The IPM package given below will take care of fruit borer, leaf miner, mite and insect vector.
Nursery:
- Raise Marigold (Tall African variety golden age bearing yellow and orange flowers) nursery 15-20 days before tomato nursery
- One week after germination of seeds, spray the seedlings with (imidacloprid 200 SL @ 0.3 ml/l or thiomethoxam 25 WP @ 0.3 g/l)
Before transplanting:
- Apply Neem cake 250 kg/ha ridges at the time of preparing land
- Dip the roots of seedlings (do not dip the foliage as it may cause burning of leaves) with imidacloprid 200 SL @ 0.3 ml/l or thiomethoxam 25 WP @ 0.3 g/l for 5 minutes.
Main field:
- Transplant 20-25 day old tomato and 45-50 day old marigold simultaneously in a pattern of one row of marigold for every 16 rows of tomato. However, the first and last row of the plots should be of marigold. Simultaneous flowering of both the crops ensures attraction of fruit borers to marigold flowers.
- Fifteen days after planting spray imidacloprid 200 SL @ 0.4ml/l or thiomethoxam 25 WP @ 0.3g/l for leaf curl vector (whitefly) control
- Apply neem cake @ 250 kg/ha to ridges at 20-25 DAP (at flowering) to reduce nematode, fruit borer and leaf miner incidence
- Spray Ha NPV (@250 LE/ha) with 1% jaggery as sunscreen at 28, 35 and 42 DAP in the evening.
- Spray marigold flowers with HaNPV or destroy fruit borer larvae in them.
- As an alternative to HaNPV spray, the egg parasitoids, Trichogramma chilonis, T. braziliensis and T. pretiosum @ 2.5 lakhs/ha can be released (five releases @ 50,000/ha/release). The first release has to be done at the flower initiation of the crop.
- If red spider mite incidence is noticed, spray Neem soap 1 % or neem oil 1% or any synthetic acaricide like dicofol 18.5 EC (1.5 ml/l), or Ethion 50 EC ( 1.5 ml/l) or sulphur 80 WP (3 g/l) etc. Spray lower surface of the leaves.
- Mechanical collection and destruction of bored fruits at periodic interval (3-4 times after fruit set) to minimize fruit borer incidence to the minimum.
- Destroy leaf curl and other virus affected plants as soon as the symptoms appear in a few plants to minimize their spread.