Screening of mulberry accessions for tolerance against major pests of mulberry, Morus spp.

Abstract

Sericulture sector is significantly hampered by the invasion of mulberry by a range of defoliators and sucking pests, which resulted in significant economical loss. With a view of identifying resistant sources of mulberry against insect pests the present study was conducted using forty mulberry germplasm accessions maintained at Department of Sericulture, Forest College and Research Institute, Mettupalayam, during 2021-2022. 13 mulberry accessions viz., MI-0790, MI-0145, R-Local, MI-0615, MI-0497, MI-0174, MI-0783, MI-0065, ME-0025, MI-0252, MI-0034, MI-0675 and MI-0489 recorded significantly lowest defoliation percentage varying from 5.25 to 9.99 for leaf webber. Similarly, for pink mealy bug, shoot damage percentage from 2.95 to 8.26 were  recorded in accessions, MI-0835, MI-0252, MI-0669, MI-0812, MI-0818, MI-0637, ME-0174, MI-0029, MI-0012, MI-0665, MI-0300, MI-0145, MI-0675, MI-0632, MI-0790 and ME-0025. Accessions viz., MI-0310, MI-0812, MI-0013, ME-0174, MI-0665, MI-0012, MI-0024, ME-0109, MI-0669, MI-0029, MI-0790, MI-0615, R- Local and MI-0497 recorded thrips of below economic threshold level. Three germplasm accessions, viz., MI-0145, ME-0025 and MI-0252 showed tolerance to both leaf webber and pink mealy bug and ME-0174 and MI-0790 showed multiple tolerance to leaf webber, pink mealy bug and thrips. Accessions tolerant to insect pests identified in the present study can be utilized in future breeding programme to evolve pest tolerant mulberry varieties.