Symptoms of damage:

• The young larvae first feed gregariously and scrape the leaves
• Older larvae spread out and may completely devour the leaves resulting in poor growth of plants

Identification of pest

• Egg: Masses appear golden brown
• Larva: Pale greenish with dark markings
• Adult: Forewings are brown in colour with wavy white marking, hind wings are white in colour with a brown patch along the margin

Management:

• Plough the soil to expose and kill the pupae
• Grow castor along border and irrigation channel as trap crop
• Flood the field to drive out the hibernating larvae
• Set up light trap @1/ha
• Pheromone traps (Pherodin SL) @ 15/ ha to attract male moths
• Collect and destroy egg masses in castor and tomato
• Hand pick grown up larvae and kill them
• Spray Sl NPV @ 1.5X1012 POBs/ha + 2.5 Kg crude sugar + 0.1 % teepol

Poison bait:

• Rice bran 5 Kg + Molasses or Brown sugar 500g + Carbaryl 50 WP 500g+ 3lit of water/ha
• Mix the ingredients well – Kept around the field in the evening hours
• Spray chlorpyriphos 20 EC 2 lit/ha or dichlorovos 76 WSC 1 lit/ha