Aftermath of green revolution on pest ststus of insects attacking sorghum

The introduction of high yielding hybrids and varieties in late sixties led to accentuation of insect pest problems in sorghum. The varieties and hybrids developed during green revolution era are better in quality parameters than traditional locals but are highly susceptible to insect pests. The key pest shootfly, Atherigona soccata Rondani, did not pose any problem before sixties as the tolerance of the local cultivars was able to contain this pest. The other problems emerging from wide spread use of hybrids and varieties was accentuation of earhead pests. The classical example is that of midge, Contarinia sorghicola (Coquillet) incidence in Maharashtra State. Continued flowering from early maturing hybrids to late locals in the same area enabled rapid multiplication of midge which could be controlled by en bloc coverage of Maharashtra State by varieties which flowered about the same time. The earhead bug, Calocoris angustatus Lethiery; gram pod borer, Heliothis armigera Hubner are other pests which became serious on sorghum after sixties. Recently, the grey weevil, Myllocerus spp. and sugarcane leaf hopper, Pyrilla perpusilla Walker have assumed pest status on sorghum. The grey weevil attacks the crop both at early and late stages of development. Heavy incidence of Pyrilla was recorded on grain anrd fodder sorghums in the entire northern belt of the country. A perfect hopper burn was observed on some sorghum varieties at the farm of Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, during 1990 and 1991. Need for development of new cultivars endowed with insect resistance is inevitable.