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Fall Armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda, the most notorious insect pest of maize, has led to major crop losses globally. The experiment was conducted to study the impact of three maize varieties on S. frugiperda populations and their losses assessment. The results revealed that variety YH-1898 had highest germination rate, larval infestation, pupal density, number of tassels, total grain yield, (84.06±2.14%), (15.41±0.61 larvae/plant), (12.44±0.93 tassels/plant) and (9324.71±266.63 kg/acre) from standard week-03 to standard week-23, 2023 respectively. The variety, FH-2313 was found to be the tallest with plant height, leaf area index, leaf and node count, and internodal distance (67.13±3.71 cm), (70.96±3.97 cm²), (11.44±0.44 leaves/plant), (11.44±0.44 nodes/plant) and (4.33±0.22 cm) respectively. S. frugiperda females deposited 66.13±2.07 eggs/plant with grain yield 6434.06±361.84 kg/acre. Correlation between environmental factors and S. frugiperda population elucidated a positive impact with maximum and minimum temperature (0.766 and 0.679) and negative with relative humidity during morning and evening (0.790 and 0.525). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current study was conducted at Citrus Research Institute, Sargodha, Pakistan during 2020 to determine the effectiveness of different fruit bagging materials to reduce the fruit fly infestation and also to check their impact on skin color of developing fruits and also upon the fruit quality in citrus variety "kinnow mandarin". The fruits were covered with four types of bagging materials such as perforated polyethylene, butter paper, muslin cloth bag and brown paper. No fruit fly infestation was observed in fruits covered with different types of bags as compared with unwrapped fruits. However, 12.43% fruit fly infestation was recorded in non wrapped bags. Fruits covered with brown paper bags and butter paper bags did not show any blemish problem and were also free from citrus canker. Bagging with perforated polyethylene, brown paper and butter paper materials also resulted in improving the fruit colour. None of the bagging material resulted in increase in fruit size (length x width) and fruit weight in citrus fruits. Statistically, the highest amount of juice weight (54.22 g) was detected in fruits enveloped in brown papers followed by butter paper bag (53.31 g), perforated polyethylene bags (50.89 g), muslin cloth bag (48.43 g) and non-bagged (47.43 g) fruits. The highest amount of TSS was found in fruits wrapped in brown paper bags (11.67%) followed by muslin cloth bag (11.41%) and were statistically at par with each other but significantly different with perforated polyethylene bags (11.11%), butter paper bags (10.35%) and un-wrapped fruits (10.60%). Lowest (0.87%) and highest (1.02%) acidity was observed in fruits wrapped with brown paper and muslin cloth bags, respectively was observed. In short bagging material could be used to protect citrus from fruitfly attack. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study was conducted at Entomological Research Institute, AARI, Faisalabad, Pakistan during the year 2008 and 2009. The objective was to minimize the infestation caused by borers on sugarcane crop (cv. HSF-240) with the release of Trichgramma chilonis (Ishida) cards in the experimental area. Sixty five cards per hectare were tagged to the plant leaves at 10, 15, 20 and 25 days intervals from 3rd May to 15th September in both years in different fields 10 m apart from each other. Minimum tiller damage was noted in case of borers (4.05 and 4.10%), internodes damage caused by Chilo infuscatellus (Snellen) (1.72 and 1.73%) and Emmalocera depressella (Swin.) (1.61 and 1.73%) at 10-days release interval of T. chilonis during 2008 and 2009, respectively. Maximum tiller infestation (8.57%) and internodes damage caused by C. infuscatellus (5.89 and 6.24 percent) and E. depressella (4.24 and 5.90%) during 2008 and 2009, respectively was noted at 25-days release interval of T. chilonis. On an average reduction in tiller infestation and internodes damage caused by C. infuscatellus and E. depressella was decreased from 70.49 to 37.85, 79.03 to 26.54 and 78.89 to 35.09 percent, respectively as the interval was increased. Parastoids released at 10-days release interval proved to be the best treatment given maximum CBR (21.06) whereas minimum CBR (1:21.06) was observed at 25-days release interval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]