author(s)
Tarak Brambha Maji, Soumya Sarathi Kundu, Subrata Chatterjee, Dhiren Chettri, Moumita Chakraborty and Ajoy Kumar Mukhopadhyay

abstract
Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is one of the most economically important vegetables in India among the small-scale farmers of India. Whitefly is the most vital sucking pest of tomato that causes severe damage throughout the crop season. Whiteflies secret a sticky substance known as honeydew, that causes sooty mould on plant. Minimum numbers of whiteflies are not generally harmful and adults will not cause significant damage indirectly they are transmitting plant viruses. The whitefly population went up to the highest extent of 3.24/ three leaves (Av. 0.76/ three leaves) on winter- spring crop during crop season 2013-14. During 2014-15 also, the winter-spring crop only harboured the maximum whitefly population, 8.00/three leaves (av.1.58/three leaves). Peak whitefly populations during the two crop growing seasons were recorded to occur within the 3rd to 10^th standard week when weekly minimum and maximum temperature, minimum and maximum relative humidity, minimum and maximum sunshine hour per day and minimum and maximum total rainfall range were 7.61- 32.07 °C, 43.43- 94.86%, 3.20-10.17 hour/day and 9.00- 28.5 mm respectively over the two experimental years. Population of whitefly revealed that maximum temperature and average temperature had negative significant correlation (r=-0.569* and r=-0.557*) but minimum relative humidity and average relative humidity(r=0.625* and r=0.601*) showed positive significant correlation for winter-spring crop. There was no significant correlation found with other weather parameters during 2014-15 crop seasons.