Status of the major insect pests of squash plants at fruiting stage

Abstract

Squash is a common cucurbitaceous vegetable in tropical and sub-tropical regions that is infested by a wide variety of insect pests. Therefore, the experiment was conducted to assess the status of insect pests in three different squash varieties viz., Pahu, Ahung, and SQ10 during the reproductive stage. It was observed that the total number of insect pests in the Pahu variety was significantly higher than Ahung, and SQ10. During the fruiting stage, 10 insects have been identified as harmful, while 6 were recorded as beneficial. The harmful insects were the blue pumpkin beetle, red pumpkin beetle, green long-legged fly, fruit flies, ants, blowfly, butterfly, grasshopper, house fly, and mosquito. The blue pumpkin beetle was significantly higher than all other insect species in all the varieties followed by the green long-lagged fly, the red pumpkin beetle, and fruit flies. Meanwhile, the number of butterflies and blowflies were the lowest of all the varieties. The ladybird beetle, hoverfly, tachinid fly, bumble bee, and honeybee were the most common beneficial insects found in squash fruits. However, a significant difference was observed among the beneficial insects, and the number of ladybird beetles was significantly higher than that of other insects, regardless of the variety. Therefore, the variety Pahu is considered the most susceptible to insect pests compared to Ahung and SQ10.