Varietal screening of cotton against sucking insect pests at Dera Ismail Khan Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Abstract

The study was performed at the Agricultural Research Institute D.I. Khan, during 2020 in a Randomized Complete Block Design. The study focused on screening different commercially available cotton varieties against sucking insect pests of cotton viz., whiteflies, jassids and thrips. Significant differences (P≤0.05) among various tested cultivars were observed. Results showed that whiteflies and jassids appear during ‘2 July’ and reach their peak during ‘27 August’ while pest population was decline during ’27 September’ and after ’27 September’ the pest disappears from the field. Similarly, thrips appear during ‘2 July’ and reach their peak during ‘4 September’ while pest population decline during ’27 September’ and finally disappear from the field after ’27 September’. Furthermore, the highest population of sucking pest plant^-1 was recorded by CRIS-129 as followed by Cemb, Mubarak, Lalazar, Gomal 93, Bogdad and SLH-8 while lowest population was recorded from Israr Shaheed. However, the cultivar Mubarak produced maximum length and width (6.86 and 8.26 mm) while minimum length and width (4.36 and 4.76 mm) were recorded by Gomal 93. Similarly, Israr Shaheed performed in boll size (3.16 cm²). Thus, Israr Shaheed recommended as the most suitable commercial cotton cultivars for agro-climatic conditions of D.I. Khan