Management of peanut insect pests

The peanut crop is attacked by several insect pests. These pests started colonizing the crop at 3-4 WAP. Leafhoppers are the most abundant and can be considered the most serious pest of peanut. Other species include aphids, thrips and defoliators such as cutworm, earworm, semilooper, leaffolders and tussock moths. The predators include coccinellid beetles, staphylinid beetles, nabid bugs, mymarids spiders while the parasitoids include braconids and chalcids. These insects remained in the field throughout the growth stages of the crop and could play an important role in suppressing pest populations so that the working ETLs were not reached. Among the Philippine Seedboard varieties planted at UPLB, UPLPn8 and Pn10 had the least yellowing while UPLPn6 and Pn8 had the lowest percent defoliation. The highest yielders were UPLPn6 and Pn8. Peanut can be intercropped with banana, especially when the banana plants are still young as was the case in Quirino. IPB recommended varieties like Pn2, 4, 6, 8 performed better than BPIP9 as far as insect damage is concerned but BPIP9 is still the higher yielder (990 kg/ha) followed by Pn2 (980 kg/ha). Both varieties are well accepted by farmers and have been grown for quite sometime in this region. Fertilizer influences degree of insect damage on the crop. Plants with complete fertilizer regimen appears to be more attractive to the pests. Insecticides are effective control measure against peanut pests. The half recommended rates of several insecticides are as effective as recommended rates. Weed management is an important component in peanut production. Weeded plots in Indang, Cavite [Philippines] showed only 13-19 percent yellowing for the different PSB varieties while unweeded plots had 7-11 percent. Unweeded plots are also susceptible to thrips. Damage was high and ranged from 26-43 percent, with BPIP9 as the most resistant. The probational IPM package was evaluated in Quirino Subprovince in 1990-92. In Quirino, the working ETLs were not reached, no insecticide application was made on the IPM plots. The highest yield was obtained from Trichogramma chilonis released areas and the lowest yield from farmer's plot