IPM in Onion:A Success Story

Growing bulb onion over the years have direct impact on socio-economic status of farmers of village Wadgaon Sahani of Pune district of Maharashtra. The round the year cultivation of onion in this village resulted into complex of insect pest problem. Pest like onion thrips and diseases such as stemphylium and purple blotch are the major issues of economic concern in onion productivity and causing significant yield losses. Under severe infestation and occurrence of pest and disease, the bulb yield can be reduced upto 50 per cent production. Over use and calendar based application of chemical insecticides were the key tactic adopted to manage various pest and diseases in this village. Round the year production, improved agronomic practices, imbalance fertilizer application and lack of crop rotation practices have aggravated pests and disease problem in onion. In such situation adoption of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategies become critical to sustain the productivity in an eco-friendly way. Available crop protection technologies for onion was integrated and a comprehensive IPM package was formulated. In the designed package much importance was given for pest monitoring integrated with cultural manipulation, use of bio-agents, natural enemies conservation and ETL based control action for sustainable production of onion was promoted and validated over 10 acres under farmers field condition at Wadgaon Sahani village, a main onion growing belt of Pune district of Maharashtra state.