Seasonal incidence and abundance of pod borers in Dolichos bean, Lablab purpureus L. (Sweet) in Bengaluru, Karnataka, South India.

Lablab purpureus L. (Sweet) is an important pulse-cum-vegetable crop in India, cultivated for tender pods, seeds and fodder. Govindan (1974) in Karnataka recorded as many as 55 species of insect pests and a species of mite. Among them, the pod borers were considered to be the most important and they appeared regularly causing crop loss to the tune of 80-100 per cent (Katagihallimath and Siddappaji, 1962). The pod borers of Dolichos bean include Helicoverpa armigera (Hubner), Adisura atkinsoni (Moore), Maruca testulalis (Geyer), Etiella zinckenella (Treitschke), Sphenarches caffer (Zeller), Exelastis atomosa (Walshinghan), Callosobruchus chinensis (Linnaeus) and Lampides boeticus (Linnaeus) (Chakravarthy, 1977; Mallikarjunappa, 1989). The present study was taken up to study the seasonal incidence and abundance of the pod borers in Dolichos bean.