<b>Control of <i>Helicoverpa armigera</i> with synthetic insecticides and Their Impacts on Tomato Yield</b>

The present study was carried out at the Abdul wali khan university mardan during 2024 to compare the efficiency of botanical and synthetic insecticides against Helicoverpa armigera This work therefore, compared the several insecticides used in eradicating Helicoverpa armigera and its effect on the tomato yield and quality. Naturally, we included a no-treatment control group to which we compared the effects of Spinosad, Imidacloprid, Chlorpyrifos, Lambda-cyhalothrin and their combination. The findings show that there is an extensive variation in the efficacy in controlling common pests and percentage of fruit infestation between the treatments. When it comes to the most effective treatment spinosad proved to be the most effective with mean value of 0.52 larvae per plant in case of HM. This treatment completely eliminated larvae within 7 days and had the least infestation rate on the fruit at 10.00%, with only 11.33 fruits infected on average. On the other hand, results obtained from the combination Imidacloprid + Lambda-cyhalothrin treated plots had a significantly higher level of performance because the average larvae density was 3.52, which equal to 64.40% reduction and an infestation index of 27.07. Chlorpyrifos + Lambda-cyhalothrin also gave good results with a mean larval population of 2.62 and 70.20% larval mortality and 22.25% fruit infestation rate. Imidacloprid used alone produced a mean larval population of 5.10 ± 0.24 and a percentage reduction of 53.80% while Lambda-cyhalothrin yielded a mean larval population of 4.45 ± 0.02 and a percentage reduction of 59.20%. Chlorpyrifos alone was a moderate control with a mean larval population of 4.47 and a percent reduction of 58.40 with a fruit infestation percent of 15.25 percent. The results indicated that the untreated control treatment had the highest arrested larvae and fruit damage, with 32.25 larvae and 34.66 infested fruits.. Overall, Spinosad emerged as the most effective insecticide for controlling H. armigera, significantly reducing both larval populations and fruit infestation rates. The combined treatments also showed promising results, though they were less effective than Spinosad. These findings highlight the potential of targeted insecticide use in improving tomato yield and quality by managing H. armigera more effectively