Insect Pest Complex of Field Pea Crop

Abstract

A study on diverse insect pest complex of field pea was made in both the years of experimentation i.e. during Rabi, 2021-22 and 2022-23 at Crop Research Centre, College of Agriculture, SVPUA&T, Meerut. As many as 15 insect species were recorded during the study period which belongs to different orders viz. Orthoptera (one species), Hemiptera (four species), Lepidoptera (seven species), Isoptera (one species) and Diptera (two species). All the major parts of this legume plant viz., pod/seed, leaf, root and stem were found to be infested by the insect pests. Sucking insect pests appear during the seedling and vegetative stage of crop i.e. 1st week of December to 2nd week of January. Gram pod borer, pea pod borer and blue butterfly are the pod borer complex that appeared from flowering to maturity stage i.e. 1st week of January to 2nd week of February. Among all the fifteen insect pests, only two pod borers, Etiella zinckenella (Treitschke) and Helicoverpa armigera (Hübner) were found as major pests of field pea with severe economic status to this area during successive Rabi, seasons.