EFFECTIVENESS OF BIO-INSECTICIDES AS COMPARED TO CONVENTIONAL INSECTICIDES AGAINST JASSID (AMRASCA DEVASTANS DIST.) ON OKRA (ABELMOSCHUS ESCULENTUS L.) CROP

Neem based insecticides are well known for their diverse pest control properties and are environment friendly as well. But their use is limited due to the instability of azadirachtin which necessitates its application at short time interval as it is highly degradable showing low persistency and residual effects. On the other hand the bacterial derived spinosad is also being used as an environmentally safe product. Present study was carried to evaluate the effectiveness of two bioinsecticides Biosal and Spinosad, in comparison with three conventional insecticides imidacloprid, endosulfan and profenofos against jassid on okra crop. The order of effectiveness in decreasing sequence was found to be imidacloprid profenofos endosulfan 79, 70 and 66% against jassid. Biosal showed moderate effectiveness with 56% reductions in jassid population, whereas spinosad was found least effective against jassid with only 12% mortality. Higher yield of okra fruit shows the higher efficacy of insecticides and simultaneously the lower yield in case of less effectiveness. However, the yield obtained from biosal treated plot is comparable to endosulfan and profenofos.