EFFECTS OF SOME MORPHOLOGICAL LEAF CHARACTERS OF SOME VEGETABLES WITH INCIDENCE OF PREDATORY MITES OF THE GENUS AGISTEMUS (STIGMAEIDAE: ACARINA)

Vegetables, being a major source of micronutrients, form the largest group of plants consumed by man. Summer vegetables are the most liked seasonal vegetables in Pakistan. The cultivation of vegetables on 224.6 thousand ha yielded 2880.3 thousand tones, which is considered low. The attack of insect and mite pests is the most important factor, amongst the others, which causes significant loss to the yield. Mites due to phytophagous nature are endorsed with tremendous distribution potential. Bio-control agents are increasingly used in controlling different insect and mite pests because of pest resistance to chemicals and pesticide hazards to consumers especially in vegetables. Predatory mites of genus Agistemus play pivotal role in controlling phytophagous mites and small soft bodied insects. Morphological plant characters influence the ability of predatory mites to suppress the population of different crop pests. Therefore, the present study was conducted to determine the role of morphological plant characters viz., leaf area, leaf hair density, thickness of leaf lamina and hair length of different vegetables such as tomato, okra, bitter gourd and brinjal against the incidence of predatory mites of the genus Agistemus in four different localities of Punjab. The maximum population of the mite was observed on tomato (4.01 mites per leaf), which was followed by brinjal (3.6 mites per leaf), bitter gourd (2.40 mites per leaf) and okra (1.1 mites per leaf). Leaf area, leaf hairiness, thickness of leaf lamina and hair length had shown negative correlation with Agistemus population. However, other leaf characters may also be responsible in mite population fluctuation but all the factors worked in compliment and hence affect the relative abundance of the mite