New Horizons in Insect Science Towards Sustainable Pest Management

327

Development, Characterization

and Field Assessment of Multiple

Insecticides and High Temperature

Tolerant Strain of an Egg Parasitoid,

Trichogramma chilonis Ishii Against

Crop Pests

T. Venkatesan and S. K. Jalali

A. K. Chakravarthy (ed.), New Horizons in Insect Science: Towards Sustainable Pest Management,
DOI 10.1007/978-81-322-2089-3_29, © Springer India 2015

T. Venkatesan () · S. K. Jalali
National Bureau of Agricultural Insect Resources, Post
Bag No. 2491, H. A. Farm Post, Bellary Road, Hebbal,
Bangalore, Karnataka, 560024, India
e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

The approach of integrated pest management (IPM) is to minimize the

use of insecticides, there by biological control and other environmental

friendly approaches can gain momentum. However, the use of chemical

insecticides continues to be widely adopted and remains mainstay of insect

pest control. In such crop scenario where insecticides are frequently used,

releases of susceptible strain of a natural enemy may not give any appre-

ciable control. The efficacy of trichogrammatids is also largely dependent

on temperature conditions. In India, most of the crops are grown during

monsoon, June–November, when the temperature is high (up to 40 °C).

Many of the insecticides are also used frequently during the season, there-

by reducing efficacy of trichogrammatids drastically at such stresses. In

the present chapter, development, characterization and field evaluation of

multiple insecticide and temperature tolerant strain of an egg parasitoid

Trichogramma chilonis Ishii on crops is discussed.

Introduction

The insect pest attack on cotton and vegetable
crop causes yield loss about 11.0 and 7.5 %,
respectively, in the World (Wittwer 1979 ) and in

Asia, 72 % of potential yield loss occurs in cot-

ton and vegetables. Insect pests cause up to 30 %

yield loss under modern agriculture compared

to 5–10 % under traditional agriculture in India.

Several commercial crops, vegetable, and fruit

crops are subjected to intensive plant protection

measures. These crops receive about 80–90 % of

the total pesticide usage in India. Such usage has

resulted in high level of insecticide resistance,

necessitating repeated application of insecticides.

This also often results in frequent outbreaks of

Keywords

Characterization · Insect pests · Trichogramma chilonis · Temperature

tolerant · Multiple insecticides tolerant