Field evaluation of novel insecticides against Maconellicoccus hirsutus green in mulberry ecosystem and their safety to silkworm Bombyx mori L.

Five novel insecticides along with dichlorvos as standard check were evaluated against pink mealybug, Maconellicoccus hirsutus (Green) under field conditions. The treatment dinotefuron 20 SG @ 0.25 g/l recorded the highest mealybug mortality at both 7 DAS (78.78 %) and 15 DAS (99.44 %) owing to its unique mode of action. Phytotoxicity symptoms assessed on mulberry revealed that all the insecticides except flonicamid 50 WG (0.15 and 0.3 g/l) had no phytotoxic effect on mulberry plants at both 7 and 15 DAS. When the insecticide treated leaves were fed to silkworms reared on 10, 20, 30 and 40 Days after Spraying (DAS) of insecticides to mulberry plants, Flonicamid 50 WG @ 0.3 g/l recorded 100 percent silkworm mortality and zero percent mortality was recorded in all the other treatments. Effective Rate of Rearing of 100 percent was recorded in silkworms fed on mulberry leaves from treatments pymetrozine 50 WG @ 0.3 g/l at 10 DAS, azadirachtin 1% @ 2 ml/l and dichlorvos 76 EC @ 2.63 ml/l at 30 DAS.