2. Introduction
Occurrence: Tropical and subtropical parts of the world, wide
spread in India.
Host: tomato, cotton, castor, groundnut, tobacco, cabbage and
various other cruciferous crops.
Order : Lepidoptera
Family : Noctuidae
Scientific name : Spodoptera litura
Common name : Tobacco caterpillar asian cotton
leafworm, oriental leafworm moth, cluster caterpillar
4. Egg
Female lays about 300 eggs in clusters.
The eggs are covered by brown hairs.
They hatch in about 3-5 days.
5. Larva
• Caterpillar measures 35-40 mm in length, when full grown.
• Appearance:Velvety, black with yellowish – green dorsal
stripes and lateral white bands with incomplete ring – like dark
band on anterior and posterior end of the body.
• It passes through 6 instars.
• Larval stage - 15-30 days
7. Moth
• Medium sized and stout bodied
• Forewings pale grey to dark brown in
colour having wavy white crisscross
markings.
• Hind wings are whitish with brown
patches along the margin of wing.
• Pest breeds throughout the year.
• Moths are active at night.
• Adults live for 7-10 days.
8. Damage symptoms
• In early stages, the caterpillars are gregarious and scrape the
chlorophyll content of leaf lamina giving it a papery white
appearance.
• Later they become voracious feeders making irregular holes on
the leaves.
• Irregular holes on leaves initially and later skeletonization
leaving only veins and petioles heavy defoliation.
• Bored fruits with irregular holes
9. CULTURAL PRACTICES
• Deep ploughing.
• Summer ploughing.
• Proper spacing.
• Intercropping
• Collect and destroy crop debris
• Provide irrigation at critical stages of the crop .
• Avoid water logging
• Avoid water stress during flowering stage
• Field sanitation
10. MECHANICAL PRACTICES
Collection and destruction of eggs and early stages of larvae.
Handpick the older larvae during early stages of plant .
The infested shoots be collected and destroyed .
Handpick the gregarious caterpillars and the cocoons which are
found on stem and destroy them in kerosene mixed water.
Use light trap @ 1/acre and operate between 6 pm and 10 pm.
Install pheromone traps @ 4-5/acre for monitoring adult moths
activity (replace the lures with fresh lures after every 2-3 weeks).
Erecting of bird perches @ 20/acre for encouraging predatory
birds such as King crow, common mynah etc.
11. Ecological Engineering of Tomato
• Intercrops :Cowpea, onion, maize, coriander, urdbean
• Guard/barrier crop:Grow 4 rows of maize/sorghum/bajra
around the field
• Repellant crop : Basil
• Attractant plants : Carrot, sunflower, buck wheat, alfalfa,
corn, shrubs (minute pirate bug and lacewing) nectar rich
plants with small flowers ie anise, caraway, dill, parsely,
mustard, sunflower, buck wheat and cowpea (wasp).