Patterns of Insecticides used on Cotton Before Introduction of Genetically Modified Cotton in Southern Punjab, Pakistan.

A complex of sucking and bollworm pests attack cotton crop in Pakistan. Cotton jassid, Amrasca devastans (Dist.), cotton whitefly, Bemisia tabaci (Genn.), and thrips, Thrips tabaci (Lind.) are regular sucking insect pests, whereas spotted bollworms, Earias spp., Pink bollworm, Pectinophora gossypiella (Saund.) and American bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera (Hub.) are regular bollworm insect pests. Insecticides were the only option to manage these insect pests before introduction of Cry I Ac toxic gene harboring cotton. After the introduction of Bt cotton the insecticides are mainly applied for sucking insect pests. We report patterns of insecticides used before introduction of Bt cotton from 2001 to 2003 cropping years of Multan, Dera Ghazi Khan and Bahawalpur districts of Punjab. Average numbers of sprays were 4.64, 6.65 and 8.90 per unit area during crop years 2001, 2002 and 2003, respectively. Insect pests received diversity of insecticides. New insecticides were applied in the highest proportion and reached 56% during 2003. Imidacloprid, acetamiprid and diafenthiuron were the dominant insecticides to manage sucking insect pests and ranged 26.07 to 33.44% among all the insecticides used during three years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]