Introduction

Ridge gourd, known as Sirola in Gujarati, Dodka in Marathi, and Beerakaya in Telugu, is a versatile climbing vine cultivated for its nutritious edible fruit. Rich in dietary fiber, vitamins, and minerals, ridge gourd is valued not only for its culinary uses but also for its health benefits, such as aiding in weight loss, lowering blood sugar levels, and improving digestion.

At Khethari Agri Tech Private Limited, we are dedicated to helping farmers achieve effective pest control to ensure healthy and productive ridge gourd crops. Our comprehensive pest management solutions are designed to protect your plants from common pests, enhancing yield and quality while promoting sustainable agricultural practices.

Common Pest of Ridge Guard

Fruit fly (Batrocera cucurbitae)

Identification: 
Egg-laying puncture marks on the fruit surface, oozing of fruits.

Softening & water-soaked lesions on fruits. At a later stage, fruit gets rotten.

Adult with hyaline wings with coastal band broad and prominent, anal stripes well developed and hind cross veins thickly margined with brown and grey spots at the apex & face with two black.

Thrips (Thrips palmi)

Identification:

Egg is colorless to pale white in color, and bean-shaped in form; turns yellow towards maturation; laid singly inside the plant

The larvae resemble the adults in general body form though they lack wings and are smaller.

Whiteflies (Bemisia tabacii)

Identification:

Eggs are yellowish white and laid singly on the undersurface of leaves.

Nymphs are yellowish and brownish, sub-elliptical and scale.

They are found in large numbers on the underside of leaves.

Pupae also resemble nymphs in shape and have brownish.

Leaf miner (Lyriomyza trifolii)

Identification

This polyphagous pest causes characteristic white twisting lines in ash gourd, Cucurmis sativus and Cucurmis

Severe leaf mining accelerates leaf drop and retards growth and yield of plants.

Integrated Pest Management strategies

Destruction of debris, crop residues, weeds & other alternate.

Deep summer ploughing.

Frequent raking of soil beneath the crop to expose and kill the eggs, grubs & pupa.

Slight raking of soil during fruiting time and after the harvest to expose pupae from the soil.

Use cue-lure traps to attract cucurbitae males.

 

Conclusion

There are many pest in ridge guard like fruit fly, thrips , white fly etc. We can control these pest by using different IPM method like cultural, mechanical, biological, chemical etc.