Monitoring of Mite Population and Pest Management Practices in some Apple Orchards in Kashmir Region

Abstract

In the present study, a preliminary survey was carried out in two apple orchards (O1 and O2) belonging to the central region of the state of Jammu and Kashmir to ascertain the prevalence of different types of pests infesting the orchards across different phases, i.e., pre-bloom, bloom and post bloom which spread across the months of end March till the harvest stage (apple picking) in October. Among various types of pests documented, the incidence of red mites was highest. Apple scab was recorded highest in the post bloom stage. The mite population was recorded by using Binomial sampling technique and calculating the Cumulative Mite Days (CMD). Mite infested leaves were 24.8% and16% in O1 and O2 respectively. Similarly, CMD increased linearly in O1 reaching to a maximum of 7.17 on the last sampling day, whereas in the 2nd orchard it showed increased to 7.42 on the last sampling day. In addition to monitoring pest population, the pesticide usage regime was also studied and extensive usage of which was recorded in both the orchards. Yellow fly trap with its corresponding synthetic pheromone was used as quantitative sampling device in monitoring the general pest population