.