Comparative assessment of traditional and modern techniques for eco friendly management of bruchid Callosobruchus chinensis Linnaeus infesting stored chickpea

Abstract

Chickpea, Cicer arietinum L. is considered as king of pulses and also known as cici, Bengal gram or garbanzo beans and old-world pulse because it was first time grown in the Levant and ancient Egypt, belongs to family Fabaceae. Among various threats in limiting the production of chickpea, pulse beetle Callosobruchus chinensis L. is a serious issue of concern particularly in storage. An investigation was carried out during 2020-21 and 2021-2022 to determine the efficacy of plant based crude oils to disinfest the chickpea seeds such as mustard, neem, karanj and castor at 10 ml/ kg in combination with sun drying and along with sun drying alone and an untreated control were tested for the management of C. chinensis before storage. Freshly emerged pulse beetles were released at different time intervals (0, 15, 30, 45 and 60 DAT) in all the treatments and it was found that, at 0 DAT the combination treatments such as sun drying + karanj oil, sun drying + mustard oil, sun drying + neem oil, and sun drying + castor oils were showed significant effect on insect infestation parameters when compared to the sun drying alone and untreated (control) grains. The data obtained depicts that there was an increasing trend with respect to per cent grain infestation, hatching, damage and weight loss from 0 to 60 DAT which may be due to decreasing residual effect of oils, yet persistence effect was evident with lower infestations when compared to sun drying alone and control. Within four plant based oils, the combination of newlinesun drying + neem oil demonstrated comparatively higher persistence or residual effects than other three oils which was evident with lower perpetuation of infestation parameters from 0 to 60 DAT Viz., Grain infestation (%), Hatching success (%), Grain damage (%), Grain weight loss (%) during 2020-21 at 0 DAT: 1.99, 72.31, 2.04 and 1.90 to at 60 DAT: 3.00, 60.17, 1.80, 3.15 respectively and during 2021-22 at 0 DAT: 2.74, 60.19, 1.70 and 1.62 to at 60 DAT: 4.01, 56.75, 1.83 and 3.13 respectively, as against other treat