Review on Status of Tomato Leaf Miner and It’s Management Practices

Abstract

Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) is one of the most important edible and nutritious vegetable crops of the world. It is consumed as fresh table tomato and as raw material for food processing industries It grows both on a small and commercial large scale as cash crop. Tomato production is highly constrained by several factors including insect pests and disease. The most important insect pest that is constraining tomato production tomato leaf miner- Tuta absoluta (Meyrick). Tuta absoluta is one of the most devastating tomato leaf miner and it spreads extensively in almost all parts of the world. Tomato leaf miner is a pest of other Solanaceous crops in many vegetable crop growing areas around the world. It is a serious threat for tomato production and it results in highest damage. <i>T. absoluta</i> has fast growth rate with developmental stages of egg, larvae, pupa, and adult and it adapts to different environmental conditions. A larva is the most destructive one that consumes preferably leaves stems and fruits of the tomato plant on which they develop creating mines and galleries. by hiding within mesophyll of the plant tissues. To control tuta absoluta focused on different environmental friendly approaches that inclusively termed as IPM strategies. These are cultural practices, biopesticides, and biological using parasitoids, predators, inheritance sterility development in insect and pest resistant plant cultivar production are considered as promising alternatives to control <i>T. absoluta</i>. Therefore, this review briefly describes the current status of these methods used to design suitable and sustainable management strategies against <i>T. absoluta</i>. The aim of this review paper is describing the status of the pest and its control methods.