Symptoms of damage:

• Initially the larva nibbles leaves, later it feeds from the margins towards the midrib
• The grubs cause numerous shot holes and even riddled the entire leaves by voracious feeding
• They devour the epidermis of the shoot, resulting in drying up of seedlings and failure to bear seeds in older plants

Identification of the pest:

• Larva: Greenish black with wrinkled body and has eight pairs of pro-legs. On touch the larva falls to ground and feigns death
• Adult: Head and thorax is black in colour, abdomen is orange colour, wings are translucent, smoky with black veins

Management:

• Summer ploughing to destroy the pupa
• Early sowing should be done
• Maintain clean cultivation
• Apply irrigation in seedling stage is very crucial for sawfly management because most of the larvae die due to drowning effect. Severe cold reduces pest load.
• Collection and destruction of grubs of saw fly in morning and evening
• Conserve Perilissus cingulator (parasitoids of the grubs), and the bacterium Serratia marcescens which infect the larvae of sawfly
• Use of bitter gourd seed oil emulsion as on anti- feedant
• Spray the crop with malathion 50 EC @ 1000 ml/ha quinolphos 25 EC @ 625ml/ha. All this should be applied in about 
  600 to 700 litres of water per ha.