Management of mango hopper and fruit fly for reducing the flower and fruit dropping of mango

Several experiments were carried out in laboratory and farmers' fields to manage the two destructive pest mango hopper and fruity fly for reducing the flower and fruit dropping of mango for three consecutive periods from 2015 to 2018. Field experiments were carried out in mango orchards of selected farmers in two districts, viz. Kushtia and Mymensingh. Laboratory experiment was carried out in IPM (Integrated Pest Management) Laboratory, Department of Entomology, BAU, Mymensingh. Similar trends of abundance of mango hopper and fruit fly was evident in three years. The incidence of hopper population reached to a peak in the month of February then started to decline and gradually reached to a peak during June and further gradually declined population observed upto December. Correlation study revealed Meteorological factors viz. temperature, humidity and rainfall affect the mango hopper population. Temperature positively affected the hopper population, whereas, relative humidity had negative effect, but rainfall showed no significant impact. Incidence of fruit fly was found in mango during April to July and the highest population reached to a peak in the month of May. Fruit fly population was directly influenced by temperature, relative humidity and rainfall. This implies that the increase in temperature, relative humidity, and rainfall also increases the fruit fly population. Efficacy of biopesticides such as neem oil and karanja oil had a significant impact and 3% neem oil was found as the most effective botanicals in reducing the mango hopper population. Application of microbial pesticide Beauveria bassiana at 5g/liter of water during the month of October and 10 days after 1st flower bud break and 1 month after that spray gave better performance in controlling mango hopper, increasing fruit setting and ultimate resulting high yield. Bagging of fruits one month before harvest checked fruit fly infestation fully and produced almost 98.48% fresh fruits/plant followed by pheromone traps installed at 2 metre height resulted 94% fresh fruits/plant. Among chemical insecticides, Confidor 70WG gave the highest percent reduction mango hopper over control as 100.00% at 4 DAT. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) module was developed for management of mango hopper and fruit fly on the basis of results generated from lab and field trials. The IPM module-1 (Confidor 70WG@0.2g/L + Application of microbial pesticide Beauveria bassiana at 5g/liter of water during the month of October and 10 days after 1st flower bud break and 1 month after that spray + Pheromone trap installed at 2 metre height) was performed as most effective module followed by IPM module-2 (Confidor 70WG@0.2g/L + Neem oil 3% + Bagging of fruits) and IPM module-3 (Neem oil 3% + Application of microbial pesticide Beauveria bassiana at 5g/liter of water during the month of October and 10 days after 1st flower bud break and 1 month after that spray + Bait traps) in managing mango hopper and fruit fly for reducing the flower and fruit dropping of mango.