The lepidopteran predator, Eublemma amabilis Moore, is a major pest of lac and causes colossal losses to the lac crop to the magnitude of about 40 per cent. Three species of trichogrammatid egg parasitoids, namely, Trichogramma achaeae Nagaraja and Nagarkatti, T. exiguum Pinto and Platner and T. ostriniae Pang et Chen were evaluated in the present study on lac crop raised on the bushy host plant, Flemingia macrophylla O. Kytze and were found extremely useful as a substitute for chemical pesticides. All the three egg parasitoids were able to suppress the population of E. amabilis. The reduction in the population of E. amabilis was 77 to 86 per cent in case of rangeeni crop and 52 to 72 per cent in case of kusmi crop with a dose of 20 egg parasitoids per bush. In general, trichogrammatids were found more effective in ease of rangeeni lac than kusmi. All the three parasitoids were found equally effective in suppressing the population of E. amabilis.
Keywords
Egg Parasitoids, Eublemma amabilis, Kusmi, Rangeeni, Trichogramma.
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