Development of integrated pest management in chilli against major diseases and insect pests.

The four year (2000–01 to 2003–04) experimentation in different chilli pest management strategies resulted in development of integrated pest management (IPM) package and practices. The recommendation of IPM module is soil solarization in the month of mid April to May, seed sowing in second fortnight of July with treatment of carbendazim @0.25%, nylon net covering of nursery beds, one spray of streptocycline @150 mg litre−1 on seedlings, root dipping in imidacloprid @0.3 ml L−l for 45 minutes, apical cutting along with little healthy portion of dieback infected twigs, three sprays of abamectine @0.08 ml l−l at 20, 40 and 60 days after transplanting (DAT), one spray of copper oxychloride @0.3 g l−1, initial rouging of virus infected plant, initial two pickings of green fruits to minimize subsequent infection of anthracnose and sort out the anthracnose infected fruits after harvest during drying. The present IPM module is more cost effective and resulted in economic yield with less environmental pollution while providing very effective to manage damping-off, bacterial leaf spot, leafcurl complex, anthracnose, mites, thrips and whitefly. However, the 10–15% deviation from the present IPM module may be required due to unpredictable sudden outbreak of wilt, white rot and soft rot diseases in pepper.