Cultural management
- Synchronised
sowing of cotton preferably with short duration varieties in each cotton
ecosystem
- Avoid
continuous cropping of cotton both during winter and summer seasons in the
same area as well as ratooning
- Avoid
mono-cropping. Growing of less preferred crops like greengram, blackgram,
soybean, castor, sorghum etc., along with the cotton as intercrop or
border crop or alternate crop to reduce the pest infestation
- Removal
and destruction of crop residues to avoid carryover of the pest to the
next season, and avoiding extended period of crop growth by
continuous irrigation
- Optimising
the use of nitrogenous fertilizers that will not favour moth
multiplication of the pest
- Judicious
water management for the crop to prevent excessive vegetative growth and
larval harbourage
- Pest
monitoring should be intensified at farm, village and state level by using
light traps, pheromone traps and in situ assessments by roving and fixed
plot surveys. For management, an action threshold of one egg/plant or 1
larva/plant may be adopted.
- Nipping
terminal buds when 16 to 18 sympodial are present in the plant within 80 –100
days to reduce the egg load
- Growing
early maturing and tolerant varieties such as Abadita, LK 861, LPS 141,
NA1280 and G 27.
- Installing
pheromone traps @ 4 / ac (ETL 10 moths/trap/day)
· Growing trap crops @ 100
plants/ acre.
-Marigold as ovipositional trap crop against Helicoverpa
ETL: One egg or one larva/plant