Managing blossom midge in jasmine


Jasmine is an important flower crop grown on a commercial scale. It is often seriously affected by a mosquito like insect called the blossom midge.

Due to its attack, the base of the flower buds get swollen, deformed, discoloured into pink or purple colour and drops prematurely.

Pest biology

About 100 minute eggs are deposited into the open tips of young flower buds by the adult female. Within 24 hours maggots emerge from the eggs and move into the buds.

With their rasping mouth parts as they feed the open flower buds, the larvae inject some toxic substances which induce swelling, malformation and colour change of the blossom.

The colour of the maggot ranges from white in the early sage to pink in the later stage.

Maggots mature in 5 to 7 days inside the buds and flip into air to exit the flower buds and burrow into the soil for pupation by spinning a cocoon......Read More

 

Source: The Hindu


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