Book on Life table and Management of Lucerne pod borer, H. armigera

Helicoverpa armigera is widely distributed in Asia, Africa, Australia and the Mediterranean Europe. H.armigera is major pests of cotton, pigeonpea, chickpea, sunflower, tomato, maize, sorghum, bajra, lucerne,vegetables and tobacco. Fecundity life table (for female) is useful in determining suitability of hosts and stage in life cycle of the pest, which contributes to the trend of population.This statistics is the innate capacity of increase, which is also called the true intrinsic rate of natural increase(rm). The study also determines the finite rate of increase, which signifies the number of individuals added to the population per head per unit of time.The mean length of generation was 42.25, 44.81 and 45.26 days on lucerne, sorghum and chickpea, respectively. It was lowest on lucerne (42.25), whereas it was highest on chickpea (45.26 days). The intrinsic rate of natural increase in numbers (rm) was 0.1185, 0.1195 and 0.1302 females per female per day on sorghum, lucerne and chickpea, respectively. Considering the values of 'rm' the host can be arranged as chickpea>lucerne>sorghum.