EVALUATION OF DIFFERENT COLOUR STICKY TRAP ON MASS TRAPPING OF ONION THRIPS Thrips tabaci (Lindeman)

Onion, Allium cepa L., is one of the most important vegetable crops in India. The various insect pests attack on different growth stages of onion. Among the insect pests, Thrips tabaci (Lind.) is one of important pest attack in all stages of crop growth. On the other hand, famers use large quantities of synthetic chemical insecticides singly or in combination to get good yield. This practice of indiscriminate use of insecticides and calendar based application leads to build up of pesticide residues in the produce, destruction of beneficial insects, pest resurgence, pesticide exposure to farm workers, environmental contamination, bioaccumulation and biomagnifications of toxic residues and disturbance in ecological balance. Therefore, to overcome insecticides mediated environmental problems and calendar-based application an effective and safer method of pest management should be identified. The aim of the present research was to determine the efficiency of effective sticky boards for a systematic thrips control in onion crops. Suitability of coloured sticky boards for monitoring thysanoptera species is a common knowledge the experiments results shows that the efficacy of mass trapping of five different colours of sticky trap viz., green, yellow, orange, violet and white. Among this sticky board Green colour sticky boards were found effective in attracting thrips (16.88 thrips/board) than yellow (11.27 thrips/boards), violet, orange and white were found on par with each other (3.65, 3.02, 2.53 thrips/board) respectively.