Current Status of Insect Pest Problems in Guava (original) (raw)

About 80 species of insect pests have been recorded on guava, but only few of them had been identified as pest of regular occurrence and causing serious damage. These are bark eating-caterpillar (Indarbela spp.), fruit fly (Bactrocera spp.) and scale insect (Chloropulvinaria psidii). The bark eating-caterpillar and fruit flies have wide distribution, while scale insects and mealy bugs are more common in south India and tea mosquito bug, Helopeltis antonii (Signoret) in central India. However, studies conducted in the recent past has revealed some of the important facts throwing further light on the occurrence and status of insect pests on this crop. Intensive surveys of guava growing regions of Uttar Pradesh revealed of fruit borer, Deudorix isocrates (Fab) the increase in incidence (2.5-22.5%) with crop loss range of 5.00 to 35.00 per cent. Common occurrence of another fruit borer, Dichocrocis punctiferalis (Guenee) in rainy season guava was also noticed. Fruit flies have been a major limiting factor in production of rainy season guava. Infestation of fruit fly ranged from 20.00 to 46.00 per cent with crop loss of 16.00 to 40.00 per cent, which is a matter of serious concern. Infestation of scale insects, aphids and mealy bugs, on leaves, shoots and fruit was also common in most of the orchards surveyed but these insects were in check by the presence of their natural enemies. Mite and shoot borer were recorded for the first time from the region. The infestation of these pests because drying and dying of affected leaves and twigs which adversely affect growth of plants, flowering and fruiting. These insects have to be identified and studied in detail. The two insect pests introduced recently in India need special attention, i.e., spiralling white fly, Aleurodicus dispersus (Russel) in South India and stem borer, Aristobia testudo (Voet) in North-East region. Efforts are needed to keep a watch on development of these insect pests and to follow strict quarantine regulation to check the further spread of introduced pests. The present paper deals with the insect pests recorded on guava along with detailed discussion on important ones.