Pantnagar Journal of Research

Abstract

The electrostatic technology used in agriculture has unique approach to protect the crop from various harmful insects, pest and airborne spores with no negative impact on crop, human health and ecosystem. Three manually hand operated low-cost electrostatic insect sweepers were developed and tested for its bio-efficacy to control whiteflies (Bemisia tabaci (Genn.)) and jassid (Amrasca biguttula biguttula (Ishida)) in cotton (Gossypium spp.) crop. The wire mesh of the insect sweepers is made up of aluminium and stainless steel having good electrical conductivity, which is further connected to electrostatic based generator. This generator helps in the formation of a low resistance path, thereby results in arcing through the body of the insects. The wire mesh periphery is shielded with a poly-vinyl chloride (PVC) insulator. As soon an insect come in touch or pass through the screen mesh, a high voltage produces an electrostatic force without discharging of the spark, which further electrocuted insect’s body. Maximum whiteflies reduction of electrostatic insect sweeper is found to be 62.21-% followed by 31.76-% & 20.35-% by in B, C and A respectively after one day of experiment. The highest jassid reduction was found to be 80.42 % for the insect sweeper ‘B’ followed by insect sweeper ‘C’ and ‘A’ which were reduced to be 54.28 and 34.62 %, respectively. Observations reveal that, the percent reduction of whiteflies and jassid by the insect sweeper ‘B’ was observed significantly higher than the insect sweeper ‘A’ and ‘C’. From this, it was found that the electrostatic hand sweeper was quite efficient and can be utilized as a conservation technique to safeguard the crops against the whitefly for sustainable future agriculture.