Agricultural Reviews

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Agricultural Reviews, volume 31 issue 2 (june 2010) : 113 - 119

COTTON MEALY BUG, PHENACOCCUS SOLENOPSIS TINSLEY – A REVIEW

M.D. Joshi, P.G. Butani, V.N. Patel1, P. Jeyakumar2
1Department of Entomology, College of Agriculture, Junagadh Agricultural University, Junagadh- 362 001 India
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Cite article:- Joshi M.D., Butani P.G., Patel1 V.N., Jeyakumar2 P. (2024). COTTON MEALY BUG, PHENACOCCUS SOLENOPSIS TINSLEY – A REVIEW. Agricultural Reviews. 31(2): 113 - 119. doi: .
Mealy bug, Phenacoccus solenopsis Tinsley is a serious pest of cotton limiting the production
and quality of fibre and lint. It is a polyphagous pest and multiply on different hosts like field
crops, horticultural, fruit, vegetable and ornamental plants. They suck a large amount of sap
from leaves and stems depriving plants of essential nutrients showing the symptoms like retarded
growth, late opening of bolls and total drying of the plant. The yield losses due to the pest are
estimated upto 50 per cent. Mealy bugs are cottony in appearance, small, oval, soft-bodied
sucking insects covered with white mealy wax, which makes them difficult to eradicate. An
individual mealy bug survived for 25-38 days. Effective control of the pest can be achieved
through an integrated pest management approach. Field sanitation, uprooting of infested plants,
dusting of methyl parathion 2 per cent or spraying of profenophos 50 EC or chlorpyriphos 25 EC
or quinalphos 25 EC help to reduce the pest population. Aenasius bambawalei Hayat, Anagyrus
kamali Mani, Cryptolaemus montrouzieri (Mulsant), Chrysoperla carnea (Stephens), Verticillium
lecanii (Zimmermann) and Beauveria bassiana (Vuillemin) are the effective biological control
agents in managing the infestation of the pest
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