A survey of insect pests damaging vegetable crops in Kashmir Valley (India), with some new records

Abstract

In 5-year field survey conducted to observe some major insect pests damaging various vegetable crops in Kashmir Valley (India). During the survey, more than 25 insect pest species under 23 genera, distributed over 6 insect orders, belonging to 13 insect families were found infesting 23 host vegetable crops. Occurrence of 4 new pests, viz. Evergestis forficalis (l.) (lepidoptera: Pyralidae), Leucinodes orbonalis Guen. (lepidoptera: Pyralidae), Phyllotreta cruciferae (Goez.) (coleoptera: chrysomalidae) and Liriomyza trifolii (burg.) (Diptera: Agromyzidae) were recorded. Apart from these, a number of new host-crops of the already reported pests of Kashmir have been observed.