Abstract:
An experiment was conducted in the central experimental field of SAU, Dhaka, Bangladesh
during the period from November, 2019 to February, 2020 to evaluate the effect of intercropping
on incidence of pests and predators in cauliflower fields. The experiment was laid out in
Randomized Complete Block Design replicated with three times. Seven treatments were tested
for the study which are intercropped with tomato (T
1
ii
), marigold (T
2
), garlic (T
3
),
radhuni (T
5
), fenugreek (T
6
) and control (sole cauliflower) (T
7
). The results showed that, the
highest insects pests was found in control field and lowest insect incidence was found in the field
intercropped with coriander. Among the insect pests, whitefly was the major and found
maximum number in control cauliflower field as well as intercropped fields with tomato,
marigold, coriander, radhuni and fenugreek. In case of arthropod predator, field spider was major
and found in control cauliflower and integrated with tomato, marigold, garlic, radhuni and
fenugreek. Considering the pests reduction, T
4
performed best and reduced the number of aphid,
whitefly, stripped beetle, leaf miner and diamond back moth over control (43.89%, 61.15%,
75.93%, 64.66% and 51.91%, respectively). It also reduced percent plant infestation over control
(57.57%) and increased the number of predator arthropods like lady bird beetle and field spider
over sole cauliflower (103.00% and 245.12%, respectively). T
4
also showed the best
performance in terms of plant height, card length, card diameter and yield of cauliflower (36.45
cm, 18.23 cm, 15.37 cm and 24.71 t/ha, respectively). From this study, it can be concluded that
cauliflower intercropping with coriander showed the antagonistic effect to the insect pests of
cauliflower and also showed positive effect on the yield of cauliflower than the sole cultivation.
Description:
A Thesis
Submitted to the Department of Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture,
Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
MASTER OF SCIENCE (MS)
IN
ENTOMOLOGY
