Effect of Insecticides on Natural Enemies in Wheat

The most significant effect of the careless use of pesticides has been the annihilation of natural enemies. Therefore, it is necessary to assess an insecticide’s insecticidal qualities, toxicity and safety to natural enemies before incorporating it into a pest management program. A field experiment was carried out during rabi 2018-19 and 2019-20 at the experimental farm of Regional Research Sub-station (Terai Zone) Kharibari, UBKV, Darjeeling, West Bengal to determine the effect of insecticides on natural enemies namely spiders and coccinellids. The results revealed maximum occurrence of coccinellid and spider predators in untreated control and all the treatments recorded less than 50% reduction and proved moderately safer to natural enemies.