Control Measures of Mango mealy bug

Technical Name :Drosicha  Mangifera

Family:Margarodidae

Order: Homoptera

IMPORTANCE

• The Margarodidae mealy bug is a serious pest of mango in Pakistan and India (Prassad and singh 1976; Mohyuddin and Mahmood, 1993).
• The mango mealy bug seriously damage the mango orchard and cause economic loss.

FEMALE OF MANGO MEALY BUG

• Female is oval, soft bodied and covered with a white mealy powder.
• Wingless
• Merely a centimeter long
• Female dies immediately after laying eggs

NYMPHS

• Newly hatched nymphs are brown and turn white later.
• They crawl out from the soil and climb  up the trees.
• Nymphs moult three times.
• The entire nymphal duration lasts for four to five months.
• Adult
• The male has a delicate and reddish body
• Males are winged
• Adult males die after mating

LIFE CYCLE

• The insects have one life cycle in a year
• In May, females lay 250-300 eggs inside the soil. at a depth of 5-15 cm.
• Till the middle of December, the eggs remain in the soil.
• Eggs are minute, pink and turn yellow.
• Nymphs when hatched do not find it difficult to crawl up to the soft portions of the trees, that is the terminals of branches where they suck the sap to devitalize the tree..
• Nymphs turn adults towards the end of April upto the beginning of May.

DAMAGE

• They feed by inserting slender mouthparts into plant tissues and sucking the sap
• The sap-sucking insects released a honey dew that attracts sooty mould fungus.
• When fruits are infested, they can be entirely covered with the white waxy coating of the mealybug.
• Infestation can lead to fruit drop, or fruit may remain on the host in a dried and shriveled condition.
• If flower blossoms are attacked, the fruit sets poorly.

CONTROL

• Cultural control
• Physical control
• Biological control
• Chemical control

CULTURAL CONTROL

• Raking the soil under the tree to a depth of 15 cm after the month of May to expose the eggs.
• Hoeing three times during June, july, August.
• Destruction of weed host clerodendron inflortunatum and grasses, by ploughing during June-July.

PHYSICAL CONTROL

• Apply sticky-bands at the start of junary around the main trunk of the tree .
• Insect will slip and fall.
• The nymphs will gather in the base of tree and can be controlled by applying insecticides.
• Sandhu et al. ( 1979), Khan(1985) and Atwal (1972) who found significant reduction in infection by burying of eggs and use of sticky bands for controlling the mango mealy bug.

BIOLOGICAL CONTROL

• At present, 21 parasitoids and 41 predators are known to attack the mealybug worldwide. e.g
• Gyranusoides tebyii a parasitoid.
• Cryptolaemus montrouzieri  a predator.
• Anagyrus kamali  a parasitoid.

Biological control

• Togo in 1987 parasitoid Gyranusoides tebyii has used to control the mango mealybug
• In Egypt and India, biological controls have been quite successful in controlling the hibiscus mealybug.

CHEMICAL CONTROL

Following are the main insecticides that are used in controlling of mango mealy bug.

• Chlorpyriphos
• Monocrotophos
• Methyl parathion
• Bifenthrin

Atwal(1969) got an effective control of nymphs of mango mealy bug by 0.01% only concentration of Methyl parathion EC.

Jayaram and Thontadarya (1978), khan (1985) and Ashraf (1986) who reporte successfully control of mango mealy bug by  injection method by different insecticides belonging to the organophosphatic group.

Courtesy Agrihunt.com