ABSTRACT

Helicoverpa armigera (Hiibner) has been identified as an important pest problem globally. Only a few insect pests cause as much loss to vegetative and reproductive plant parts in a range of tropical and subtropical crops around the world as Helicoverpa. Its geographical range of distribution extends to all the continents, but the damage in the semi-arid tropics is enormous. Helicoverpa armigera has been recorded from over 20 crops and 180 wild hosts in India. Cyclic appearance of H. armigera on cotton and pulses has rendered the mitigation of this pest to be quite difficult. It has become a central issue to overall sustainability of many cropping systems. The preferred host plants are pigeonpea, field bean, chickpea, tomato, cotton, chilies, mungbean and sorghum (Jayaraj 1982). Losses caused by Helicoverpa are astronomical in cotton ($290 to $350 million annually) (King 1994), but pigeonpea, chickpea, tomato, maize, and tobacco are equally affected. Average losses on account of crop

11ndian Institute of Pulses Research, Department of Entomology, Kanpur 208 024, Uttar Pradesh, India. IIPR@email. com 2 International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru 502 324, Andhra Pradesh, India. 3 Division of Genetics, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110 012, India. 4 Central Institute for Cotton Research, Department of Entomology, Nagpur 440 010, Maharashtra, India.