Indian Society of Genetics & Plant Breeding
THE Jowar Shoot Fly (Atherigona indica M.) is a major pest of the seedling stage of this
crop in India and Africa, where sorghum is cultivated extensively. Infestation and
damage has been reported from Coimbatore, Surat, Poona, Nagpur, Akola, Pusa
and Mysore in India and Bagdad (Rao, 1923), Kenya and Uganda (Rachie, 1960),
and Sudan (Tahir and Hussain, 1960). In India this insect is more destructive in the
south, especially in the stafes of Madras, Andhra and Karnatak (Rao and Rao,
1956), though in Northern India severe infestation has been noted very recently in Delhi
and Rajasthan. The maggots, on hatching from the eggs which are laid singly on
. the leaves, migrate to the lower surface of the leaf, enter the leaf sheath and finally
reach the central shoot, which is damaged and withers off resulting in "dead heart".
The growth of the main shoot is entirely checked and this results in tiIIering from the
base. These tillers are again attacked by the maggots. In case of severe infestation,
the plants get killed. The varietal resistance in the various strains of Sorghum vulgare
Pers., and the correlations between the intensity of infestation and various plant
characters like height, leaf number etc., were studied under natural conditions of insect
infestation and are reported in this paper.
Year: 1962
Volume: 22
Issue: 3
Article DOI: NA
Print ISSN: 0019-5200
Online ISSN: 0975-6906
K. K. JAIN and M. P. BHATNAGAR info_circle
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