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The shot hole borer (SHB), Xylosandrus compactus (Eichhoff) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae), is an emerging pest of Robusta coffee in India. Traps with attractants are commonly used to capture the ambrosia beetles for purposes of monitoring, studying population dynamics, predicting outbreaks, and mass trapping to reduce damage. The relative attractiveness of several common attractants and the influence of their concentration were evaluated in the field against X. compactus using Broca traps in this study. The tested attractants exhibited clear differences in attractiveness and the preliminary field studies at coffee plantations revealed that absolute ethanol attracted more shot hole borer adults than coffee twig extracts, distillery ethanol, and ethanol methanol combinations. The number of beetles trapped varied in different places during multi-location field trials, but in general, 50% of absolute ethanol-baited traps captured the highest number of beetles in all the locations. This study demonstrates 50% absolute ethanol can be used as an effective attractant for coffee shot hole borer and enables a cost-effective option for the control of X. compactus in coffee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Coffee White Stem Borer (CWSB), Xylotrechus quadripes Chevrolat is a major and most devastating pest of arabica coffee in India. Because of the concealed nature of this pest, the management of this pest is challenging. Timing of management measures plays a critical role in managing this pest under the economic threshold level. One of the important management interventions for this pest is tracing and uprooting the CWSB infested plants before the flight period (April to May & October to December). Due to lack of skilled workers to identify the infested plants, presence of crop load or low price for coffee and lack of moisture to uproot the infested plants makes the planters to skip the tracing before flight period. This allows WSB adults to emerge from the infested plants and spread the infestation to healthy plants. In view of this, the present study was targeted on the CWSB infested plants with an objective to kill the emerging adults using Non- woven fabric material. Main stem and thick primaries of CWSB infested plants were wrapped with non-woven fabric material and sprayed with insecticide. Hundred percent mortality of emerging adults from the infested plants wrapped with 1.3 mm thickness Non-woven fabric material and sprayed with Chlorpyrifos 50EC + Cypermethrin 5EC @ 1.2ml per litre along with 1 ml of wetting agent was observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pesticide usage is one of the important components in integrated pest and disease management (IPDM) programs in coffee. Being a pernneial crop, coffee is subjected to attack by several pest and diseases especially, white stem borer and leaf rust. Both this require the timely management measures to keep them under the economic threshold level. Because of the non availabilty of skilled labourers, timely operations are skipped in majority of the coffee plantations. This favours the build up of pest and diseases. Hence, to reduce the number of estate operations and to bridge the time gap, the compatibility of recommended insecticide chlorpyrifos 20EC, chlorpyrifos 50EC + cypermethrin 5EC along with a fungicide hexaconazole 5EC were evaluated in the laboratory by checking the efficacy against white stem borer and leaf rust which will appear simultaneously in the post monsoon season. Laboratory experiments revealed that the chemical mixures are physically compatible and found no changes in the efficacy against the targetted pest and disease when they sprayed together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies were conducted to develop an artificial diet for rearing the coffee white stem borer, Xylotrechus quadripes Chev., the most destructive pest of arabica coffee in India and Indo-China region. Development of an artificial diet enables the researcher to carry out several studies on the different developmental stages to understand the life cycle. After several failures a semi-synthetic diet, including the stem powder of Arabica coffee was developed which enabled the coffee white stem borer to complete the life cycle in the laboratory. Preparation of the diet is described in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fruit eating bat, Cynopterus sphinx, plays important role in pollination and seed dispersal in many plants. Yet, they are considered as pests on fruit and plantation crops due to their voracious feeding habit. The extensive feeding of bats on tender twigs of robusta coffee leads to drying of fruit bearing branches resulting in crop loss. The present study is an attempt to quantify the crop loss caused by the bats on robusta coffee. The data indicated that the crop damage ranged from 5.9 to 9.48 percent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]