IPM Packages for Crops

eggplant IPM techniques

Eggplant seedling production using trays under net house

• Application of fertilizer and compost inoculated with Trichoderma spp., neem cake, and vesicular arbuscular mycorrhi- za (VaM) fungus improve the nutrients available to the crop, priming the plant’s own defenses and reducing the incidence of nematodes and plant diseases. • Select high-yielding, locally-preferred eggplant varieties that are resistant or mod- erately resistant to diseases. • Bt eggplant controls eggplant fruit and shoot borer. • Treating seeds or seedlings with the Trichoderma viride or T. harzianum fungi, and Pseudomonas fluorescens and Bacillus subtilis bacteria to protect seedlings from fungal, bacterial, and nematode attack. • Use of seedling trays and cocopith reduces contamination. Irrigation should be monitored to prevent excess moisture, which increases the incidence of fungal diseases. • Proper sanitation i.e., removing plant debris from field, helps in reducing borers, Epilachna beetle, and aphid populations in the field and prevents or delays crop infestation. • Grafting high-yielding eggplant scions on disease-resistant rootstock of wild solanums, to grow in soil infected with bacterial wilt disease. Grafting increases robustness of plants and yield.

• Neem cake or mustard oil cake alone, or in combination with compost inoculated with Trichoderma spp., is effective against soilborne fungal diseases and nematodes. Additionally, they contribute to the build- up of beneficial soil microbes that assist in nutrient absorption by the plants. • Mulching conserves moisture, harbors natural enemies, and reduces insect pest, mite, and disease incidence. Use reflective mulches or straw mulch to reduce the leaf hopper, whitefly, and thrip populations. • Setting up yellow sticky sheets in fields helps to reduce populations of aphids, thrips, and whiteflies. • Inundative release of parasitoids such as Trichogramma spp. to control borers while inundative release of lady bird beetles helps to reduce aphid populations. Use of neem-based pesticides for managing leaf hoppers, aphids, whiteflies, and mites. Sprinkler irrigation reduces mite popula- tion.

• Sex pheromone traps for the fruit and shoot borers should be set up in the field either at the canopy level or slightly above the canopy level for effectiveness. Once moths are found in the traps, the field should be monitored, and infested shoots, and fruits should be removed and de- stroyed, where non BT eggplant is planted. • Formulations of the fungi Verticillium, Paecilomyces , Metarhizium , and Beauve- ria species and formulations of beneficial nematodes such as Heterorhabditis sp. and Steinernema sp. may be used for the con- trol of whiteflies, thrips, and P. absoluta .