Development and evaluation of IPM modules against fruit borer, Helicoverpa armigera (Hub.) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) infesting tomato crop in semi arid region †

: IPM modules evaluated in present study were showed significantly judicious over untreated control. Among them, the efficacy of module 7 comprising Emamectin benzoate 5% SG @ 200 ml/ha + chlorantraniliprole 18.5 EC @ 150 ml/ha + Novaluron 10 EC @ 1 L/ha was found best in controlling the H. armigera (0.43 larvae/plant with 8.46 and 7.63 % of fruit damage both on number and weight basis, respectively) in tomato. While, the lowest efficacy was recorded in module 2 comprising Trichogramma sp. (@150,000/ha + HaNPV@ 300 LE/ha + NSKE @ 10% (1.28 larvae/plant and 23.05 and 21.62 % of fruit damage both on number and weight basis, respectively). Module 7 recorded maximum fruit yield of 269.73 q/ha with highest efficacy, whereas, it was lowest in module 8 (173.47 q/ha) kept as untreated control. Module 7 reported the maximum increase in yield over control (96.32 q/ha).


Introduction
Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.), as solanaceous vegetable used both as fresh and processing industry in India and it ranks second in importance next to potato.Lycopene (60-90 mg/kg) is one the important and rich source of vitamins that makes it an important dietary constituent of human beings [1].Nutritional contribution with high biological activity in human diet ranked it first among all vegetables [2,3].In Rajasthan, India tomato crop occupied 18.12 lakh hectare area with production of 88.73 lakh tonnes and productivity is 4.8 tonnes/ha [4].Tomato's tenderness and softness are like other important vegetable which make it more prone to insect pests and diseases.It ruined by an array of pests like sucking pest's i.e. jassids, Amrasca biguttula (Ishida), thrips, Thrips tabaci (Linn.),aphid, Aphis gossypii (Glover), Lipaphis erysimi (Kalt.),Myzus persicae (Sulzer) and whitefly, Bemisisa tabaci (Genn.)however, the important one to cause damage is by fruit borers [5].Fruit borers' viz., Helicoverpa armigera (Hubner) and Spodoptera litura Fabricius hampered the yield potential of crop, with a resultant yield loss ranging from 20 to 60 per cent as combined, on developing fruits [6,7,8].
H. armigera is voracious feeder in habit, having high mobility, and fecundity with multivoltine and overlapping generations makes it as pest of high magnitude that cause direct attack on fruiting structures.Losses due to this pest in crops i.e. cotton, pigeon pea, ground- nut, sorghum, pear millet and other crops of economic importance reported up to Rs 100 billion [9], therefore assessment of losses in tomato crop was undertake in this study.In the Semi arid eastern plain zone and in Jaipur district of Rajasthan, the large proportion of tomatoes produced by small and marginal farmers.Among the farmers of this region interest of taking tomato production than any other vegetables is high due to the possibility of multiple harvests, resulting in high economic return per unit area A successful pest management emphasized on knowledge of bionomics and population dynamics of target pest species to maintain damage below the economic threshold while reducing the risk of pesticide poisoning [10].IPM practices have historically been focused on insects comprises numerous economically important pests above economic threshold level, and on controlling them with less harmful impact in agricultural environments [11,12].The use alternatives and novel methods for pest control or biorational control are the challenges of pest control for the twenty-first century and research emphasis on to reduce the use of synthetic pesticides, mainly broad-spectrum insecticides in plant protection.These chemicals are harmful through either as pesticide residual effects, pollution, resistance, or through direct effects on human and beneficial organisms.Now scenario changes towards the sustainable agriculture with more selective and safer insecticides specifically harmful to pests without any adverse effect to beneficial insects and other non-target organisms.Hence, an experiment was laid out to evaluate different IPM modules for management of tomato fruit borer and to popularize this developed module among the farmers' of the state to increase their income through newly developed modules.

