Deepak Rai¹ , S. N. Sushil¹ , J. Stanley² , Ram kewal³ , J.P. Gupta² , Veenika Singh¹

1 Krishi Vigyan Kendra, IISR(ICAR), Lucknow, 226002, U.P, India
2 Vivekananda Parvatiya Krishi Anusandhan Sansthan (I.C.A.R.), Almora 263601 Uttarakhand, India
3 Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Buxer,226002, Bihar, India
1 Krishi Vigyan Kendra, IISR(ICAR), Lucknow,226002, U.P, India
2 Vivekananda Parvatiya Krishi Anusandhan Sansthan (I.C.A.R.), Almora 263 601 Uttarakhand, India
3 Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Buxer,226002, Bihar, India
2 Vivekananda Parvatiya Krishi Anusandhan Sansthan (I.C.A.R.), Almora 263 601 Uttarakhand, India
1 Krishi Vigyan Kendra, IISR(ICAR), Lucknow,226002, U.P, India
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Horticulture, 2013, Vol. 3, No. 2   doi: 10.5376/ijh.2013.03.0002
Received: 19 Dec., 2012    Accepted: 09 Jan., 2013    Published: 14 Jan., 2013

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Deepak R., Sushil S.N., Stanley J., Kewal R., Gupta J.P., and Singh V., 2013, Deployment of Noval Technologies for The Management of White Grubs in Lower Hills of Nw Himalyan Region, International Journal of Horticulture, 3(2): 3-10 (doi: 10.5376/ijh.2013.03.0002)

White grubs, a group of destructive insect pests of polyphagous nature, cause severe damage to crop plants in hill ecosystem. The grubs with subterranean habitat feed extensively on the roots and the adults defoliate the plants. A two pronged strategies involving an efficient, light weight, eco-friendly, low cost, light based insect trap for capturing the adults and a novel entomo-pathogen, Bacillus cereus strain WGPSB-2 for the management of grubs were developed. Large scale deployment of the above technologies were done on community basis in 5 locations including 4 villages and one experimental farm of Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand. Three years experimentations revealed drastic reduction in beetle population to the tune of 75.8% in low, altitude villages. A significant reduction of the grub population was recorded from 74.11% to 85.17% in three years across the different villages. As a result of reduction in grub population, per cent increase in yield of different crops was recorded from 39.0% to 59.2% in different villages and experimental farm of low hills. The technology is thus, capable of managing white grubs at different altitudes of hills in general and North Western Himalayas in particular.

Whitegrub; Bacillus cereus; Entomopathogen; Light trap; Uttarakhand Hills; White grubs