author(s)
Nilofar Altaf and Sahidur Rahman

abstract
An investigation was carried out in the Experimental Farm, Department of Horticulture, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat during 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 on organic approaches for management of pests of Gerbera. Although conventional pesticides having novel target site of action have been used for many years to counter the problem of insect pests, but the pests have developed resistance against these conventional pesticides in recent years. Plant derived products proved to be eco-friendly, residue free, biodegradable and cost effective and about 2400 plant species are reported to possess pest suppression properties. Therefore, certain plant extracts were used in the present investigation to assess their efficacy against Aphis gossypii (Glover) and Brevipalpus californicus (Banks) infesting gerbera. The treatments were leaf extracts of Datura (Datura stramonium) 5%, Basil (Ocimum basilicum) 5%, Curry (Murraya koenigii) 5%, Wood apple (Aegle marmelos)5%, Patharua bihlangani, (Polygonum hydropiper) 5% and pestoneem @ 3ml/l as check. Out of these six botanicals, P. hydropiper gave the best result showing up to 94.06% and 94.26% reduction in A.gossypii population five days after application in the year 2015 and 2016, respectively. Similarly, in case of B. californicus, P. hydropiper gave the best result showing up to 95.59% and 96.17% reduction after five days of application in the year 2015 and 2016, respectively.