Materials and Methods
Studies were conducted for development and evaluation of IPM modules against tomato fruit borer was conducted during spring season 2017 and 2018.The experimental field situated at Rajasthan Agricultural Research Institute, Durgapura, Jaipur (26° 51' 25.344'' N, 75° 47' 24.936'' E).The plot size was kept 3.6 x 2 m 2 keeping row to row and plant to plant distances of 60 cm and 40 cm, respectively.The seeds of tomato variety RS-2 recommended for this region were prepared in nursery bed in second week of January and thirty day old seedling were transplanted in the second week of February during both the years.A complete simple randomized block design (RBD) with eight treatments (IPM modules) (Table 1) including untreated control each replicated thrice.Observations on number of larvae per plant were recorded a day before and five days after each treatment (DAT) from five randomly selected and tagged plants in each treatment plot.Total number of fruits and damaged fruits harvested at each picking from each plot was also counted and weighed and were converted to per cent basis.Per cent fruit damage on number and weight basis was worked out by recording number of damaged fruits and total number of fruits from five tagged plants in each plot at each picking and calculated by using following formulae: The weight of sound fruits of each picking were recorded individually for each treatment plot and the yield was calculated by adding the yield from all pickings for each plot.The yield was then converted into per hectare basis with the following formula.

Discussion
Helicoverpa armigera is serious concern for the tomato crop farming in Northern-western India and in the world.As reported that marigold planted as one row on either side or parallel to 10 to 15 rows of tomato resulted maximum reduction of eggs population and thereby larval population of H. armigerain tomato [13].The IPM module consisting of trap crop (15 rows of tomato: 1 row marigold) + Trichogramma pretiosum @ 45,000/ ha + NSKE 5% + HaNPV @ 250 LE/ ha + endosulfan 35 EC @ 1250 ml/ ha found significantly superior in restricting the larval population [14].It was indicated that emamectin benzoate @ 10.0 and 8.75 g a.i.ha -1 was more effective against the H. armigera followed by spinosad 2.5 SC (12.5 g a.i.ha -1 ) in reducing the larval population and fruit damage [15].Similarly, it was reported emamectin benzoate @ 0.11 g a.i./ ha as most effective in reducing the larval population of H. armigerain tomato [16,17].
Sreekanth et al. [21,22] showed that the number of Helicoverpa larvae per plant were lowest in plots treated with chlorantraniliprole 20 SC (0.43/plant), flubendiamide 480 SC (0.59/plant) and spinosad 45 SC (0.85/plant) as against untreated control plot (4.17/plant) with 89.7, 85.9 and 79.6 per cent larval reduction over control, respectively.Rathod et al. [23] found Bt @ 1.0 kg/ha to be the most effective treatment which gave highest mortality of H. armigera, and was at par with B. bassiana @ 2.0 kg/ha.In case of insecticides, rynaxypyr 0.006 per cent proved to be the most effective treatment against H. armigera and was found statistically at par with indoxacarb 0.008 per cent.)One of experiment indicated that flubendiamide 0.004 per cent recorded minimum larval population (0.43 larva/ plant) and 10.09 per cent fruit damage on weight basis followed by chlorantraniliprole 0.0055 per cent (0.58 larva/plant and 10.62 % fruit damage) and spinosad 0.0068 per cent (0.68 larva/plant and 11.34 % fruit damage) which were identical [24].Chavan et al. [25,26] recorded the minimum larval incidence of H. armigera (0.95 and 0.36 larva/m row length) in rynaxypyr 20 SC at 3 and 7 days after spraying followed by flubendiamide 48 SC (1.47 and 0.78 larvae/m row length) and emamectin benzoate 5 SG (1.55 and 0.89 larvae/m row length).The present findings are in agreement to the findings of these authors.

Conclusion
The experimental trials conducted on tomato crop showed the potential of implementing integrated pest management to set up the productivity significantly by reducing the losses due to fruit borer.These modules should be demonstrated on farmers' field for assessing the performance of improved technology, after that developed module should be disseminated among the farmers.
Fruit Infestation (Number basis) = Number of infested or damaged fruits Total number of Fruits × 100 % Fruit Infestation (Weight basis) = Number of infested or damaged fruits Total number of Fruits × 100

Table 1 .
Details of the IPM Modules

Table 2 :
Effectiveness of different modules on fruit damage (Weight and Number basis) caused by H. armigera larvae and mean larval population recorded in tomato during 2017 and 2018 (Pooled) Figures in parenthesis are arcsin transformed values, while those outside parenthesis are retransformed values ** Figures in parenthesis are square root transformed (√x) values, while those outside parenthesis are original values * Proceedings 2021, 68, x. https://doi.org/10.3390/xxxxxwww.mdpi.com/journal/proceedings