The tomato leaf miner, Tuta absoluta is one of the most serious pests of tomato causing losses of up to 100%. Tuta absoluta occurs throughout the entire growth cycle of tomatoes and can cause a severe damage in both fresh and processing tomatoes grown in open field and green houses. Due to nature of damage and reduce susceptibility against insecticides it is difficult to control this pest by application of convention pesticides application. Therefore, as an alternative pheromone based product has been proven effective biorational method to control Tuta absoluta. Insect pheromone based monitoring and control products can be used to combat this devastating pest Tuta absoluta.
The Tutaroll is an innovative product manufactured by Russell IPM for the management of Tuta absoluta. Tutaroll is a clear film coated with non-drying glue and treated with slow release Tuta absoluta pheromone. It is one cost effective pre-baited ready to use sticky roll. The Tutaroll ensures steady release of attractant for longer period. Our extensive field studies showed application of Tutaroll capture Tuta absoluta successfully without effecting natural enemy Nesidiocoris tenuis. It is compatible with all sorts of biological control systems in place for the management of Tuta absoluta.
Tutaroll is highly species specific and contains attractant for only Tuta absoluta. It is particularly designed for the greenhouse tomato growers where it can make significant reduction in the population of Tuta absoluta. It is fully compatible biological control programmes which involve application of beneficial arthropods or natural enemies.
Evaluation trails of Tutaroll have been carried out in greenhouses which use Nesidiocoris tenuis and found to be very effective to capture Tuta absoluta with a very negligible insignificant accidental capture of the beneficial insect Nesidiocoris tenuis. In a field experiment it is observed that the capture of Tuta absoluta is higher nearer the ground with lower Nesidiocoris tenuis capture. The opposite is true for position at the level of the highest point in the plant. To evaluate the optimum application height the Tutarolls have been applied in various crop heights. In green houses 24 hr after application maximum number of 580 moths were captured in 1.5 heights. Therefore, the optimum height was proved to be 1.5M.
A further study was conducted to compare the capture of Tuta absoluta and Nesidiocoris tenuis and found consistent result for a longer period. 24 hrs after application it showed that, at lower height catches of Tuta absoluta were significantly higher (675 moths / 24 hr) than that of upper heights. At the same time Nesidiocoris tenuis capture rate was very insignificantly low. In lower height 60 -120 cm Nesidiocoris tenuis capture was zero. However, at 190 cm only 3 Nesidiocoris tenuis were captured. 10 days after application similar trend was followed in lower height 60 cm length of Tutaroll captured 4988 Tuta absoluta and only one Nesidiocoris tenuis. As height increased the number of Tuta absoluta decreases significantly to 2366. At same time number of Nesidiocoris tenuis increase up to 6. Again the increase of Nesidiocoris tenuis was also very negligible and statistically insignificant. There was tendency of greater capture of Tuta absoluta in the lower parts of the plant and few Nesidiocoris tenuis on top. The case of the highest catches of Tuta absoluta could be related to its flying behaviour.
Therefore it recommended that to achieve maximum benefit Tutaroll should be applied in 1.5 meter high and 60-70 cm away from the plant canopy. Placing two metres Tutaroll strip vertically from to top of the green house to the ground can also give graphical indication on insect activity and its preferred height. This can give an important insight about the insect behaviour and to help deciding where to focus the management efforts.
Considering all the above studies it is evident that Tutaroll clear is safe and bio-rational products which highly compatible with other biological control systems. It is not affecting the natural enemy Nesidiocoris tenuis. The clear colour makes it’s unattractive to Nesidiocoris tenuis on the other hand addition of Tuta absoluta pheromone makes it a sustainable safe tool to manage devastating tomato pest Tuta absoluta.
Russell IPM also offer a similar kind Tuta absoluta pheromone mediated yellow sticky rolls for using green houses where beneficial insects are not in use as biological control agent. The yellow colour of the sticky rolls adds an extra advantage of capturing whitefly and aphids. Russell IMP has the technology to incorporate and release pheromones and attractants from adhesive layer therefore any colure and size sticky rolls can be offered to the greenhouse grower to combat Tuta absoluta.
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