THE SUSCEPTIBILITY STUDY OF SOME AUBERGINE (Solanum melongena L.) CULTIVARS AGAINST JASSID (Amrasca biguttula biguttula (ISHIDA)

The jassid (Amrasca biguttula biguttula (Ishida) is an emerging serious pest of brinjal crop in Pakistan. The present study was carried out for evaluating relative plant resistance/susceptibility of different cultivars of brinjal against the jassid during summer 2009 at PARS, Faisalabad, Pakistan. Fourteen cultivars of brinjal viz. Pusa Purple Round (PPR), Rubi, Vrib-01, Vrib-02-F1, Dilnasheen, Vrib-0401, Vrib-04, Bemissal, Vrib-9901, Nirala, Qaisar, JK_Kajal, Cluster King and Purple QL were tested for their susceptibility against jassid. All the tested cultivars showed significant differences (P≤0.05) for the tested parameters viz. pest preference, host plant susceptibility indices (HPSI) as well as yield/plot. The peak infestation time of the pest after sowing of crop was 1st week of June after which it gradually declined. The cultivars Nirala, Bemissal and Vrib-04 appeared as comparatively susceptible showing high population of jassid/leaf while Vrib-9901, Vrib-0401, and Vrib-02-F1 appeared as intermediate and Rubi, Vrib-01 and Cluster King were observed comparatively as resistant ones with least number of jassid/leaf. The cultivar Bemissal proved the most susceptible varietyamong the tested ones showing maximum level of HPSI (18%) and minimum fruit yield (44.66 kg/plot) while Rubi proved the most resistant cultivar with minimum HPSI (7%) and a maximum fruit yield (81.0 kg/plot).