Symptom of damage

• Heavy clustering of mealy bugs usually seen under surface of leaves as a thick mat with waxy secretion
• Excrete copious amount of honey dew on which the fungus sooty mould grow
• Affected plants appear sick and black, resulting reduced fruiting capacity

Management

• Remove the alternate weeds hosts
• Monitor the incidence regularly and look for crawler emergence
• Take up the management at intial stage to get maximum control
• Wherever necessary use neem based botanical insecticides such as neem oil 2% or NSKE 5% orfish oil rosin soap 25g/litre of water
• Use of Encyrtid parasitoids, Acerophaguspapayae@ 100 per village against Paracoccusmarginatusand Aenasiusbambawaeliagainst Phenococcussolenopsisare recommended
• Use of dimethoate or profenophos  2 ml/lit may be adopted as an alternative