Management Strategy for Pink Bollworm (Pectinophora gossypiella) in Bt Cotton by Community Basis

The real-time management of the pink bollworm in the integrated way warrant concerted steps in cotton cultivation. Integrated Pest Management is a pest management system hat in the content of the associated environment and the pest population dynamics of the pest species. Frontline demonstrations were conducted wherein the critical inputs like pheromone traps, lures, and new molecules of insecticides were provided to 30 farmers during three consecutive years from the Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Raichur. Community based IPM for pink bollworm has given good results with better yield. The adopted farmers who actively participated in the training programmes organized by ICAR-KVK, Raichur started adopting the use of pheromone traps for pest monitoring, were able to identify the damage symptoms and learned the concept of economic threshold level (ETL) in deciding the timing of insecticide spray. Integrated management of pink bollworm performed good along with reduction in cost of cultivation. Apart from the monetary benefits, the additional advantages in terms of safety to environment and natural enemies were also noticed in the demonstrated fields.