Population Fluctuation of Tomato Leaf Miner Liriomyza Sativae (Diptera: Agromyzidae) n Tomato

Abstract

Liriomyza sativae is a serious pest of several economically important vegetable crops, including tomato. The larvae produce characteristic serpentine mines within the leaves of host plants, disrupting leaf tissues and reducing the photosynthetic capacity of the plant. The study was conducted to investigate the infestation percentage of L. sativae on tomato leaves. The observations were taken weekly by counting the number of total and infested leaves with L. sativae to calculate its infestation percentage. A total of ten plants per replication with total fifty plants were observed in the study. The symptoms of L. sativae infestation were recorded since the transplanting of tomatoes till their final harvesting. According to the results, during the first week of observation, the infestation percentage of L. sativae was recorded as 85±2.35% that was significantly the highest per week mean percentage recorded during the entire duration of the study. The infestation percentage of L. sativae was then declined due to the increasing number of total tomato leaves per plant, despite an increasing trend in infestations during remaining weeks of observations. At the final harvesting stage during twenty-fourth week, the infestation percentage of L. sativae was recorded as18.5±1.54%. Moreover, among the abiotic factors, temperature showed a highly significant, positive, and strong relationship with the mean infestation of L. sativae (r = 0.7135, P < 0.05), whereas rainfall exhibited a significant negative relationship. In contrast, relative humidity and wind velocity showed no significant effect on infestation. These findings indicate that temperature and rainfall play an important role in the population dynamics of L. sativae and may be useful for developing timely and effective management strategies for tomato leaf miner under local conditions.