Kedipananda Lawati^1*, Bikash Bhusal² and Surendra Lal Shrestha^2
1Himalayan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Kathmandu, Nepal
²National Horticulture Research Center/NARC, Lalitpur, Nepal
*Corresponding author's email: prayashl721@gmail.com

Abstract

Aphids are soft-bodied invasive insect pest which cause damage by direct feeding on plants and indirect by vectoring plant pathogenic viruses. They are distributed throughout the world having difference in range of host plants between species and also secrete honey dew which invites the ants and sooty moulds on the plants. Different conventional insecticides were used for its management but, aphid develops its resistant very rapidly. Apart from chemical methods, there are natural enemies too; which predate aphids, like lady bird beetle (Coccinella septempunctata). Coccinella septempunctata predate on many species of aphid but very few research were conducted for its first choice for predate. Thus, in this study we evaluate different aphid species cabbage aphid (Brevicoryne brassicae), black bean aphid (Aphis fabae) and green peach aphid (Myzus persicae) with no choice test. 24 hour starved C. septempunctata were used, which was replicated 31 times. Their predations were recorded on 2 hour, 4 hour and 6 hour of experiment. Higher numbers of M. persicae were consumed than B. brassicae and A. fabae. It shows that C. septempunctata prefer M. persicae most than B. brassicae and A. fabae. Coccinella septempunctata could be used for the management of green peach aphid.