A SURVEY ON THE DIVERSITY OF MITES INHABITING THE ORNAMENTAL AND FRUIT PLANTS IN SOUTH BENGAL, INDIA.

Phytophagous in quality ornamental and floricultural well as fruit plants and thus causing substantial economic to the and growers. Besides these, there are also some predatory mites which contribute actively in the biological pest control. Though some stray works have been done on ornamental and fruit plant mites, a consolidated record is so far unavailable. So the present study was undertaken to prepare a consolidated list of ornamental and fruit plant mites, their host, nature of damage, etc. The present study reports mites occurring on floricultural and fruit trees in 9 districts of South Bengal and the study period was 2009-2013. Among these mites, 6 species were found as major pests and those were Tetranychus urticae on rose, marigold and tuberose, Oligonychus biharensis on temple tree, Brevipalpus karachiensis on chrysanthemum, Brevipalpus phoenicis on temple tree, Polyphagotarsonemus latus on marigold, and Aceria jasminii on jasmine. 6 species appeared to be major predatory mites which could be used effectively in biological control of pests and those were Amblyseius largoensis , Amblyseius herbicolus , Paraphytoseius multidentatus etc. Among the fruit tree mites, mention may be made of Eutetranychus orientalis , Oligonychus mangiferus , Panonychus citri, Raoiella indica, Dolichotetranychus floridanus , Aceria mangiferae, , etc. as major phytophagous mites and Neoseiulus longispinosus , Euseius coccineae , Euseius ovalis , Cunaxa setirostris, , etc. as major predatory mites.


ISSN: 2320-5407
Int. J. Adv. R es. 6(8), 125-128 126 pesticides which not only eliminates natural enemies fro m the crop field, but also lead to develop resistance along with inviting problems like resurgence and residual effects.
The phytophagous mites which attack the floricultural and horticultural crops are kno wn to inflict damage causing loss to the extent of 5-70% and in some cases, the loss may be far reaching leading to total crop failure. So me of the reported losses in various fruit trees are 50-80% in mango due to Aceria mangiferae, 30% in litchi due to Aceria litchii, 22-25% in ber due to Eriophyes cernuus, 5-60% in jas mine due to Aceria jasmini, 53% on roses by Tetranychus urticae, etc. (Gupta, 2012).
The export potentiality of horticultural crops is very high and exported Rs. 8760.96 crores worth of fru its to the countries like UAE, Bangladesh, Malaysia, UK, Netherlands, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Nepal. India shares about 12% o f the global market as per the record of 2010-2011 but with the initiatives of APDEA, the curve is gradually on the rise.
Because of this tremendous importance the floricultural and horticultural crops have received global attention and diverse types of works pertaining to survey, bio-ecology, and control have been done in different parts of the world including India and some of those have been reviewed by Bindra and Singh (1970), Gupta (1985Gupta ( , 2012, etc.

Objectives:-
Though, some works have been done on fruit trees and ornamental plants from West Bengal, (Karmakar et.al. 2010, Chatterjee &Gupta 1995) but so far no co mprehensive account has been published including diversity of this mite along. In view of this paucity of knowledge, it was thought desirable to take up a comprehensive study on mites occurring on ornamental and fruit t rees in West Bengal.

Method of collection:
In Majority of the cases, collection was done mostly by examining the leaves and other plant parts directly in the field and mites were picked up with the help of a fine brush moistened with ethyl alcohol and kept into vials (4cm x 1cm) containing 70% alcohol. Wherever possible, infested leaves were also brought to the laboratory and then examining the leaves under stereo binocular microscope for collection of mites. Apart fro m leaves, the infested twigs, galls, malformed plant parts were also brought to the laboratory for examination under microscope and collection of mites. This facilitated the collection of tiny mites like Ten uipalp idae, Tydeidae, Tarsonemidae, Eryophidae etc. which are otherwise difficult to locate with hand lens in the field.

Preservation and Mounting :
For this, 70% alcohol with few drops of glycerol was used and mounted in Hoyer's mediu m.

Examination of s pecimens:
This was done under Oly mpus Research Microscope Wherever needed, the illustrations were prepared with inbuilt drawing tube.

Result and discussion:-
The present study deals with the diversity of mites of flo ricu ltural and fruit p lants covering 9 d istricts of South Bengal. The overall objective of this study was to identify the most serious pests of horticultural crops, and to study the extent of damage. This study has reported the important predatory mites which can be used as effective biocontrol agents (Karmakaret al., 2016, Chakraborty 2010).