Impact of Weather Parameters on the Incidence of Major Insect Pests of Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) in Varanasi Region

A field experiment was conducted at the Agricultural Research Farm, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, BHU, Varanasi during rabi season 2021- 2022 with cultivar Kashi Aman to study the impact of weather parameters on incidence of major pests infesting tomato. The first appearance of aphid (0.10 aphids/plant), thrips (0.50 thrips/plant), whitefly (0.62 whitefly/plant) and fruit borer (0.10 borer/plant) was observed during 47th, 51st, 49th, and 51st SMW respectively. However, the highest incidence of major insect pests of tomato such as aphids (25.95 aphids/ plant), thrips (8.90 thrips/plant), whitefly (7.37 whitefly/plant) and fruit borer (4.31 larvae/plant) was noticed from mid of February to mid of March. The correlation coefficient of aphids and thrips with weather parameters revealed a non-significant positive correlation with rainfall, and relative humidity, while whitefly population revealed a positive non-significant correlation with relative humidity and temperature. The correlation between the weather factors and H. armigera larvae revealed a non-significantly positive correlation with rainfall, morn, even, avg, relative humidity (r = 0.048, r = 0.014, r = 0.180) respectively. But we also noticed negative non-significant correlation with max, min, and avg temperature (r = -0.038, r = -0.023 and r = -0.033). Thus, their timely and appropriate management strategies would be helpful for the farmer who are engaged in tomato cultivation and this work also developed ideas to initiate management tactics when they really need to control economic damage pest below economic threshold level (ETL).