PREVALENCE AND SEVERITY OF MAJOR INSECT PESTS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT PRACTICES ADOPTED IN SWEET ORANGE ORCHARD IN SINDHULI, NEPAL
ABSTRACT
A study was carried out to assess the prevalence and severity of major insect pests and to document their management practices being adopted by sweet orange growers in Sindhuli, Nepal. Survey sample size of 66 was taken from Golanjor Rural Municipality of the Sindhuli district. Simple random sampling techniques was used to select the household. The primary data were collected by the use of pre-tested questionnaire, focus group discussion and key informant interview whereas secondary data were collected from various publications of national and international organizations. The data were processed and analyzed by using descriptive statistics through MS-excel and SPSS software. According to the survey, the majority of farmers use inadequate management techniques, which appears to be the main cause of the severity and prevalence of insect pest. Weak planting material, damaging parasitic plants, and climate change are the next most common cause. The major insects were ranked by Citrus bug (index 0.83), Leaf miner (index 0.72), Fruit sucking moth (index 0.58), Stem borer (index 0.49) and Chinese citrus fruit fly (index 0.38). Overall 100% of the respondents adopted different strategies to control different diseases in their sweet orange orchard. Among them, majority of the farmers (93.6%) adopted chemical methods, 86% adopted physical methods 78.03% adopted cultural methods, 58.87% adopted mechanical method and 6.81% adopted biological methods/ practices. It was found that majority of the farmers apply chemical pesticides and fungicides at the time of incidence and severity which seems not to be much effective.