author(s)
BM Meena,¬ R Swaminathan, AK Meena and A Kumar

abstract
An investigation on “Influence of farmscaping on the diversity of major insect pests of cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.] and the associated natural enemies” was carried out at the instructional farm, Rajasthan College of Agriculture, MPUAT, Udaipur, during the kharif seasons from 2012 and 2013. The experiment was conducted in two sets, one comprising treatment with plant oils against insect pests, termed protected condition, and the other without the use of any plant oil, termed natural condition. During both the years, under unprotected and protected conditions, the mean pest numbers per plant were significantly the minimum when cowpea was farmscaped with marigold (cowpea + marigold); whereas, mean pests numbers per plant were significantly the maximum under sole cowpea. In case of pod damage, under both untreated and plant oil treated conditions significantly maximum mean number of damage pod was recorded in sole cowpea while significantly minimum pod damage was recorded in cowpea + marigold farmscape treatment. Among the natural enemies, the mean coccinellid numbers per plant were significantly the maximum when cowpea was farmscaped with niger (cowpea + niger); whereas, it was significantly the minimum in sole cowpea. The mean numbers of syrphid fly, wasps, spiders and carabids as numbers per plant were significantly the highest when cowpea was farmscaped with marigold (cowpea + marigold); whereas, they were the minimum in sole cowpea.