Latha Kr

Successful multiplication of Scirtothrips dorsalis in the laboratory has never been established so far. S. dorsalis has been noted as major pest in field as well as under protected cultivation, recently this pest developed resistance to well know chemical insecticides. In order to develop a suitable management practices it is very much necessary to have pure culture of same life stages. Keeping its economic importance both as a direct pest and possible vector of viral diseases in crops a simple rearing technique was developed for chilli thrips. Adults can be reared on a tender capsicum (10-12 days old) in a screw cap plastic container (10 cm diameter ×8 cm long) with the lid cut open and stuck with tissue paper for aeration. This procedure was found useful up to 400 larvae with relatively low mortality rates. Evaluation of this technique showed that a small scale culture initiated with 100 adults released in each container with 4 replications at an average temperature ranged from 25-26.71°C, relative humidity ranged from 38.19-69.06% and L16:D8 during 7 to 12 days yielded mean larval populations of 915 (SEM 54.83) and produced adults with mean populations 472 (SEM 49.14). Approximately 5 min per day is required to achieve this productivity. These procedures enable standardization of the cultural methods and synchronization of the life stages of thrips species for further work.